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