“Are we supposed to bring a gift to this thing?”
This is a question that gets asked thousands of times during the holiday season — and for many, it causes a lot of stress.
“I don’t know. Did we bring anything last year?” your partner asks in a panic.
A lot has happened since last year and neither one of you can remember.
“Let’s just bring a nice bottle of wine,” you both decide.
A simple solution to one of life’s most common dinner party problems.
If you’re a liquor store operator, that simple solution can lead to a dramatic spike in holiday sales — but only if you’re prepared to capitalize on it.
A carefully selected bottle of wine or whiskey is one of the easiest and most appreciated gifts one can give over the holiday season.
As a liquor store operator preparing for a busy holiday rush, your top priority should be to make the selection and purchase of that bottle as easy as possible.
And if you want to maximize the sales opportunity, try having a variety of upselling options close by.
In this article, we’ll explore some creative ways for you to become a holiday hero this season by helping your customers find amazing gifts for the people they care most about. We’ll also discuss how a modern liquor store POS system can assist in your holiday promotions.
The fact that it will also help boost your end-of-the-year sales is just the cherry on top…or should we say, the extra splash of rum in your eggnog.
7 Creative Ways to Increase Liquor Store Sales During the Holidays
When crafting your holiday promotional offers, there are a few important questions to keep in mind that will help you choose the best offer to implement.
The first is: does this make your customers’ lives easier?
If you can save your customers time, or help them make their gift two or three times better with minimal effort on their part, you’re on the right track.
Another question is: will this deepen your relationship with customers?
In other words, are you offering a promotion that encourages customers to return to your store throughout the year? Or to spend more time in-store when they do come back?
And finally: are you making it easy for customers to say “yes” to your offer?
If you’re able to answer yes to these questions, it’s likely you’re looking at your promotions strategy through the right lens and you’ll be able to create some irresistible offers.
Let’s take a look at some promotional ideas you could run with this holiday season.
1. Start a “Wines of the World” Wine Club
Create a monthly “Wines of the World” club where customers receive one hand-selected bottle of wine from different regions around the world for the next three, six, or 12 months.
This gives them the chance to try some amazing wines without the pressure of having to select them each month.
This is also a great promotional gift idea because it’s a gift that keeps on giving. Monthly wine clubs last long after the holiday season is over and for the person receiving the gift, it’ll create a fun moment each month when they’re notified that their wine is ready for pick-up.
Of course, to run a promotion like this, you need a POS system that can facilitate it. The Bottle POS system has a built-in loyalty program that makes this easy.
All you need to do is collect the details of the person giving (or receiving) the gift, and add them to your email or text message list. Then, once a month, send them a message with a few details about that month’s wine, and a prompt that their wine is ready for pick-up.
This promotion has the added benefit of getting all these people to return to your store each month — encouraging repeat business and deepening your customer relationship with club members.
Schedule a demo to learn how your POS can support this promotion!
2. Make Gift Bundle Purchases Easy for Customers and Staff
Having a variety of gift bundling options available for customers, while also making it easy for staff to make those sales, is of paramount importance.
For example, having wine openers, glassware, or even a book about wine available for purchase can help customers take a decent gift (a bottle of wine) to the next level (a bottle of wine with an opener and glassware).
A POS system with touchscreen options where you can add images will make it quick and easy for staff to add additional items at checkout, without slowing down the line.
With the Bottle POS system, you’ll also be able to easily monitor which upsell items are moving, and use that information to decide whether or not to order more.
3. Host Tasting Events or Cocktail Workshops
Hosting live events is a great way to deepen relationships with customers, and get them returning to your store after the holidays are over.
If you have the space, enlist a knowledgeable member of staff or local sommelier to host a wine-tasting event.
Because wine tasting can sometimes be intimidating for people, try tailoring the event toward teaching the basics of wine tasting with a “wine tasting for newbies” event.
For liquor store owners who prefer things to be more spirit-forward, why not host a cocktail workshop or whiskey tasting?
This is a great way to showcase some of your best spirits, teach customers how to make amazing cocktails at home, and get them back into your store after the holiday season is over.
