Diwali, the season of lights, is one of the important festivals during which consumers increase their spending limit and retailers expand their inventory size. All major retail business sectors witness a surge in demand. As the festive season approaches, there is an especially huge spike in consumer demand for apparel, grocery, fashion jewelry, gifts, and electronics.
Retailers need to be prepared to meet consumer demand and satisfy their needs to ensure increase in sales, build trust, and boost loyalty. This article creates a practical checklist you can follow to ensure you maintain sufficient stock, satisfy customer demand, and provide enhanced shopping experiences.
How to prepare your retail store for Diwali sales
- Revisit previous year sales and inventory reports to get an overview of Diwali season sales.
- Review the inventory across locations, refill the racks regularly, and place fast moving items within easy reach.
- Forecast demand, raise purchase orders to suppliers, and procure goods in advance.
- Do category-wise stock audits across locations and update inventory in the system to ensure 100% stock reliability.
- Use special festive themes and colors for Diwali season on your website and apps. Update banners and pop-ups about festival offers prominently.
- Ensure your website and mobile apps are optimized for heavy traffic ensuring the SKU details and images load immediately without delay.
- Sync inventory to your ecommerce website and mobile apps in real time to ensure seamless online ordering.
- Bundle items as combos and kits strategically and implement features that suggest items or combos based on the user journey.
- Offer special discounts based on bill value, item category, specific time-based offers, buy-one-get-one deals, and more to attract customers to your store.
- Adorn your store with colorful lights, lanterns, diyas, and festive decorations.
- Ensure your staff are trained to handle peak sales, clarify product inquiries, do cross selling, and provide warm customer service.
- Implement effective strategies like installing additional billing counters, having separate counters for returns, and supporting multiple payment options to reduce queue.
- Print attractive packaging bags and gift wrappings with Diwali wishes to provide a memorable shopping experience.
- Provide realistic delivery dates for home deliveries with some buffer considering store busyness, staff workload, and consolidated deliveries.
- Pack the goods safely with required cushion so they are not damaged during logistics. Mention caution for fragile materials outside the box.
- Track the movement of orders in real time with integrated home delivery management with the ERP software.
- Tie up with multiple logistic partners to ensure reliable on-time delivery of goods.
- Run exclusive Diwali offers, customized promotions, and targeted campaigns to customers via WhatsApp, SMS, and email inviting them to shop with you.
- Communicate billing, return, refund, and exchange policies for in-store and online orders clearly in all the communications.
- Increase support team strength and enhance customer service with phone, WhatsApp, and live chat support to handle increased inquiries.
- Run polls, contests, and lucky draws to encourage customers shop with you.
- Send automated thank-you messages to customers with Diwali wishes and order details after shopping.
- Gather feedback from customers to understand their satisfaction and improve further.
- Run post Diwali offers and clearance sales to move out the unsold stock.
- Analyze reports to know the sales volume, best selling items, highly adopted payment types and the like, and prepare for next year accordingly.
How Gofrugal helps store owners for efficient Diwali planning
Gofrugal's ERP lets retailers handle Diwali festive sales seamlessly with a wide range of features. Here are a few features that will help retailers to handle the Diwali rush efficiently.
Super-fast billing: Ensure uninterrupted billing during the busy Diwali season and provide seamless checkouts with flexible payment choices.
Efficient procurement: Automate reordering to one-click, handle goods inward efficiently, manage returns, and ensure quick three-way reconciliation.
Complete inventory management: Record opening stock, audit items daily, refill racks on time, track damaged and expired stock, and gain complete inventory control.
Go omnichannel: Enable customers to shop from their home with your own online ordering app and deliver orders at their doorstep with home delivery management.
Offers and CRM: Run customized Diwali offers, send customized promotions via WhatsApp and SMS, and reward loyal customers with integrated CRM.
The key to a successful Diwali season in retail business lies in meticulous planning and preparation to handle peak sales. A clear Diwali preparation checklist helps retailers plan operations, stay organized, and avoid chaos. With Gofrugal ERP, store owners can plan purchases better, bill faster, and manage inventory smoothly, turning the festive season into a season of raising profits and business growth.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
How can retailers prepare their ecommerce stores for Diwali sales?
Here are some of the ideas in which retailers can prepare their ecommerce stores for Diwali sales.
- Website and app enhancement: Optimize the loading time of your ecommerce website and app for peak traffic. Add Diwali festive themes and colors in banners and UI.
