How you should have prepared your print-on-demand business for a holiday season

Print-on-demand is particularly popular during the holiday season. Mother's Day, St. Patrick's Day, New Year, V-day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, St. Valentines', and many more allow top print-on-demand companies to earn more. This increased production and shipping should encourage e-commerce holiday planning and early promotional campaigns to maximize your site’s traffic. Additionally, calendar planning might be an undertaking during this time. The following article aims at giving some tips for store prep in the period of winter holidays.

Table of contents

Holiday-themed products

Prepare marketing plan in advance

Be prepared to the bad outcomes

Conclusion

Holiday-themed products

First of all, decide which holidays are the most profitable and vital. Research which ones are most celebrated in your area. Search for online materials to see which holidays are most liked by your target customers. Directly ask your regular purchasers which memorabilia they would like in the first place. This will allow you to produce printed items with the highest demand. Customer feedback can give you some insight into what things they might want you to introduce before the nearest holiday, too. There, endless opportunities shine.

Consider unique items that your competitors seldom print on. Yoga leggings, shower curtains, and pendants are some of the least often printed suggestions. This can intensify customer demand while another regular T-shirt might not be what your client desires. Therefore, popular print and unusual item can be better than just a popular pattern. Consider creating holiday sets and bundled products with them.

 Prepare marketing plan in advance

Holiday-themed products should become available early. Create flash sales with holiday-themed products to attract customer’s attention. Considerate discounts or last-minute deals will encourage your customers to order more as the holiday approaches. Introduce the most attractive sales ideas that can work for a fixed period. Be sure, customers love special deals and will undoubtedly appreciate your desire to help.  

Consider creating a promotional calendar that will list all dates and times of your email deployment. Google Calendar App allows you to include important dates and mark important holiday milestones e-commerce strategy. Maximize your advertisements on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Use retargeting to show holiday-themed items to the social platform’s users that checked your site before. This powerful market tool enables you to keep-in-touch not only with your prior clients but invites many new ones. The prior customers will definitely benefit from affordable deals for their loved ones.

Moreover, if their experience with you was successful, they would recommend you to their relatives and friends. Top POD companies create flexible discount and sales programs to promote holiday designs. During holidays, the customers may have enough finance to order more but can still exhibit the behavior of cost-saving. Therefore, attractive prices and promotion bundles should give you an extra advantage for a production boost.

Have your plan B for out-of-stock products. Keep your rarely ordered designs ready for unexpected orders and store printing materials beforehand. Update your items list through the newsletter, popping windows, and banners to make sure your customers know about every single novelty. If your holiday-themed products cannot be created anew, make sure they do not get into the orders by accident. Check some of the risky dates to produce printed items before the holidays. Introduce pre-order functionality. Otherwise, you will spend much time on refunds and returns and will have a risk of reduced profitability.

Beware of the late deliveries. December 1-16 is the most intense time for printing production. You may encourage your customers to order earlier than usual to fit with deadlines. This can help to avoid regular delays during the holiday season in e-commerce. Additionally, large items are equally problematic during this time. Parcels with over ten things would definitely face post delays. It is much better to start earlier than to leave someone without a present under the Christmas tree.

Redesign your site to spread the holiday mood. Your visitors will appreciate jolly colors or a thematic view of your print-on-demand holiday season. Equally, they will feel more urge to order from you. Check best print-on-demand WooCommerce blogs to check their holiday print-on-demand strategy to contact their clients. This is another efficient way of notifying your clients about the holiday season.

Be prepared to bad outcomes

Not everything will go smoothly. You should provide 24/7 customer support before the holidays. Check the best print-on-demand Shopify material to learn how to save your money and increase your sales during this time. Consider some of the following points in this hot period:

• Have additional payment options. If you have only PayPal or Direct MasterCard payment, find some more opportunities to receive money such as Visa. As the holiday season creates much Internet traffic, some payment platforms might struggle to work properly. This insecurity allows being prepared for unexpected and last-minute orders.
• Check your return and exchange dates. If some clients are dissatisfied with your products, make sure you inform them of your return and exchange policy explicitly. Maximize the appropriate dates for refunds and remakes of the requested products. This will enable your clients to be satisfied with your service without any pressure to seek present alternatives.
• Optimize your cross-selling and bundling. Ensure that your customers see what additional items they can purchase for the holidays based on their preferences. Allow clients to bundle thematic products together, so that they order more with a single purchase. Many little frequent purchases might take a longer time to process. Consider optimizing the processing efforts for similar deliveries internally, too. Equally, do not create too many designs for the products but better focus on the most in-demand ones. This will save your equipment and the trouble of having too many styles to choose from.

Conclusion

Conclusively, the holiday season is a complicated yet rewarding time for your business. With a carefully planned strategy and advertising tools, you can achieve maximum profits in no time. To be ready for the holiday season, rely on three major tips like the variety of holiday-themed designs, early promotional campaign, and delivery/refund troubleshooting. The most significant holidays' promotion should start not later than one month before, and it is not a good idea to send something at the last second. Avoid massive late bundles as they will face late delivery that spoils someone's holidays for sure. To take risks is noble, but to provide the best possible holiday service is even more precious. Happy Holidays!