Preparing for the Christmas Rush

 

The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer, meaning Christmas is quickly approaching! Christmas is the busiest time of year for most businesses in the UK (and many other parts of the world), resulting in more sales and revenue, but if you haven’t been properly preparing for the christmas rush, more stress as well. According to the bank of England, the average UK household spends over £500 more than an average month in the Christmas period (on a variety of items such as food, drink, clothing, books electronic items etc), and if more products are being sold, more packaging is being used.

Look Back at Previous Years

If your business has been around for at least one Christmas period previously, you have a valuable set of data to get an idea of your requirements for the season. Have a look at the figures for the previous year around the Christmas period and start to identify how many orders you were receiving and sales you were making. Also, have a look at how your supply situation was, were you regularly running out of the packaging and other supplies or did everything run smoothly? By looking at the previous year you should be able to get a good idea of how much packaging and supplies you will need this year. This can further be broken down into the types of products that sold the most and therefore which specific packaging supplies you will need the most of.

Checking Last Years Sales On A Laptop

Increase Your Promotions

As the Christmas period is such a key time of year for businesses’ sales, it’s important to make the most of it by engaging potential shoppers and making yourself stand out from your competition. Try using a combination of things such as personalised products, festive packaging inserts, gift wrapping services and increased advertising for example. Make sure you are active on social media to promote products, services, engage with your customers and to stay relevant to your customer base.

Order Your Custom Printed Packaging in Time

With the festive period coming up it’s more common for businesses to use packaging that reflects that to get their products into the Christmas spirit. It’s important to keep in mind that these will have to be made to order so it’s important to ensure that you leave enough time to have it all manufactured and delivered to you before you can start using it. Here at Davpack, our custom printed boxes can be with you in 7-10 working days from receiving the artwork so make sure that you also factor in the last posting dates before Christmas to ensure that it will actually get to your customers before the 25th December.

Custom Printed Packaging

Bulk Buying Vs on Demand Stock

Many businesses choose to start buying their supplies in bulk in advance and store them so that they have large reserves on hand to deal with any increases in demand (this also offers the chance to make savings when purchasing). Unfortunately for many smaller businesses though this isn’t an option due to storage space or cash flow, which means it’s important to find a supplier that can regularly deliver on a short notice or next working day. Here at Davpack, we’re able to deliver all our in-stock items by the next working day when your order is placed before 2:30 pm, and with one of the UK’s biggest in-stock range of cardboard boxes, we have a wide variety of products that can we can get to you quickly and efficiently.

Make Your Warehouse More Efficient

As your warehouse will be even busier at this time of year it’s even more important to keep your warehouse tidy, organised and efficient. Making sure that your packing benches are fully topped up with all the materials that they require will help to increase your team’s efficiency, avoiding any disruptions caused by running out of packing materials and therefore avoids any delays in getting your parcels dispatched. Making use of flexible packaging such as adjustable boxes can help you to avoid some supply issues as one size of packaging can fit many types of products rather than having to purchase a limited amount of specific sizes for each type of product. For more information on how to increase your warehouse efficiency check out our other blog with 6 Tips To Increase Warehouse Efficiency.

 

The more preparation you do for your business the better. With some of these tips, we hope you have an easier time preparing for the Christmas rush and can focus on providing great service to your customers and making the most of the period for your business. Always remember that if something doesn’t go quite right you can always learn from it and try to improve on it next year.

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Rebecca Price

Rebecca is a marketing specialist here at Davpack. Her speciality is making companies visible online. Fan of shopping and beautiful shoes. Davpack

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