- Incorporate SEO keywords: Optimize SEO with keywords such as "Diwali offers," "Diwali sales," "Diwali gifts," "Diwali shopping," and the like to rank at the top in search results.
- Launch marketing promotions: Increase visibility with social posts, paid marketing, personalized campaigns via WhatsApp or SMS, and targeted promotions on special Diwali offers.
- Real-time inventory sync: Ensure inventory is synced in real time to your ecommerce website and mobile apps for 100% accurate stock visibility.
- Last mile logistics: Plan for your own home delivery management or partner with reliable couriers to deliver online orders on time at the customer's doorstep.
What promotions work best for retail Diwali sales?
The following promotions work best for retail Diwali sales.
- Combos and kits: Increase sales of multiple items and ensure stock selling faster. For example, "Diwali sweets + dry fruits," "Ethnic wear + accessories."
- Buy more save more: Help increase the bill value of customers. For example, buy-one-get-one, buy-2-get-one, Rs.500 off on purchase above Rs.3000.
- Flash sales and limited time deals:Time bound offers increase competitiveness and rush sales. For example, 50% off from 8 PM to 12 PM.
- Free festive add-ons: Increased brand credibility and trust. For example, "Free gift-wrapping," "2 free diyas," "free shipping," and the like.
- Gift cards and vouchers: Influences customers' shopping decisions and increases sales. For example, a free voucher worth Rs.200 on purchases above Rs.2000.
- Loyalty membership offers: Help build customer relationships, build loyalty, and increase repeat value. For example, one day prior early access, additional offers for loyal customers, and similar offers.
- Corporate offers and bulk discounts: Help secure bulk orders and increase B2B sales. For example, a 20% discount for companies procuring more than 100 units.
How can retailers manage logistics during the Diwali shopping rush?
During the busy Diwali season, logistics plays a crucial role in ensuring on-time delivery and increased customer happiness. Below are some of the ideas that can help retailers manage logistics during the Diwali shopping rush.
- Pre-pack popular items: Pack popular best selling items and keep them ready so you can just pick the stock as per the order and deliver them to customers immediately.
- Increase logistics partners: Tie up with multiple logistics service providers and assign orders based on least possible delivery time to ensure timely delivery.
- Offer flexible delivery options: Provide multiple options for customers like self carry, standard delivery, express delivery, and buy-online-pick-up in-store to reduce delivery pressure.
- Provide transparent policies: Communicate delivery and return policies clearly to set proper expectations, increase transparency, and reduce chaos.
- Implement technology: Track delivery in real time, monitor delivery routes, and verify deliveries with complete integrated home delivery management.
Why is POS/ERP integration important for Diwali sales?
During Diwali, retailers face a massive surge in customer footfall, online orders, delivery processing, and payment transactions. POS/ERP integration during Diwali helps handle large volume of transactions easily and manage all operations efficiently.
- Faster billing:Accelerate the billing process and reduce queues at counters by implementing POS software integrated with hardware and payment terminals.
- Inventory management: Ensure real-time accurate inventory sync across channels, refill stock at the right time, and ensure customers don't leave your store empty handed.
- Accurate forecasting: Forecast sales based on past sales history and plan your purchases from the right supplier to ensure optimized purchases and better supplier fill rates.
- Comprehensive offers and CRM: Know customer age, analyze purchase patterns, curate personalized offers, and send customized promotions to increase customer walk-ins.
- Smart graphical reports: Analyze all business transactions in real time from anywhere with smart reports and make informed decisions to handle the Diwali rush.
How can retailers retain ecommerce customers after Diwali?
Here are some effective ways retailers can retain ecommerce customers after Diwali and turn festive shoppers into long-term loyal buyers.
- Personalized follow-up: Send a thank-you message with festive greetings and subtly inform them how to shop from you again with relevant CTAs.
- Loyalty programs: Provide loyalty points to customers, invite them to join membership or loyalty programs, and increase repeat purchase value.
- Customer feedback: Collect feedback from customers to get their feedback, identify where you can improve, and implement strategies to retain customers.
- Consistent engagement: Engage with customers regularly by informing them about offers and discounts, posting actively on social media, and sending greetings on special occasions.
- Returns and exchanges: Ensure hassle-free returns and exchanges and resolve complaints faster to build trust and increase brand loyalty.
