Well, hello, everybody. It’s Bob Negen. And in this episode of Real Retail TV, I am going to share with you my official forecast for the 2024 holiday season and, of course, share a couple of tips to help you make it the best that it can be.

So before I get on to my holiday forecast, I want to invite you to and encourage you to be at Retailpalooza: Peace, Love, and Retail. It’s happening, this coming Wednesday, October 9, and it’s going to be eight hours of ideas and inspiration and fun and contests and giveaways.

You know, there’s gonna be great, great, great content that can help you be a better retailer, but it’s also gonna be a lot of fun. So if you haven’t registered yet, I’d encourage you to, you know, to register. If you have any friends that might, need a little pick me up or a kick in the butt, please tell them about it. Invite them also. It’s absolutely free. It’s our way of giving back. So having said that, let’s talk about holiday forecasts.

So before I made this episode of real retail TV, I went online and saw what the professional prognosticators had to say. I, and, there’s a range of predictions anywhere from, three to mid four percent sales growth for the holidays.

But while the professional prognosticators, you know, their opinions are valid, it’s based on, you know, statistics and assumptions, what I wanna say to you is those predictions, while they are relevant to you, are not that important to you.

Those predictions are about the overall state of retail. And while the macroeconomic trends have a huge impact on big box, big box stores, online stores, Amazon, all of those things, as a local independent brick and mortar retailer, macroeconomic conditions, while they affect you, do not determine your success.

Your success is going to be determined by what you do, by how hard you hustle, by how deeply you connect. And so let’s talk about that real quickly. How can you make this the best holiday season ever for you and your store? So while the first thing is to recognize that your ability to connect with your customers on a human level is something that an online store simply an online store simply can’t do. A big box store won’t do, but you must do.

You know, you must have a great team that really gets out on the floor and gives your customers the kind of experience they’re looking for when they’re shopping with a local independent store like yours. So really spend that time training your people. Hi. How you doing? Getting good people, training them, making sure that they’re customer focused, making sure that you’re doing everything you can to make sure that your customers get a human connection, the kind of connection that makes them want to come back. So that’s the first thing. Focus on the customer experience.

The second thing is activity, activity, activity, activity.

So you want to have more activity. You want to have more promotions. Yes. You can have sales, but not, I’m not talking about sales.

I’m talking about doing things in your store that are fun, that are interesting, that aren’t necessarily discount driven, but you want to do a lot to engage your customers. You see, when you have more promotions, not only do you give people a reason to come into your store, more reasons to come into your store, you also have more reasons to talk to them. You have more reasons to connect with them. So activity is the second thing.

So having a human connection and then doing what you can to proactively drive them into your store is the second thing. The third thing that I wanna talk about is making it easy for them to shop with you. I am talking about convenience for certain, but, you know, how do you make it easy? How do you make it so that they want to shop with and can shop with you instead of going on to Amazon, instead of going to the big box stores?

Well, you take advantage of the technology that’s available to you right now. What do you do? So I am talking about you do have an e commerce presence, a good one. Right?

Your site has to be good. People have to be able to see work through it. They have to feel your they have to feel you and your brand when they’re on your site. They need to be able to order.

I’m talking about, order online, pick up in the store. I’m talking about, delivery, perhaps. I certainly am talking about lots and lots of going live on social media. You know, this is another idea of making it easy, connecting on a human way.

But if you do those things, if you make it easy for the your customers to shop with you and you give them a great experience and you give them lots of reasons to come into your store, I guarantee that you are going to have an absolutely fantastic holiday season. And, of course, fourth quarter is where it’s at for almost everybody in this community.

So if you have other things that you think, please put them down in the comments below. I love to hear what you have to say. And, of course, if you haven’t registered for Retailpalooza yet, peace, love, retail. We’ll see you there on Wednesday. Alright, everybody. It’s Bob. Bye bye.