In an otherwise slow time of year, Valentine's Day shines out as a big opportunity for seasonal sales. Suresh Patel shows RN three places to profit from it in-store
My promotional display
We have a display at the front of the store dedicated to Valentine’s Day and we’ve just started providing hampers of Valentine’s Day-themed items, like Lindt chocolates, prosecco and teddy bears. We tried this last Mother’s Day and it went really well. We price them at around £45, which gives us a 25% margin. I first saw them in raffles and they looked really good so I thought I’d give them a go.
Alcohol aisle
We have a few restaurants and a florist near us so we focus on offering what they can’t. We drop the price of prosecco by a couple of pounds, for example, as well as stocking £1 boxes of chocolates. Around Valentine’s Day we see sales increase three-fold.
A second promotional bay
On top of what we do at the front of the store, we convert another promotional shelf into Valentine’s Day offers. We do very well on Love Heart sweets. We tend to get through up to five cases in February.
