Now that the holidays are over, this becomes the time that many retailers dread because there is usually a significant drop off in sales, both online and off. It can be a major challenge to entice customers to spend money shopping after all they spent over the holidays. But this doesn’t mean that there aren’t things you can do right now to help your business and/or your website and plan for the year ahead. So here are 7 Business Tips to help you start the year off on the right retail foot.

1. INVENTORY: This is a great time to tally up your business Inventory and analyze what your best selling products or services were. This is an ideal way to help you gauge and plan your inventory for the year ahead. If you have things that didn’t sell well, mark them down and get rid of them. And for things that sold really well, now is the time to make sure you have adequate stock on hand. Use your Inventory as a tool to help you avoid products that didn’t bring in sales, and to help you optimize the ones that did well for you.
2. TAX PREPARATION: Nobody likes or enjoys tax time (at least nobody that I know). But during the slow post-holiday retail period is the best time to plan for tax time. Gather your receipts, bank statements, expense sheets, and anything else you might need to get a productive start on your business taxes.
3. ADVERTISING: You need to advertise to bring in traffic and sales, especially during off peak times such as this. So analyze which advertising avenues worked best for you in the last year, and which ones you might need to improve upon in the coming year. And start planning your first quarter advertising strategies now.
4. SEO: This is the perfect time of year to analyze your website and/or blog’s SEO efforts and see if you are on target for the months ahead. Optimize your website so you are getting the best results possible with the Search Engines. For a little extra help, be sure to read our recent post called Title Tags: Make the First Word Count. Also check out our SEO 101 page, and our Meta Tags page. And don’t overlook our Link Building information either.
5. SALES: If you sell seasonal/holiday products you’ll likely be marking all those products down in hopes of moving out that inventory to make room for new merchandise. But be sure not to overdo it and mark down too many other things. Discounts are great incentives for getting website traffic, but too many this time of year can seriously hurt your bottom line. So just don’t go overboard on the discounts.
6. NEW PRODUCTS: Now is the time to add new inventory and/or services to your website or store. But, of course, the challenge is in deciding what and how much to buy, or make, as the case may be. We all feel the pinch after the holidays, so the best thing to do is set a budget for yourself and stick to it. But customers want to see new products, what type of store you have, so make sure you have something new to offer them when they pop by.
7. CLEAN UP: If you’re like me, your office or work space is a mess this time of year. I tend to let things go at the end of the year, until the holidays are over. So now is a great time to clean up your office, work space, studio, or craft room (or all of the above!). Clean up and get organized while you  have a little lull in sales, and you’ll be starting the year off right.

I hope these tips will help you start your new year off right for you and your business…7 things anyone with an online business can do to help get on track for the year ahead.

Please click on the magazine cover image if you’re interested and it will take you to the download page of the current issue. This will be my last feature article for Creative Times. I’ve enjoyed writing their business column for the last couple of years, but I’m just in need of lightening my load a bit. So I decided to stop writing the column. Will still keep reading the magazine though, because I was a reader long before I started writing for CT.

There are topics ranging from Protecting your Customers’ Privacy, to Collecting Sales Tax over the Internet, Selling Internationally, Online Advertising, and Digital Rights/Copyright information (they also have downloadable PDF versions of many of their articles). These are all important topics to familiarize yourself with as an online business owner.

We already have a link to the Business.gov site on our Small Business Resources page. But we’ll be adding the link above to their Online Business page on our resources page,  so you’ll have it for future reference.

If you have questions, or have some other information you’d like me to include, just drop me a line!

Hope you all enjoy the start of Fall as much as I will. It’s my favorite season!

* The “We’re Open, Show Me the Money” Syndrome: If you think that simply opening an online store is going to have money rolling into your bank account, you’re only fooling yourself. It just doesn’t work that way. Sadly, too many would-be business owners think that’s all there is to it. What do you have to offer your customers that the other stores do not? What is going to get the customer to your store rather than someone else’s? What sets your store apart? If you can’t answer these questions, you have a little work to do.

* Lack of Marketing: Just because your site is open, it doesn’t mean customers can find you. Launching your online store simply means you exist and you’re open for business. Now the REAL job begins: marketing.

* Only Offering Pay Pal as a Means of Credit Card Payments: Pay Pal is a great, convenient payment service, but if it’s the only means you offer for accepting credit card payments, then you’re going to lose out on lots of potential sales. A lot of folks simply do not trust Pay Pal, even though it’s far more secure for them to keep their credit card information on file there, in one secure location, than to enter it into a multitude of sites all over the Internet as they shop. For some reason though, many people do not want to use Pay Pal. What I can attest to is that my sales more than doubled when I acquired a merchant account for processing credit card payments. And after over a year of having the merchant account, more than 90% of my sales are paid for via credit card through that account. And many other primitive business owners that I know have had similar experiences with regard to Pay Pal and merchant accounts.

* Your Website is Confusing or Difficult to Navigate: People will leave your site if it’s too difficult to get around or find things. Your category links and menus should be organized in a logical manner that is easy to navigate. Ordering Info and Products should be easy to locate. And your shopping cart should be easy to use.

* Your Website is Full of Typos and/or Grammatical Errors: If you can’t spell, find someone who can to proofread your site’s content. I personally exit a site quickly quickly when it’s full of errors. These kinds of mistakes make you look unprofessional and lazy…and how is that going to entice shoppers to make a purchase?

* Too Many Bells and Whistles: The best way to annoy your shoppers is to provide cursor trailers, music, slideshows, talking characters, excessive blinking or scrolling text, or any combination thereof. You really don’t need all the bells and whistles…and your products should speak for themselves.

* Too Much Unscannable Text on the Home Page or Too Many Banners and Ads: Text should be scannable on your home page–that is, easily scanned for key content and words. People aren’t going to your online store to read a book (you can create a blog for that), so the focus should be on your products. If you want to offer articles and such, that’s great. But put them on a separate page instead of bombarding the shopper with information on the home page. And avoid all the ads and clickable images on the home page that lead to other folks’ sites. Do you really want to send your customers to other folks’ websites so quickly?

* Inadequate Product Descriptions: Many folks leave out important information about their products. Give as much information as you can, and don’t forget to include dimensions/sizes, as photos don’t always reflect the actual size of the products.

*Ever-Changing Graphics: Maintaining your site’s recognition factor is an important part of establishing your identity and/or brand. If you change your web graphics or look too often, you are lessening that recognition factor you want your customers to have. The biggest change to avoid is the change that is done with each season; this is considered too excessive.

* Poor Quality Photographs: Customers need to see clear, crisp product photos. Invest in a good digital camera and learn how to use it. Then Google yourself a search on how to take quality photographs!

* Photos That are Too Large in File Size: If the file size of your photos is too large, it slows down the page load time on your site. The more photos you have, the longer it can take the pages to load. And for the customers who are still on dial-up (they ARE out there!), you are simply inviting them to leave as they grow impatient waiting for your site to load. So optimize every single one of your images before uploading them to your website.

*Lack of SEO: If you don’t know what SEO means, then you’re already at a huge disadvantage. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and this involves everything you must do to optimize your website to enable the search engines to find you and include you in their index. There is a lot involved in SEO.

* Impatience (Giving Up Too Soon): Creating a successful online business, as with ANY business, does not happen overnight. It takes hard work, and lots of it! It can take 2-3 years in business before you even turn a profit. Giving up too soon is often the result of ignorance about what is really involved in creating a successful online business. So educate yourself as much as you can in this regard.

These are just some of the reasons why online businesses fail. There are, of course, others. But hopefully these can offer some insights that can help guide you on the path to success in the primitive business world.