2006 last-minute gift certificate sales for the Christmas holiday season
December 17th, 2007 • Posted by Larry Donahue • Permalink
We looked at the sales volume of a large group of our clients for the last few days before Christmas in 2006, which is represented hour-by-hour in the following graph. It is very interesting.
If you assume the average spa or salon is selling gift certificates from 8am to 8pm through the 24th, and is closed on the 25th, a full 33.4% of gift certificate sales occurs outside those normal business hours.
Ideas to help sell more gift certificates for this holiday season:
- The obvious — stay open as long as possible.
- If your phone is busy, what then? Do you have multiple lines and call-takers, and if a customer can't get through, does your call prompt tell your customer they can purchase "INSTANT Gift Certificates…" on your website "…perfect for last minute gift buying?"
- If you're one of our busier organizations, what does your car traffic flow look like? Is it possible your losing customers because they see a long queue in front of your store? Consider signage or banners that announce your web address, and make sure to say "Instant Gift Certificates" available.
- And, of course, if you're not using SpaBoom and just lurking on our blog, what are you waiting for??!?
Only instant gift certificates are going to enable you to capture these last minute sales.
Posted in Spa Marketing, General, Spa Gift Certificates • Share • Trackback
December 17th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Is there a way to find out how our business is doing with SpaBoom gift certificate sales compared to everyone else who uses SpaBoom? It would be interesting to learn where I stand compared to others who use SpaBoom. It would be interesting to know how I stand compared to everyone, compared to others in my state, and compared to solo operations like myself.
December 17th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I like the graph but without any numbers on the vertical axis, it doesn't provide any real impact. While we are adverse to providing our internal numbers, would it be possible to at least provide some gauge (either total dollars or total # of Certificates).
Also, on a different note (for Bill, Larry, et al), I would love if you would add a way for us to incorporate coupons (discount code) into the customer checkout module so we can better target and identify the ROI of our marketing campaigns. This could be as simple as adding an extra box where customers can enter in a discount code (that we inclulde in our other ad campaigns). Take about two seconds and would really help me get hard numbers on what works.
Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead — 7 days to go!
Merry Christmas,
Eva Sztupka-Kerschbaumer
www.esspa.com
December 17th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
I second the vote for coupon codes for SpaBoom. Other online businesses use them. They would be very helpful to track promotions. Thanks for bringing it up Eva.
December 18th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Christine, we are about to launch a graphical dashboard within SpaBoom. Among other interesting statistics, we intend to provide a "widget" that gives you an approximation of how you're doing against different peer groups. Please check out Request for Comments: A picture is worth 1,000 words redux for more information. I don't have an exact ETA, but it will be soon.
Eva, great comment regarding the missing vertical axis. I ran those numbers against different data sets, and all ended up with basically the same shaped graph. The two major sets of data were GC #'s and dollar amounts: Basically the same shaped graph. The reason I opted out of putting the vertical axis up, is that it doesn't add any value to the graph, when viewed from the perspective of a single spa, but would create new questions or controversy. For example, I could have put "total SpaBoom sales," which would give too much information away to competitors or about the company. I could have put "average sale per spa" by dividing total sales by all selling spas, but then there is such a wide deviation on sales amongst all our spas, I worried what spas would think that fall on the high-side or low-side of the graph.
In the end, the shape of the graph really does say it all, no matter what size the spa, and no matter whether we're talking in dollars or # of GC's sold. It's still the same shape, and on average, 33% of sales are occurring outside of the hours I indicated.
I like the coupon / discount code idea. We've actually have that in our list of upcoming features / enhancements. I can't give an ETA, but it's definitely something we'll introduce at some point in the near future. Keep the suggestions coming! We love 'em!
Have a GREAT holiday season!
December 18th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
I sent snail mail holiday cards to the majority of my client list on SpaBoom about 2 weeks ago. It would be nice to be able to know how my repeat clients compare to others.