Boost Sales with Fall Themes
With all the focus on the winter holidays, sellers might overlook the big selling opportunities in the fall. But sellers can win big with fall sales. There’s Halloween and Thanksgiving, for a start, plus fall is usually when the weather turns and demand picks up for cold-weather items. Here are some top tips for sellers to boost sales with fall themes.
Best-selling products for fall
The first thing to do is to cast a knowing eye over your inventory and make sure it’s well stocked with fall-friendly products. These would be:
- Cold-weather items which continue to be popular throughout the winter season
- Fall holiday items for Halloween and Thanksgiving
- Early-bird winter holiday products for shoppers who like to get their holiday gifts early
You could find that your regular products are ideal for fall sales – all you need to do is add some fall keywords to get them moving. Alternatively, you might want to stock up on some of these trending fall 2018 items especially for this season.
Fashion
- Winter coats for men, women, and children
- Winter boots
- Party dresses, accessories, and costume jewelry to prepare for winter parties
- Active wear such as gloves, thick winter socks, thermal underwear, scarves, and hats
- In-between fall clothing such as long-sleeve baseball tees, hoodies, zip-ups, and leggings for when it’s not yet cold enough for a winter coat, but you need something a little warmer
- Shapewear, for the party season
- Warm, fuzzy nightwear, especially unicorn pajamas
- Novelty socks and funky printed leggings, which make great holiday gifts, can be easily marketed for Halloween costumes, and fill the need for warmer fall clothing
Sports
- Any winter sports accessories such as skis, ski poles, sleds, ski goggles, ski gloves, etc.
- Indoor exercise equipment
Homewares
- Serving ware and platters, especially if they are Halloween- or Thanksgiving-themed
- Halloween and Thanksgiving decor such as tablecloths, cushions, banners, and fairy lights
- Cookware such as turkey roasting dishes, carving knives, and disposables such as plastic plates and silverware
- Mattresses, pillows, and bedding – as the nights grow longer, people think more about sleep
- Flame lamps to create a cozy warm glow
- Doormats for muddy boots and wet shoes
- Blankets, throws, Sherpa blankets, sheepskins, and other cozy, snuggly items
- Winter alarm clocks that simulate sunrise to provide light therapy on short winter days
- Crafting supplies for long fall evenings, such as scrapbooking supplies, knitting and crocheting supplies, quilting squares, adult coloring books, candle making kits, and cake decorating items
Hair and beauty
- Nurturing hair products for frizzy or dry hair
- Deep nourishing skin masks for a feel-good evening
- Lotions and moisturizers for dry skin
Back to school
- Backpacks for kids, teens, college students, and adults
- Notebooks for children, funky notebooks for high school and college students, vintage notebooks for adult journaling fans
- School supplies like pens and pencils, coloring pencils, glue, and scissors
- Funky pencil cases
The best fall special offers
Fall is a time that is full of potential for special offers. Here are just a few ideas for fall offers for your retail site:
Winter is coming offers
Winter clothing offers like gloves, scarf, and hat bundles. Beanie hats are especially popular. There’s also a demand for car maintenance products such as car windshield protectors, de-icer spray, and windshield scrapers to prepare your car for the cold weather.
Self-care offers
Feel-good kits such as mugs with chocolate spoons, hot chocolate kits, or pumpkin spice latte kits, at-home spa packages, and essential oil burners capture the desire for some coziness and self-care as the nights get longer. Winter beauty offers such as deep moisturizing creams with night masks, nurturing hair and skin treatment sets, and hand moisturizing lotions are good offers to counteract the effect of the cold, wet air.
Fall holiday offers
Thanksgiving-themed table decorations and fairy lights put people in a festive mood, and can be used as an intro to the winter holiday season as well. You can also bundle together cookware such as grill mats with roasting dishes and knife sharpeners with carving knives.
End of summer offers
Early fall is a great time to capitalize on the tail end of summer. You can present special offers on scrapbooking craft kits and picture frames to capture summer memories. It’s also a chance to sell items that are left over from your summer range, with big discounts to clear out old inventory and entice shoppers in warmer climates or who are traveling to sunny regions.
Back to school offers
If you’re quick off the mark, you can use back to school offers. These include backpacks for adults as well as kids, notebooks and all types of school supplies. As the season moves on, big discounts on school items can catch the more disorganized among us, as well as the hyper-organized who buy now for next year.
Specialized offers
Don’t overlook any niche events and opportunities for product offers. These will depend on both your product line and your geographic area. For example, if your state has big harvest fair events going on, make the most of it with harvest-related decor, checked tablecloths, and big, country-style homeware and cookware.
Oktoberfest is a great opportunity for beer-related product offers.
New Age items such as crystals, dreamcatchers, and candles are ideal for promotion around the fall equinox, Harvest Moon, and Hunter’s Moon.
Top Halloween sales bundles
Halloween is one of the biggest sales opportunities of the fall selling season. Here are our favorite Halloween sales bundles:
- Simple, versatile costume items such as bandanas, hats, and wigs can be combined with accessories like fake eyelashes, vampire teeth, and fake nails to make Halloween costume bundles
- Halloween decor bundles such as fairy lights, pumpkin lamps, fake spider webs, and bat banners, and anything that glows in the dark
- Halloween-themed accessories such as pumpkin earrings and necklace sets, skull rings and chains, and glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces
- Halloween foods such as mini treat-size candy bars, Halloween punch kits, Halloween cocktail guides, and Halloween jelly candies
Prepare your site for fall
Don’t miss the chance to decorate your site for the season. You can try something subtle, like adding a fall foliage palette to your color scheme, or go a bit further and replace all your buttons with pumpkin icons and add a full Halloween banner.
Use a seasonal template for your emails too, and include references to the cooler weather and seasonal holidays in your marketing content. Look for subtle ways to promote your existing inventory – for example, mugs are ideal for warm soups and hot chocolate; exercise equipment can be promoted for working out in the cooler weather; inexpensive toys can make great Thanksgiving gifts.
Get ready to sell big this fall
With these great tips for boosting sales with fall themes, there’s no reason why fall should be a slow selling season. Prepare for a bumper sales harvest this fall to lead straight in to plenty of holiday income.