6 Ways to prepare your Amazon and Etsy shop for Q4 sales

It’s hard to believe that Q4 of 2021 is already fast approaching. (Seriously, where does the time go?)

What this means is it’s time to start prepping your stores for the holiday season, which is typically the biggest sales time of the year.

Especially if this is going to be your first holiday season doing the Low Hanging System, I definitely recommend doing some prep-work to make sure your stores are ready for the rush and profit as much as possible from holiday shoppers.

That said, in this post, I want to share a list of ways that you can get your ecommerce business in tip-top shape for Q4 2021. These strategies are all really straightforward, and especially when you do ALL of the suggestions, not just one or two, you can really see a difference in your Q4 sales rate.

Let’s take a look!

Add more designs

This is LHS 101. The more designs you have, the more opportunities you give shoppers to buy from you, which means more sales all around.

Also, I say this all the time, but a big part of LHS is throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Not every design you create is going to be a big seller. You might not even get a single order with some of your items.

This is totally normal and it isn’t really a concern as long as you continue creating more designs and listing more products, especially around the holidays when tons of people are in “buy now” mode.

It’s okay to create some holiday-specific designs. But even as the holiday season approaches, I’d recommend creating mostly evergreen designs (i.e. designs that can sell well year-round).

If you need some design inspiration, check out these blog posts:

5 Ways to find what’s trending now on Etsy for design inspiration
Not feeling especially creative? Here’s a list of strategies to come up with new design ideas
10 Ways to make new designs even if you’re not creative

Run promotions and discounts

While you don’t need to run promotions or do any marketing to get sales with the Low Hanging System, around the holidays, sales and promotions definitely can help you not only to get more sales but also to stand out from your competitors.

Shoppers spend a lot of money around the holidays so any time they can save money on the items they want, they are going to be thrilled.

To learn more about how you can set up sales and promotions on Amazon and Etsy, check out this blog post:

How to create coupon codes and discounts on Amazon, Etsy, eBay and UseGearBubble

And to optimize any promotions you run, over the years, I’ve shared a bunch of product mockups that you can add to your social media content to make it more engaging and appealing to customers.

You can download those mockups by clicking the links below and opting in:

Candles
Coasters
Compact mirrors
Socks
Christmas ornaments
Face masks
Necklaces and bracelets
T-shirts
Tumblers and wine glasses
Pillow cases
Shot glasses
Coffee mugs

Offer a variety of products, not just mugs

White, 11-ounce coffee mugs are consistently my best-selling items. But that doesn’t mean you only want to design mugs to sell. It’s good to branch out and sell other items, especially when you can easily put one design on multiple products and significantly increase your inventory.

For example, if you have a pit bull mom design that you put on an 11-ounce white coffee mug, you can easily put that same design on a 15-ounce coffee mug, a travel mug, a shot glass, a journal, a t-shirt, and more.

If shoppers like your design on one item, the odds are good they’ll like it on other products as well.

You’ll find a variety of products to choose from on CustomHappy.com, in addition to print on demand mugs. These products include…

• socks
• necklaces
• bottle openers
• candles
• teddy bears
• wine tumblers
• t-shirts
• Christmas ornaments
• face masks
• coffee mugs
• coasters
• journals
• pillow cases
• postcards
• posters
• shot glasses
• water bottles
• beer steins
• tumblers
• and more.

Send more to FBA

Some sellers are intimidated by FBA (fulfilled by Amazon). And I get it. There is a bit of a learning curve. But once you get the routine down, it becomes like second nature and can be the best way to sell on Amazon. I recently shared a post going over the process in detail. You can check it out below:

How does Amazon FBA work? An updated guide

FBA is a great way to increase your business’ sales. People know and trust Amazon. They know Amazon offers fast shipping and excellent customer service. And when you sell FBA, you get the Prime badge, which customers love.

So if you want to optimize your sales this holiday season, consider sending some of your top-selling items to FBA.

Include a call-to-action with your listings

A call-to-action is important because it removes friction by letting people know what to do next, whether that’s to sign up for a webinar, click a link, make a purchase, et cetera.

You might think if people are shopping on Amazon or Etsy, they’ll be well aware that the next step is to click the buy button. And while this is most likely true, it can still help your sales if you add a call-to-action to your listings.

The call-to-action can be super simple. Something like “Buy now!” is all you need. Or you could add a little something more and say, “Makes a great gift. Buy now!” or “Buy now for the holidays!” (you’d just obviously need to change that after the holidays pass).

Bundle products together 

When shopping for gifts, people often aim to buy more than one item for each of the recipients on their list. But holiday shopping can be time-consuming. So people love it when they can get their shopping done in “one stop,” and product bundles serve this agenda.

Product bundles are great because if there’s one item in your store people like, the odds are good they’ll like the same design on another product. So for the holidays, you can bundle those types of items together and offer pressed-for-time holiday shoppers the perfect one-stop shopping experience they’re looking for.

A nice gift bundle could include a coffee mug, t-shirt, and journal featuring related or complementary designs on each item. You could create a dog lovers gift bundle that includes a mug, t-shirt, journal that all feature the same dog design or you could include items with varying dog designs, just as long as the items relate to each other in some way.

I would also suggest offering your product bundles at a slight discount on the total cost of the items when you add up all of their individual prices.

For example, if a 15-ounce coffee mug costs $15.95 and a t-shirt costs $24.95 and a journal costs $19.95, instead of selling the bundle for $60.85, sell it for a slightly lower rate to give shoppers an incentive. You might sell it for $54.95 (roughly 10% off).

I hope you find these suggestions to improve your Q4 holiday sales useful! If you have any other advice you can offer, leave a comment below. And if you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends and followers!