With the biggest shopping event of the year quickly approaching, with bargain-hunters ready to grab a deal, you, as a seller, need to make sure that your warehouse is ready for this event. You can’t miss out on Black Friday, as it can be a huge turnover for your business.
So why is Black Friday so important?
Black Friday, the most awaited event of the year by many. With lots of products being heavily discounted by many online (and offline) shops, Black Friday 2019 is expected to be the largest and most successful Black Friday ever.
It’s the perfect time to sell as much of your stock as possible. Have a lot of products that aren’t selling? Give them a huge discount and you’ll see them flying off the shelves in no-time.
Everyone is waiting for Black Friday to pick up a deal or a bargain, and you as a seller need to be ready for it.
How to prepare for Black Friday:
First of all, make sure your warehouse is clean and organized. Make sure there are no boxes laying around, no shelves misaligned, and that everything is fully operational and in working order. This is the time for your warehouse to shine!
Make sure all of your equipment is fully working and if possible, try to have a back-up for each. As such, make sure that all of your forklifts, conveyor belts and all of your heavy equipment is in working order. You don’t want a nasty surprise such as not being able to access your top shelves on the big day, right?
Also, make sure you have enough staff. You can even consider hiring a few extra people just for this event. You need to have as many workers as possible to make sure that no time is wasted. Even if it might cost you a bit extra, give your workers some incentive, such as a bit of extra money or even an Amazon voucher. They will be surprised, they will enjoy it and they are sure to work harder during the big event!
More importantly, make sure you have enough stock. Take a look at your sales in the past few months and see which products have been selling best, then get some extra stock for those products. Analyze all categories of products that you sell, and make sure you have enough stock for all of them. Even if you stock up on too many products (very unlikely), don’t worry that you won’t end up selling them. With Cyber Monday coming up just a few days after Black Friday, and with Christmas coming just a few weeks later, you will more than definitely sell these products.
As such, as long as you have enough space in your warehouse, fill it, stock up with products and sell them.
Another thing to keep in mind is packaging. Be sure you have enough boxes for the big event. Stock up on all sizes of boxes and wrapping equipment. We cannot stress how important it is to have the correctly sized packages/boxes for your products. Don’t put a smartphone in a huge box, it’ll probably get destroyed on the way to the customer! Make sure you have enough boxes of all sizes.
Mark and Label Everything Clearly
During the non-chaotic times of the year, sometimes you can get away with having areas of your warehouse not clearly marked. This is because your warehouse employees have more time to find everything because there are fewer orders.
But, once Black Friday and Cyber Monday arrive, you need to make sure that all signage and labels are easy to read and understand. When things get hectic, you don’t want your employees grabbing the wrong item and shipping something to someone that they didn’t order.
Mistakes happen — especially on these days — but by clearly marking and labeling your warehouse, you can help limit them.
Also, make sure you have your inventory management system fully working. Make sure the system can cope with the huge amounts of orders you’re about to get on the big day, and use it to its full potential.
To sum up, make sure you check the following boxes:
1) Your inventory/stock is filled up to maximum
2) The warehouse is clean, organized and ready for the big event
3) All of your equipment (scanners, forklifts, conveyors) are fully working and operational
4) You have enough people and you’ve given them a bit of incentive for the amount of work they’re about to put it.
If you check all these boxes, you should be ready for Black Friday. Good luck!