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Continue your success after the holiday season by learning how to target the dollars still out there! Many online retailers will relax their sales and marketing efforts, believing that they cannot overcome the so-called post-holiday slump. However, for those retailers savvy enough to target the substantial sales still to be made, continued success can be achieved.

Here's an outline of post-holiday sales expectations, in perspective. $23 Billion Dollars. That's how much consumers spent online between November 1st and December 16th 2007. From January 1st until the end of October, consumers spent $93.6 billion. Roughly 20% of the year's online business was done in six weeks. The average for the weeks after Christmas is expected to be about $2 billion (per 2006's numbers plus the 18% increase seen over last year's numbers to date). While this is only about 60% of the holiday shopping average of $3.25 billion per week, it's still a sizable amount.

Why the post-holiday season is a great time to continue marketing efforts

The good news is: People still buy after Christmas. This is due both to retailer efforts and seasonal customer behavior.

1. Suppliers must get rid of holiday overstock. Many suppliers load up with inventory in the weeks leading up to the holiday season. They are forced to clear out excess inventory after the holiday buying rush has ended.

2. People are looking for complementary products. People bought and received a number of big ticket items over the holidays, and will be looking for the accessories that go with them. Customers who bought gaming systems look for games and controllers. Customers who bought home electronics need cables. DVD, HD, and BluRay players need DVDs, HD, and BluRay disks to play. Think about what products you can carry that complement the products you sold.

3. People receive cash as holiday presents. This is money that they now have available to spend on the big ticket items they didn't get - or products to complement the ones they did. Or, they may look for interesting products they didn't know they wanted before Christmas.

4. Hot products - the products that were in the highest demand - were invariably marked-up in price by suppliers and retailers. Those hot products are now priced to clear... or at least back to normal levels

Tips for successful post-holiday marketing

There is still a lot of money out there to be spent, but what can you do to attract the spending to your site? Here are some tips on getting started with your post-Christmas marketing.

1. Send your customers an email inviting them to return to your site. Keep in touch with your existing customer base. Let them know about any promotions your store is running. Existing customers have already purchased from you - they are more likely to buy from you now that they have had a positive shopping experience. Winning their trust means you can work on getting them to buy more.

2. Create coupons or offers that will attract business. People love a deal. For example, a reputable sandwich company just held their "Christmas Special": two six-inch subs for $6 - which looks like a good deal. Then, you look up at the menu and see that a twelve-inch sub is $5.99. While we don't recommend perpetuating false economy, this example shows how the prospect of a "deal" can motivate sales.

3. Continue to advertise and drive online traffic. Keep up your efforts. The pool of active online consumers decreases after Christmas, so you'll have to make sure your store retains visibility. In the process you'll attract the more passive, "window" shoppers. Consider using pay-per-click advertising.

4. Provide additional support for your website visitors. You have to be willing to give your customers those little extras. Sales in the post-Christmas period are more elusive than during the holiday frenzy. It will be the extras that keep customers coming to you. In addition to giving a little extra help to your visitors, adding services like Live Person's Live Call to your online store act as trust marks to consumers.

Do your research.

The information you need in order to be successful is available to you - often free of charge. You just have to look in the right places. You can pay to get industry information, or you can try out the following ideas to get that info for free.

1. Products that sell after the holidays are different than the pre-holiday best sellers. Visit as many of your competitors' sites as possible to see what they are selling. Check out the big box websites that are selling similar products to your store. Take advantage of the research that your competitors have done in their product selection.

2. Talk to friends and family. Nothing beats talking to people when you want info. Word-of-mouth puts you in touch with what consumers want.

3. eBay and Amazon both publish the best-selling products on their systems. That information is free. Have a look and be in the know.

4. Keep your eye out for seasonal products. Those miniature MLB pennants sold fairly well... but baseball season ended months ago. Keep your product line in line with seasonal variations.

5. Christmas isn't the only holiday with sales spikes. Find products that correspond to upcoming holidays. Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, 4th of July, et cetera, are all great sales opportunities.

6. Read high-level industry research. Sites like comScore.com offer raw data and interpretation of online sales trends. Visit and have a look at what the market is doing. You'll get a first-hand look at retail: Leverage that information to tweak your sales strategy. If sales numbers are in a trough Internet-wide, you know that consumers just aren't as active - so you'll have to be more active in driving sales. If online sales numbers are at a peak, and your sales are not, then you know you'll have to make some changes to your marketing tactics or your storefront (new products, more content, etc.).

Conclusion

To sum it all up: Don't stop marketing just yet. If you stop your efforts now, you're missing out on your part of the estimated $100 billion in next year's pre-Christmas online sales. Sales are an all-year event. Follow the tips above, and get active in developing your sales strategy for the New Year.

(All sales figures taken or extrapolated from http://comScore.com/)

Thomas Altamont is a Communications Analyst for Shopster.com.

Shopster.com is an industry leader in eCommerce. Shopster provides online storefront, dropshipping, and product source solutions for professional online sellers, as well as those just getting started in online retail.

Visit Shopster at http://Shopster.com/