Business

2023 Holiday Shopping Check List

christmas giftsWe created this quick checklist of a few important things that you need to know if you want to pursue online holiday selling:

  1. Review Your Previous Holiday Marketing Plans (if you had any): Take a look at what worked and what didn’t last year, and strategize what you will do this year. Did you run out of stock early? Did your costs overrun? Did your website crash?  How did your shipping and handling work out last year? Did your social media strategy help you make sales?
  2. Advertising, Marketing, and PR: How do you plan to advertise your company? Social media? Email newsletters? Are there reporters or bloggers you could contact to get holiday coverage? Are there keywords you can use on your website for better SEO?
  3. Plan Out Your Holiday Content Strategy: Now is a good time to put together a special editorial calendar for holiday-themed content.  This includes blog posts, videos, and social media content to showcase any sales, discounts, and promotions.  
  4. Create a Clear Payment & Return Policy: Make it clear on your website, preferably on the Terms of Services page, what your payment and return policies are so that customers understand what to expect.
  5. Create A Sign-Up Form On Your Website: During the holidays, your website will have a higher than average number of visitors.  No, email marketing is not dead.  In fact, customers are more likely to see your emails than your posts on Facebook!  Strategically place a sign-up form on your website to capture email opt-ins.   
  6. Make It Easier For Your Customers: Holiday shoppers are busy and will not spend a lot of time interacting with your content if they don’t find what they want.  Creating recommended or wish lists (along with special discounts) makes it easier for users to identify your products and services.  Even if they don’t actually purchase anything during the holiday season, they will remember your lists and might come back to purchase after the holidays.
  7. Three-Click Rule: Again, holiday shoppers are busy, so don’t have users go on a scavenger hunt on your website.  Reorganize your website so that users can find anything in three clicks or less.
  8. Shipping and Handling: It is a good idea to have an online fulfillment plan, especially if you are working with third-party vendors to make sure deliveries are made on time.
  9. Costs: You are doing online selling because you want to make money, not lose it.  With that said, how much will all the above objectives cost your business? Do you need to hire temporary bloggers or a web designer to support your online strategy?  Calculate your budget before embarking on such a strategy.
  10. Plan B: When all else fails, what do you do?  You need to think about the worst-case scenarios, like if your website’s server goes down, runs out of stock early, or social media gets hacked.  It is better to start thinking about these now than when it actually happens.

These are just a few steps.  If you need more help with your online holiday strategy, don’t hesitate to contact us!

Happy Selling!

Global Wire Associates

Rozzie Bound 2023 Holiday Gift Guide

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Rozzie Bound has compiled a list of 300 giftable books here that you can purchase from the store or rozziebound.com. View the gift guide here.

Things to know

  • The recommended deadlines to order books in the store or rozziebound.com:
    • Hanukkah – Saturday, November 25
    • Christmas/Kwanzaa – Saturday, December 9
  • Build and share your wish lists.
  • We will be closed on Thanksgiving day and reopen during our normal hours on Friday, November 24, 11 AM – 6 PM.
  • Small Business Saturday at Rozzie Bound – Saturday, November 25, 11 AM – 6 PM
  • We will be open late Thursday evenings on December 7, 14, and 21, 11 AM – 8 PM.

Rozzie Bound Celebrates National Co-op Month

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Rozzie Bound is Boston’s only co-operative bookstore.  Rozzie Bound Co-op, Inc. is a multi-stakeholder cooperative bookstore in Roslindale, Massachusetts.  The co-op is operated democratically by four worker-owners and is overseen by a seven-member Board of Directors.  As of September 2023, it also has over 200 consumer owners, who each purchased a share for $100. In January 2023, Rozzie Bound opened its first brick-and-mortar space at 739 South Street in the heart of Roslindale Square.  Since its opening, it has hosted 25 author events and sold over 1,300 unique book titles.  In October, Rozzie Bound asks community members to show their support by shopping at the store or on its website, attending store events, and becoming consumer owners.

August/September 2023 @RozzieBound Events

Book Ambassador: Adriel Klein
Friday, August 25, 4:30-6 PM
Rozzie Bound
Adriel Klein will sign copies of his new book, Harnessing Tailwind, which is about a cross-country trip he did on his bicycle. Adriel Klein is a software engineer, devoted cyclist, and podcast host. His love for cycling has led him to ride his bike across thirty of the fifty United States. When not writing books, coding, riding a bike, or practicing calisthenics, Adriel enjoys spending time exploring the great outdoors, learning foreign languages, and reading great works of nonfiction to learn from the journeys of others. Co-sponsored by The Friends of the Roslindale Branch.

Book Signing: Grace Talusan
Saturday, September 16, 1:30-3 PM
Rozzie Bound
Grace Talusan will sign her new book, Filipinos in Greater Boston, which she wrote the introduction to, and her memoir, The Body Papers, winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction. The NEA, the Fulbright, US Artists, the Brother Thomas Fund, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council have supported her writing. She teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program at Brown University.

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