Now, while the summer is coming to an end, is the best time to start planning for holiday and 4th quarter sales.
If you had a chance to opt into the CreativeLive classes on Improving Your Holiday Sales, you got a good overview on lots of different topics and tips.
NOTE: It is not too late to check out the classes that are scheduled NOW through Friday, August 21.
In the meantime, this is the time to start working with your retail buyers. Holiday wholesaling starts right after Labor Day. 
Having new products in line for wholesale buyers as well as plenty of stock on hand is critically during this time. (Retail sales kick off after Halloween with the biggest start during the Thanksgiving weekend! We are pretty busy non-stop from Thanksgiving to about 4 days before Christmas with our Tastes of Idaho store.)
Here are some tips to help you along:
- Set goals on how much you plan to make during the 4th quarter. Be as specific as you can, so you will be able to measure what you actually sold by the end of the year. Then, break down your sales goals by month and keep track of your progress.
- Call your best customers. Your wholesale buyers are already thinking, budgeting and checking out new items for the holiday season. Get in touch to share your new items and/or make sure they have plenty of inventory ordered throughout the 4th quarter.
- Touch base with your hot prospects. If you had buyers who were interested in your products, but have not bought yet, this is a good time to reconnect to close a sale.
- Think “gift packages.” Bundling products into gift boxes or baskets work well for the holiday season
- Don’t Wait until November to start contacting your wholesale accounts. Hit the ground running now later than Labor Day to contact, advertise, increase your email marketing, check up on old accounts or connect with new retail buyers!
Late summer is also a good time to take a look at your website and see if it needs tweaking or updating. Your retail site needs to be set up and operational by early November when the early-bird shoppers are online looking for new gift ideas.
If you are looking to set up an ecommerce website for the first time, may I suggest . We currently have one site on (Gem Berry Products) and are in the processes of setting up another. We plan to transfer all our ecommerce sites to !