If you don’t have the space to host a live event, you can approach a local bar and offer to sponsor an event hosted in their space.
Whichever event you choose, the goal should be to educate customers and deepen your relationship with them, while showcasing the amazing products your store offers.
4. Craft Beer Advent Calendar
A craft beer advent calendar is especially popular in the month of December — and it’s easy to create. Simply select 24 different craft beers and put them in a craft beer advent calendar box.
This promotion allows customers to try 24 different craft beers in the weeks leading up to Christmas, which might help them discover something new to love and encourage them to return to your store.
Bottle POS makes running this promotion extremely easy, because you don’t have to manually discount each item. Our POS system can break cases and accomplish this mix and match promotion with ease.
You could also add a custom “advent calendar” button to your POS, making it even easier for staff to ring in.
5. In-Store Gift and Bottle Wrapping
There are few holiday promotional ideas that are easier to say yes to than in-store bottle and gift wrapping, especially if you don’t consider yourself a skilled gift wrapper.
The only thing required for this promotion is someone in your store who is a confident bottle or gift wrapper. If you don’t have one, consider outsourcing the task and hire someone local to work in the store during the holidays.
Apart from that, all you need is some wrapping paper and a custom button on your POS to make this upsell quick and easy to execute.
6. Offer Discounts for Online Purchases
When you think about promotions to help your customers save time and make the purchasing process easier, being mobile-friendly is key.
Allowing customers to reserve and pay for products through your e-commerce store helps them save time — and it drives more sales.
If you think setting up an online store is an impossible task, it’s not.
The Bottle POS technical support staff makes setting up an online store extremely easy, and gives you a lot of control in terms of how you’d like your online store to operate.
Customers can shop and pay for items online, and store owners can set the delivery radius or select the pick-up-only option.
Having mobile purchasing options also makes it easy for you to run promotional deals through social media. Try offering a discount code in your Instagram or Facebook posts, redeemable only through online checkout.
Once someone checks out online, you’ll have their contact details, allowing you to offer them more deals and deepen your relationship throughout the year.
What can you do in your store to make people want to take a picture of it to share online?
That’s the question you should be asking if you want to create an organic social media moment.
There are multiple ways to accomplish this, allowing for a ton of creativity.
What if you hired a local bakery to make an incredible liquor-themed cake for display, similar to something you might see on one of those popular baking shows?
If a cake display isn’t your thing, you could hire a balloon artist, lego builder, or another type of artist to make an incredible holiday display for your store.
Once you have your display, offer a next-purchase discount to people who share the display and tag your liquor store online. This helps get the word out, and gives your customers a quick reward in exchange for the amplification.
The Bottle POS system can send an email with a discount code to the customers who shared your display online. Again, this helps get customers back into the store after the holiday promotion is over.
Are You Prepared to Increase Liquor Store Sales this Holiday Season?
Now let’s reimagine the scenario we started with at the beginning of the article, assuming you put a few of these promotional ideas into practice.
A couple is getting ready for a dinner party. They don’t have a gift to bring, and decide to pick up a nice bottle of wine on the way.
They’re tight on time and jump online to Google “liquor store near me” — and your store pops up.
Because you have an e-commerce store, the couple is able to quickly browse for products online which will save them time. Perfect!
They select the bottle of wine they want and see your upsell options. They decide to add gift wrapping and two tickets to an upcoming wine tasting event to make the gift a little more special.
They pay for their order online and decide to pick up their gift en route to the party. When they arrive at the store, there’s an incredible in-store cake display.
The clerk tells them if they share the cake display online and tag the store, they’ll get 10 percent off their next in-store purchase. Done!
They arrive at their party on time with an amazing gift in hand — all because you were able to make it easy for them to purchase, you made your offer easy to say “yes” to, and had the POS system that could facilitate the purchase with ease.
Win, win!
If you liked these promotional ideas but aren’t sure if your POS system can facilitate them, speak to one of our experts to learn more about how easy it is to upgrade your current POS system to support these types of promotions.
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