Are you in a sales slump? No doubt you’ve spent the extra time cleaning up and re-merchandising your store, thinking that eventually your sales will pick back up, right?

Except they don’t. Your sales are down and your store is full of great in-season merchandise.

Your knee jerk reaction might be to throw a sale. Because a good sale will bring the traffic and the cash flow, won’t it?

Believe me, I know how tempting it is to offer a sale right now.

But don’t do it.

Why?

Because in order for a clearance sale to work (as in, move the most amount of inventory with the best possible margins) it has to be strategic.

Your clearance sale has to cater to the right customers at the right time.

This means that you shouldn’t throw a sale as a reaction to slow traffic or sales – because it will never be as effective as when you do it strategically.

But don’t worry, you can still fix the sales slump you’re in – I’ll tell you how in just a bit, but first let me explain who your focus should be outside of clearance sale time: Your full price customers.

Your Full Price Customers

Would you do a little exercise with me? Put both your hands up in front of you, fingers spread wide

Now fold down your fingers so all you see are your thumbs.

Your thumbs represent your very best customers – Because 80% of your sales come from only 20% of your customers. Your Thumbs. They buy full price merchandise, come back often and they rave about you to all their friends.

They really don’t care much about discounts. They are not bargain hunters and they don’t always respond to “sale” language.

Your Thumbs would much rather pay full price in order to get the newest styles and your excellent, personalized customer service.

And right now your Thumbs need you.

If you want to provide the very best customer service while increasing traffic AND sales? Then THIS is what you should do RIGHT NOW:

Reach out to your thumbs. Email, phone, or text them with pictures of your beautiful inventory. Look at what they’ve bought before and find new items in your store that you think they’d love too, or that would help them use that thing more or better. Tell them that you’ve missed them and this {insert perfect item here} made you think of them.

A Clearance Sale is Not Bad

It’s not that Clearance Sales are bad. But there is a secret to running it the right way – and at the right time. And unless you’re in one of the few times of year where your sale customers are expecting a sale, and out in full force to shop the deals – reacting to slow traffic by running a sale, is the wrong way to get out of a slump!

Resist the temptation!

You can’t afford to do it the wrong way. It hurts your profit margins and your good inventory, which you need to hit your sales goals.

I created the Clearance Sale Secrets program for this very reason. It’s a step by step guide to running a clearance sale the RIGHT way, at the RIGHT time. And it’s the exact strategy I use with my private clients twice a year.

I’ve included this program as a bonus inside our RETAILMavens Coaching program because it’s such a key part of managing your inventory well – you can watch this free training to see if the RETAILMavens Coaching program is the right fit for you to start growing your sales consistently so you can pay yourself, your team AND set aside profit!