GOLDEN QUARTER NUGGETS #10: Christmas is over, now what? How to review your retail business in January
Reviewing every aspect of your retail business’ performance in January when details are still fresh will help you learn lessons, get creative and make better strategic decisions for next year and beyond.
January is typically a quiet month in retail, which is why you should use that time to review the previous year and start planning for the year ahead. I always recommend that this review process happen as soon as possible after the Christmas period so that learnings can quickly be applied to future decision-making.
So, take out a notebook and walk through these steps as part of your review process:
- Did you meet your planned KPIs? If you want a summary of the KPIs you should be tracking, check out this post from the archives that lists the most important metrics.
- What were your best sellers and worst sellers? Was there anything unexpected in terms of product popularity? Was there any customer feedback that could help when developing future product ranges?
- How did your marketing strategy fair? Make a note of what worked, and what didn’t, as well as a detailed analysis on how you spent your marketing budget.
- Were there any major problems, and if so, how could those have been mitigated? Were there any surprise wins that you can replicate? What learnings can you take away?
- Have you had any customer feedback that can help with your future strategy? I also recommend asking your suppliers, fulfilment team and all team members for their feedback on what could be improved to help them work better.
- Now, get creative! Do you have any new product ideas, or a fresh strategic direction you would like to explore for the business? Now is the time to note down all of your ideas, and keep this as a working document you come back to again and again; you never know when the perfect time could be to launch one of them.
When you have this level of clarity about what you have achieved, what can be improved and what you want to focus on, you will find it easier to make take consistent steps to achieving your goals.