So, Christmas 2022 is almost wrapped up, and it’s been a tough year for retailers. With soaring fuel prices and inflation reaching double figures, consumers’ discretionary spending is being squeezed – perhaps more than ever before. And with the cost of borrowing continuing to rise, 2023 will no doubt bring its own unique challenges for the sector.
The battle for share of wallet is never fiercer than during the festive season, and during a recession, making the most of the upturn in spending can make all the difference between Christmas cheer, and January blues.
Shelf appeal is everything
The way your brand is presented has an incredibly important part to play in delivering sales, especially when consumers are buying for the people they care most about. Gift retailing is all about shelf appeal – if you get the packaging right, if your brand exudes quality, products sell quicker and at premium prices. Get it wrong and you’ll need more ‘sale’ stickers than you’d planned.
So how do you ensure that your gift packaging hits all the right notes?
The best retailers start their planning early
For Liberty London, planning for Christmas is essentially a year-long affair*. Product orders are placed in January and stock is processed through their Derbyshire warehouse in July. Window and atrium designs are scoped in May and by the beginning of August all contractors will have been engaged.
It means that the Liberty team will be considering 2022 performance right now and will already be applying their learnings to plans for the 2023 festive season.
And that’s how it should be. In order to maximise performance for any calendar event, increasing planning time will almost always lead to an increase in sales. Whether we’re talking about Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s, Mother’s Day, Halloween and Black Friday; or big sporting events like World Cups or the Olympics; or for the Coronation of a King – the more time that is given to planning, the more likely you are to be successful.
Trust Wyepak to help get your brand noticed
At Wyepak, we have a saying, ‘It’s never too early to think about Christmas’.
We have gained a huge amount of copacking experience for prestige brands across different retail sectors – working collaboratively to help them make the most of spikes in consumer demand – the earlier we are involved (preferably at design stage), the more value we can offer;
- Avoiding expensive mistakes that could eat into margins in the latter stages of delivery, e sometimes you have to spend a little more on the packaging to make the packing cost effective
- Ensuring availability of materials and mitigating supply chain issues
- Allowing time for careful and efficient packaging design and product testing
And once the product and packaging is ready, we always recommend developing a ‘Gold Standard’ sample from the outset, alongside a detailed specification to include any special requirements including labelling and coding. That means we can provide a really clear quotation allowing you to budget more accurately.
Not only that, once we have an agreed and tested standard to work to, we can guarantee that every gift package will leave our warehouse in perfect condition, to the brand standards you expect – that’s because of our dedication to detail and a zero defect approach – highlighted by our achievement of ISO9001, ISO14001 and ISO45001 standards.
It’s never too early to think about…
When Christmas is over, it’s tempting to move on immediately to the next calendar event, whether it’s Valentine’s, Easter or the Olympic Games. Moving from one event to the next, relentlessly chasing our tails, feeling the pressure of another season. But if you want to get ahead of the madness for next year’s yuletide season, we should start talking in January.
So, when should you start planning for next Christmas?
The answer is ‘now’.
*Source: https://reports.retail-week.com/christmas-forecast-2022/index.html