Time to diversify..
Happy Halloween from Salt Lake. It’s our first Halloween here, and my kids are sooo excited.. sorry.. Indiana Jones and The Vampiress are already so hopped up on sugar, they’re sure to crash before we even hit the pavement. But I’ll let them indulge, to me, that’s what it’s all about.. too much sugar and staying up too late! Ahhhh, the life of a kid! Gotta let up on them sometimes.
All is well here in hat land. We are working hard to keep things going. Last month I talked about cross selling on the site. I’ve done that with some success. I have to say that whenever I make changes, I see sales.
Moving things around on my site is probably the fastest way to make things move. I have to remember that people don’t tend to scroll down. I struggle with this concept because I scroll. I’ve switched my product sections from one page with a scroll, to multiple pages with no scroll. It just comes down to the fact that if it’s out of site, it’s out of mind, and clearly won’t sell. So if I have some older merchandise that I want to move, I MOVE IT! I’ll put it on the first page of the section, or highlight it on my salemail. I’ll sell some right away. I had some red hat lady goose outfits that we over-purchased thinking.. My customers will love those! (Have you ever seen the resin-cast geese that people put on their front step? People put outfits on them according to the season. They’re crazy, but popular!) After an initial rush on the red hat goose outfits, they became old news and thus dropped to the bottom of our product page. I moved them to the top row one day months later, and sold out within a week. As a general rule, I move products up and down on the page frequently. It’s a quick fix that almost always provides some degree of success.
Other news on the hat front is T-shirts. We have started to develop a whole new line of shirts that easily appeals to women over 50.. breast cancer shirts. I’ve only had them posted for a week now, and have 3 styles up. The designs are currently based on a poem I wrote after walking the 3-day myself a few years ago. Even though I only was able to walk for one day, I was really moved by the experience. I’d encourage anyone who is able, to do it. The week following I’d written a little poem, that ends with “God help us all live longer!” Which is now going to become our new cancer support t-shirt line. I’m going to start with breast cancer, and branch out to other forms of cancer in the process. The shirts are currently for those walking the 3-day. I am also working on a few to encourage mammograms and remembrance of family members lost. Breast cancer items have always been a natural extension of our product line. We’ve always carried the pink ribbon pins and a very limited product line. When we first started our business, we gave a dollar of every sale to the National Breast Cancer Association. For a while we started to carry hats for cancer patients going through chemo. So far we’ve had good response to our new shirts. I’m hoping that tapping into another area of interest will be well received. It’s not always a success for us, but this particular issue is one that our ladies tend to be passionate about. I hope that makes this product line appealing.
I love the idea of designing something new. For so long it’s been hats in red and clothes in purple. There’s something so rewarding about doing something that feeds your creative side, right? That’s what this does for me. It also makes me want to walk the 3day in it’s entirety to get some inspiration. So maybe I will!
I only have a few hours until Trick or Treating kicks off. I love walking around watching all of the kids. I’ll miss my neighbors back in Michigan tonight and the post treating bonfire. These are the things that are the hardest about moving to a new place, making new traditions and leaving old ones behind. Hope you all enjoy yours and by the way.. any trick or treater who comes to my place isn’t going to see a Twix or Reeses, because I’m pretty sure that I ate them all myself! : )
This post is filed under Staying in the eCommerce Game and has the following keyword tags: cross-selling, breast cancer tshirts, increasing sales.
