Organize Your Gift Basket Business for Profits
As the busy holiday season approaches, there is nothing more important than being organized. With careful preparation, you can insure that your business runs smoothly and your baskets are delivered in a timely fashion even when your phones are ringing off the hook!
Consider some of these ideas when getting ready for the holidays:
- If you’ve created holiday designs that include specific products, make sure you have the inventory needed to make those baskets. While you may prefer to buy your items from a particular supplier, at this time of year, make a point to identify alternative sources for your products….just in case!
- Post your employees’ holiday schedules early. Everyone has lots of plans and responsibilities during the holiday season and it’s only fair to give your employees plenty of notice about your expectations for their work schedules. You might also want to line up a few friends for “emergency situations”: someone that you can call if one of your regular workers has to suddenly take some time off during your busiest season.
- In addition to checking your gourmet food inventory, make sure you have enough packing and shipping supplies. Even if you stock up a little more than usual, these items are not perishable and you’ll use them quickly for the next holiday which is around the corner: Valentine’s Day. If you missed one of my recent posts, read Packing Your Gift Baskets Perfectly for some more ideas about shipping.
- Determine your delivery and shipping schedule and make sure that all your employees are aware of the last date you’ll accept orders. Taking a few last minute orders that come in very late may be less important than making sure that you deliver your existing orders when promised.
As you get organized, keep some notes and make yourself a checklist that includes all of the things you’re checking and preparing. You can use this list for other holidays and not have to duplicate your efforts.
And speaking of duplicating efforts, you may want to take a look at Shirley Frazier’s Gift Basket Forms. Shirley has done all the work for you! She’s created an order form, a customer information form, a delivery form, plus 9 more forms that will help you organize your business.
2 comments October 29th, 2008
