The holiday season is already in full swing, but as an e-tailer it’s never too late to take advantage of hot items and best sellers. While preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is important, and leveraging images is a great way to attract the attention of potential buyers, making sure to include these 5 items is a sure-fire way to increase your end-of-year sales:
The name may be cold, but the merchandise is definitely hot. Ranging from toys and games to clothing and accessories, just about anything related to this fifth-highest grossing film of all time is sure to sell.
If you don’t have the proper license to sell Frozen merchandise, you can still ride the wave and benefit from the film’s amazing popularity. In fact, not everyone can afford official Frozen gear, and products with a similar winter theme sold at a lower price point are sure to gain the attention of global buyers.
We all heard about the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus breaking global sales records, but Apple wasn’t the only one to benefit from their latest tech innovation. Also setting a new record this year was the sale of phone accessories, totaling
almost $250 million in just two weeks following the new iPhone launch!
With the introduction of the market’s latest “phablet”, the iPhone 6 Plus, and other top selling tablets, such as the Kindle Fire, Google Nexus, and Samsung Galaxy Tab, accessory sales for tablets this holiday season is on pace to shatter previous records. In fact, a recent study by Gartner estimated that tablet sales will surpass PC sales in 2015, resulting in two things: 1, proving the great Steve Jobs was right, and 2, putting more money in the pockets of e-tailers selling tablet accessories!
While electronics still come at the top of most holiday wish lists, there are many other categories of top selling items that you can focus on to sell big. In 2013 everyone was shocked when the #1 Home item was a deluxe art set. The growing popularity of sites like Etsy, which promote creativity and artistic expression, added to the increased use of crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, which fuel innovation, are causing parents around the world to invest in creative and artistic tools for their children. Look for this trend to continue throughout 2014, and leverage that trend by adding relevant items to your sales inventory.
Major retailers such as Toys R Us, Mattel, and Wal-Mart are seeing a decline in revenue from toys. In fact, in 2013 sales dropped 1%. That being said, overall toy sales in 2013 were still $22.1 billion, so there’s definitely still a large demand for toys, especially during the holiday season.
One of the main reasons retailers note this drop in sales is competitive pricing from online competition such as Amazon. As an e-tailer you can certainly take advantage of this and snag up some of that $22.1 billion.
This year Wal-Mart ran many case studies, including testing over 80 toys on children ages 18 months to 2 years, and came up with these 5 toy trends for the 2014 holiday season. Popular toys on the list included scooters and ride-on toys, Sew Cool’s “Spin Master” sewing machine, and classic brands that are making a comeback such as Barbie and Hot Wheels.
My wild card pick for top sellers this holiday season is “smart” toys and children’s items. While in years past technology may not have been a top interest for younger children, it’s not uncommon today to see a child using a smart
phone or tablet. In fact, not only are they using technology, but some studies show that kids are able to use smartphones before even learning to write their names and tie their shoes.
This increased use of technology by younger children, and huge popularity of toys and dolls, suggests that items succeeding in combining the two may lead to huge sales this holiday season. Interactive pets, robots, and drones/mini-drones are just some examples of popular items that fill this category (such as the Teksta robotic puppy that sold out completely during the 2013 holiday season).