Black Friday…odd title for a good day for sales?

Black Friday…starting gun for Christmas. Some customers have already started.

Hello again,

Black Friday?

Now I though that this would be a bad day indeed, but from my point of view, sounds great. The first day of the Christmas Season in USA. I wonder what day we would choose in the UK as the pivotal point when customers start their Christmas shopping in earnest?

Listening to The Bottom Line on Radio 4 last week, the guests were agreeing that the Christmas buying weeks are moving back a week per year so that their customers don’t really get going until December sometime. It all seemed to me to be a self fulfilling prophesy – they all expected it to be worse and sure enough it is.

Oddly, this has not been our experience either with Consumer Shows or our Mail order business. In fact, I would say the opposite – perhaps our customers are better at planning their spend or that they have more time. I think I need a Survey to find out. In the meantime, I have just opened some more mail, with filled in order sheets for customer’s Christmas purchases. No Internet, email, twitter or Facebook involved – some even don’t have a telephone number by the look of their details and they pay by cheque.

Now I know that lodging cheques is more complicated than paying by card, but if our customer’s want to pay that way, fair enough.

Anyway, the benefit of getting orders in early is that delivery is more likely before Christmas and that, combined with very mild weather conditions, means that there is almost no delay in the Courier side of our delivery process. great news fr everyone I think.

This morning here in Argyll it is very cold, driving rain and very windy. Already we can see snow on the hills behind the town. Winter is now with us and just 1 month to go before Christmas. I’m visiting some more of our Show Distributors in the next few weeks so I hope that the roads do not get clogged up like last year. All the snow caused us and all mail order businesses a real headache in December 2010 – some of our customers are ordering 3 weeks earlier just in case. So am I as I intend to do all the Christmas purchases by the end of November – now there’ a target!

Have a great weekend. All the best. Roy Lewis

www.hebridean-liqueurs.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

Platinum Personal Trade Account – a new way to enjoy our liqueurs

Get discounted liqueurs by setting up a Trade account.

As a result of our Online Survey, which is still running, many customers asked if there was a special discount structure available for larger liqueur orders.

In response, I have now created a new Platinum Personal Trade Account. To access the amazing discounts on your liqueurs, all you need to do is prepay for £500 worth of liqueurs and then order them up, as you need them. Each order must be for at least 12 x 50cl bottles or equivalent.

In addition to fantastic discounts on all your orders, you will also receive with each order, free of charge:

  • Baby Nutty Fruit Liqueur Cake with each order – these were very popular when I first started offering them 2 years ago and we have now placed another large order for Christmas sales – you get yours FREE – this is worth £6.50 per order.
  • Miniature Display Pack  – one of these comes with each order too, containing a miniature of The Original Lakeland Liqueur, Lord Nelson’s Spiced Rum Liqueur and Hebridean Whisky Liqueur. Ideal either as a wee gift for someone or as a treat for you. FREE with each order – worth £12.
  • FREE Delivery on all orders as standard

Also:

  • Special offers on our new brands and malt whiskies – from time to time, I have access to specialist whiskies that are not generally available in shops. As a Platinum Personal Trade Account holder, you will receive special notification of new stock becoming available and be the first to have the opportunity of buying these rare, collectible and very drinkable whiskies.

In return, instead of your £500 earning 0.5% in a bank account, you will earn up to 32 % discount on the Mail Order List Price of all our products. Fantastic!

All you need to do to set up an amount is to send us either a £500 deposit cheque, or pay by debit card – this means we can pass all the Trade discount on to you rather than pay a percentage the credit card companies.

Once your account is up and running, you can order what you wish with a minimum order of 12 x 50cl bottles. You will receive your order on the day you wish it to arrive. By post or email, a Statement your account showing what you have bought and how much is left in your Account.

I have a limited number of these Platinum Personal Trade Accounts available to get one now and save up to 32% on all your liqueur and whisky orders. Once you have sent in your payment, I will send you your Platinum Personal Trade Account price list and order form – then you can get going with your first order.

Here are some of our brands, the List Price and the Platinum Personal Trade Accounts prices you pay:

Description of brand                              List           Platinum          Discount            % Discount

The Original Lakeland Liqueur 50cl   £25               £17                        £8                        32%

Hebridean Whisky Liqueur 50cl         £25               £17                        £8                        32%

Nelson’s Spiced Rum Liqueur 50cl     £25               £17                        £8                        32%

Iron Duke Brandy Liqueur 50cl           £29               £20                        £9                        31%

Shakespeare’s Whisky Liqueur 50cl    £29               £20                        £9                        31%

 

Freedom, Chaos and Adventure – Rail travel or your business?

Freedom, Chaos and Adventure – does you bsuiness deliver this to you?

Hello again,

Heard a program at the weekend all about the experience of Inter-railing in the 1970’s. I was interested, as I did it too and the summary of it was a young person having the opportunity to go on their first trip without parental supervision. Result – Freedom, Chaos and Adventure.

Perhaps your business is like this too? Is this good or bad? Depends on where you’re looking at it. To get you going in the morning, there’s nothing like some chaos and adventure to bring spice to your day. You could view that as completely crazy but one of the drivers for having your own business is that you do have some more freedom. You don’t have to report to someone and have someone as a boss telling you what to do. You decide and you have responsibility for your actions – freedom with responsibility.

Chaos – it’s trendy now to bang on about Chaos Theory but hardly anyone really knows what this means. In the context of this blog, it is the certainty that each day will bring you something new to deal with – it’s what gives you an edge. This doesn’t mean that each new issue is either good or bad – it could be neither, or both too. All this means is that, at least you do not have a dull boring job to go to each day that you hate.

Adventure – well, even if your final outcome is to sell your business for a pile of cash, you might as well have an adventure along the way. If not, why do it?

The reason I am posting this blog now is that I have just returned from 4 days in England visiting my Show Distributors. This is always a worthwhile experience and without fail, some new idea is mentioned that leads us in new and interesting directions. There’s nothing like a face to face social meeting to get the creative and chaotic side of the bsuiness buzzing again.

Have a great weekend. Roy Lewis

www.hebridean-liqueurs.co.uk