Ensure You Get a Little Love, Too

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It’s that time again; time to break out the hearts, the chocolates and the flowers. Lovers will soon be buying gifts for their sweeties.

According to researcher IBISWorld, Valentine’s Day sales should be a little sweeter for sellers this year, as sales for the holiday are expected to increase by 5 percent.

Valentine shoppers last year spent an average of $116.21 on flowers, cards, jewelry and other gifts to romance the special people in their lives. Candy and clothing were among the top gifts, and they’ll likely be top gifts this year as well, notes Auctiva Product Analyst and eBay seller Rebecca Miller.

If you have these or other romantic items to offer, now is the time to get them prepped to make sure you get a little love, too, this Valentine’s Day. To best position items to make the most sales, we’ve come up with a few strategies you can enlist to entice lovers to buy from you.

Suggest gifts. We all know how hard it can be to find the right gift for others—especially when it’s that special someone—so make shopping easier on your buyers by helping them find the right gifts. You can do this by suggesting gifts, that is, by compiling a list of the top gifts for Valentine’s Day. You can keep it simple by coming up with two gift lists: top gifts for him and top gifts for her. Or you can expand your suggestions to include top gifts for mom, dad, wives, husbands, daughters, etc.

Dust off those holiday leftovers. If you’re unsure of what to offer, look back through the leftovers you have from the holidays. Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to clear out any romantic items that might not have sold for Christmas. Good V-Day gifts include perfumes, slippers, candy, relaxing robes, cookbooks and other items that will make a person feel warm on the inside. If you don’t have these in stock, you can often find these and other inexpensive gifts at local discount stores.

Add a little romance to your store or listings. It’s also good practice to remind shoppers that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner by adding an appropriate template to your listings, or even posting a countdown to the holiday on your Web store. This will remind them, while they’re looking at your listings, that they need to get their shopping done!

Offer free gift wrapping. If you’ve been selling online for some time, you know that several of the people who will stop by your store or listings will be last-minute buyers, who may not have time to wrap their gifts for their special somebody. So why not be a lifesaver by letting buyers know that they need not worry, you’ll take care of the wrapping for them?

Offer V-Day deals. Lastly, a holiday is always a great opportunity to have a promotion. This could be a Valentine’s Day sale, or a 10-percent-off coupon you’ll give buyers on Valentine’s Day if they buy from you. The latter won’t cost you much, and if you let buyers know about the promotion via mailing lists, social media, your listing and/or store, you could draw in tons of buyers.

These are just a few strategies that may prove helpful this February. What strategies are you going to use this Valentine’s Day to entice buyers to visit your store or listings? Let us know in the comments below.