Let's face it: Sometimes our eyes get so big that we eagerly gorge ourselves on everything in front of us. Our eagerness betrays our abilities, often leaving us with more than we can chew through and a heap of leftovers.
I'm not talking about a plate of half-eaten turkey and picked over trimmings. I'm talking about inventory.
Some sellers are reluctant, afraid peddling stale inventory is bad business. It isn't. In fact, you can put these 'turkeys' to good use
When you're in the business of selling, you often start by buying goods, but sometimes you buy too many. After selling some of the items, you're left with others that just hang around mocking your original buying binge.
As the year comes to an end, it's a good idea to shed that extra stock so it won't weigh you down in the new business year. Some sellers are reluctant, afraid peddling stale inventory is bad business. It isn't. In fact, you can put these "turkeys" to good use or, at the very least, cut them loose so they don't drag you down.
Make them strengths
How you manage your excess inventory and, more importantly, how you present it, can make all the difference in how your customers perceive it. There are a couple schools of thought on how to display lingering goods: offering them either as "it's gotta go" stuff or "these are great bargains" goods.
Consider these tactics:
Since your goal is to sell your goods when they're fresh and being offered at full price, you can intersperse the out-of-date items alongside to demonstrate that there are great deals to be found by those willing to explore your entire store.
This is a method to get folks to look at all you have to offer to find the hidden treasures. This is also a method to encourage purchases of full-price items that are stocked or displayed next to deeply discounted goods. The customer might think, "I'm getting such a great price on this item that I can also afford/justify buying the regular-priced item, too."
Even if you offer these items at prices lower than you originally paid, you still stand a chance to regain some of your investment
You can collect all the "closeout" goods and display them as a group in a specially designated area. This is a draw for bargain hunters, they who only want to buy what's been deeply discounted. While this may keep them from buying your regularly priced goods, it does work to sell off that stale inventory.
Some of these shoppers will buy most anything just because it was such a great deal. That works for you because that's your ultimate goal. Try to establish this "closeout" area of your store in a place where customers need to come past your current stock on the way to the bargain bin.
Just like grocery stores keep the milk and eggs at the back of the store, this method might prompt a purchase of something your shoppers encounter on the way to discounted goods. (And, yes, you can achieve this in an online store by keeping a link to the closeout area at the bottom of the pages where the regularly priced goods are located.)
You can also bundle goods together, something old with something new. This has been a tried-and-true method of retailers that need to move old stock. Creating bundles of similar items—better yet, items that complement each other—allows you to group items and offer them at a discounted price that will attract shoppers' attention.
The best news about this method is that it could seem the newer goods are being nicely discounted, while it's actually the outdated goods that are carrying the weight of the discount. The key here is to note the regular price of all the items in the bundle, then calculate the overall discount percentage based upon how deeply you're discounting the clearance goods.
Discount deeply
Here's the crux of the foregoing methods: You must forget about "how much it's worth in retail dollars" and "oh, but that's less than I paid for the goods."
When items hang around too long and don't seem to be attracting shoppers at the regular pricing, those goods become anchors preventing you from recovering monies tied up. Even if you offer these items at prices lower than you originally paid, you still stand a chance to regain some of your investment.
Shoppers love bargains and many love last year's goods offered at remarkable savings
At the regular price by which the goods aren't selling, you're regaining nothing. If those goods stay around too long, you might never be able to sell them and will have to write them off completely.
Avoid getting attached to your inventory in any emotional way. It's just inventory, and it's your business' money that's tied up in it.
It's all in the approach
You needn't be embarrassed about having goods to closeout. It's just a part of being in business. Think of how you hunt down goods that are offered at a good discount; it draws you in, doesn't it?
Shoppers love bargains and many love last year's goods offered at remarkable savings. Use the different methods described here to put those goods in their best light, then step aside and let your shoppers do the rest. Few, if any, will ever scold you for closing out inventory. Chances are, they'll binge on the great bargains you have to offer.