With the end of the year inching closer, most retailers will be looking to sell their stocked-up inventory. Too much inventory means many things to them. It indicates poor planning, poor investment in stocks that might either get old, out of trend or expire. But, the most important effect the surplus inventory has is, that it blocks the capital and locks the cash flow of the company. The retailers with brick and mortar stores have various sales or new year offers but they have limited reach due to their physical stores catering only to the customers in nearby areas.
Online selling sites are platforms that help retailers have a greater outreach and distribution network of their products. These sites help retailers clear their surplus inventories. E-commerce websites commonly use discounts or put their products up for sale. But, with too many sales and offers at the same time, our customers like you and me going to be attracted to all of them? Not really! Some websites put up frequent sales in a very short span to try and lure the customer. But, this way the customers find less credibility in the website and the products being sold as well. So, what do you think must be done to clear surplus inventory during the new year promotions? When in doubt, Innovate!
1. Creating an anticipation or a yearly phenomenon
This has been and continues to be a tested method, and also very successful across e-commerce websites of different industries. Sales like the Amazon’s Great Indian Sale and Flipkart’s Big Billion Sale are proof of the same. With these yearly sales, following the trend of the ‘Black Friday sale’ or ‘Cyber Monday Sale’ in the USA, people now mark their calendars and plan their big purchases during these sales. So, putting up a regular sale often does not call for any action as without a definite CTA(Call-to-action), the customers are often uninterested or do not find the urgency to visit the website. But, contrary to this, creating an anticipation of the sale makes the customers plan their purchases and compels them to visit the website at least once, if not more, to check up prices of things they want or have been wanting to buy. A few e-commerce websites also have limited time offers and discounts for specific segments at different times or on different days. This way the customer knows and has a chance to plan his/her purchase. Discounts offered at these times are often very profitable as the customers tend to buy products when there is an urgency.
Flash sales have also been successful for many e-commerce websites in the past and the limited time stamp next to the products is very compelling to the customers.
2. Using a Gaming theme
Customers are often intrigued by something new or mysterious. Including a ‘find the treasure’, a ’spin the fortune wheel’ or a ‘Pull the lever on the slot machine’ on the e-commerce website is a good way to attract the customer. Adding freebies, gift coupons, discount coupons on buying merchandise with a certain fixed amount will make sure the customer has enough time to browse through the entire website and make a purchase or two.
3. Aesthetic upgradation
Yes! Giving the customers something different to look at can be a good strategy to invite them to see the products up for sale. This can be done by either changing the layout of your website or app or taking the current theme a notch high by hiding some goodies. A recent promotion by the Vodafone app during the football world cup included hiding some goodies on different pages of their app. This way the customer would have to surf the entire app. Using the same strategy, an e-commerce retailer can get the customers to go through different app pages leading to them viewing a wide range of products, and probably buying a few. Adding a Christmas-y new year offer is a great idea.
4. Offering Bundled Products
Bundling is often done to clear up stocks and piled-up inventory. By offering discounts on bundled products, the per item cost reduces for the retailer, the customers are thrilled about the discounts they get and feel they are buying multiple products at the cost of one. The bundling can be done strategically by pairing either complimentary or similar products together to make the customer see value in what they are buying.
5. Allowing the customer to bundle products
Giving the conventional bundling a twist– allow your customers to bundle their own products on your e-commerce website. The retailer can allow bundling of products from the same segment or a few fixed segments. One can also add a freebie if the cart value exceeds a certain amount. This way the customer feels he/she is getting much more of their choice and will be instantly attracted to the website.
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Conclusion
These innovative strategies to clear surplus inventory are time-tested and have often proved to be very profitable to the company in terms of returns and clearance of stocked-up products. Customers are often looking for fresh beginnings for the upcoming year and including this feeling and emotion in the above strategies by providing a new year offer or the like always turns out to be very successful. Offering freebies along with any discounts almost always pull customers to your e-commerce platform because –who doesn’t like free stuff, right?
StoreHippo offers all these features to make it easy for etailers to use all these techniques to clear their surplus inventory. Using the inbuilt tools online merchants can apply a variety of techniques on their e-commerce websites which not only helps them clearing the dead stock but also keeps their customers happy.
Need more details on these features? Book a Demo and StoreHippo experts will get back to you.
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