Sales surges can come in unpredictable ways and occur for many reasons – sometimes because of seasonal trends, for example. However, sudden sales surges can make or break your enterprise depending upon the robustness of the system of carrying out your operations. The current pandemic and the market conditions can serve as a suitable example that represents how sudden surges can be unforeseeable but leveraged to reap maximum sales.
With the rise in cases and awareness among people, the production and sales surge of masks, gloves, and personal protective equipment increased. Nevertheless, due to global lockdown, the entire production process was slowed down because of the lack of labor and raw materials. Due to an overwhelming demand for such equipment across households, medical institutions, and frontline workers, industries – big or small, from different domains jumped right in the manufacturing of such equipment.
Here are some management tips that can help you manage sudden sales spikes:
1. Have a prerequisite talk with your vendors
There have been many instances previously when business owners have gone through major turmoil because of the lack of adequate preparation of their supply sources. As a business owner you need to be best prepared to deal with all scenarios. You can ask your suppliers before taking in any large order supply, enquiring about the details of any underlying shipping charges, overseas deliveries, etc.
Such transparent, comprehensive talks can help you to devise and offer benefits to your customers that can be delivered according to the convenience of both the parties. The reality check can also be essential in keeping track of all order volumes.
2. Don’t Make Promises That You Can’t Keep
Quick promises never work in the eCommerce industry, and instead, do more harm than good to your online reputation. Therefore, it’s better if as an entrepreneur you take a calculated approach about your products, deliveries, and quality. Any sort of delays or risks can cause your customers to leave your website, never to come back for more.
3. Don’t Rush To Expand
Brand expansion is a goal for every business owner, however, it can turn disastrous if not done carefully. Therefore, it’s crucial for your brand to keep ample stock of the most popular products, learn about the new market, as well as an approach with well-rounded strategies before tapping into a new audience.
While expanding to new horizons comes as a victorious step, it may come and go as seasons change, leaving behind piling bills, debts, and layoffs for your business. Therefore, it is advisable to take everything at a balanced pace, instead of speeding ahead as soon as your numbers are up.
4. Employees First, Too!
Growth can be an excellent learning opportunity for yourself and your employees. However, the fact that all of it can be an overwhelming task can’t be denied. It’s not a healthy routine to keep your employees overworked all time, as it can cause them to lose interest in their work and instead seek spare time to lay off steam.
Only with regular participation, inputs about enhancing the process of order management, etc can your employees feel invested in your business. With proper compensation, as well as end-of-the-year bonuses can prove beneficial for your employees to stay rooted in your enterprise through and through.
5. Believe in the Vision
Highs and lows are all an indispensable part of the process. In the eCommerce industry, almost every successful business owner starts off with the ultimate desire to deliver quality products, not making massive profits.
For instance, in the case of a software development firm, major corporations like Apple and Google started out with small, yet mighty ideas that have shaped today’s reality. If there had been a lack of commitment or belief from a single member of such a large corporation, today things would have been different.
In order to handle the sales surge, it is advisable to design extensive contingency plans, as well as set realistic targets to achieve them one-by-one. Too much hustling can cause dissatisfaction among your employees and they may lose sight of the common goal. It is always better to humbly turn down orders from customers when the system is already too-strained, and any more tugging could cause a breach in the brand’s integrity.
6. Allow Automation
To make things more streamlined and efficient, it is recommended to adopt ample automation techniques. As a business owner, you can use automation in taking care of all your real-time customer emailers, updates, accounting, and support strategies. Recently platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce have also introduced many plugins that can instantly generate USPS rates, shipping labels from the dashboard.
Plugins like WooCommerce Shipping, WooCommerce Tax, WooCommerce Smart Refunder, etc can help you to get started with automation in no time.
7. Capitalize Opportunities
Sales surges often cause products to go out-of-stock before you know it. Therefore, keeping track of every activity and updating it with current stock figures from the warehouse falls as a crucial part of such scenarios. In such cases, upselling, cross-selling work the most for customers in case they’re late to order products selling out rapidly, and leaving stocks empty. Your team needs to be well-prepared to present similar and relevant recommendations for your customers to go through and choose from them.
Bottom Line
Sales surge doesn’t have to rhyme with inconvenience, confusion, and high losses – when approached with careful preparation and planning. Business owners, along with their sales team can leverage the most out of such situations easily.
With the pandemic causing dependency on online stores significantly, there can be times when small and medium businesses can’t grapple with managing the sudden increase in bulk orders. I’d personally suggest hiring eCommerce developers from CodeClouds in such situations, as these experts deliver hands-on, personalized solutions for advanced end-to-end management of your digital brand.