How to Make Profit in Off Season
?Introduction
- Do you run a seasonal business?
- Are you unable to run your seasonal business during off season?
- Do you know how to make profit in off season?
Ice cream, cold/hot drinks, woolen cloths, summer clothes, agro products, tourism, firecrackers, and colors are among those businesses, which are either fully seasonal or semi-seasonal.
Such products or services are sold only during one particular period or season, while the rest of the time, sales of these products drop so much that merchants find it difficult to cover even their operational cost.
If you are also running a seasonal business, then let’s find out the answer to how to make profit in off season through following ways:
Tip #1: Go Where the Season is
It is the first tip of how to make profit in off season. It means think geographically. Select those places for your business where the demand for that product is, or where you can sell more products.
Example:
A merchant running a business of woolen cloths will find difficult to sell his products during the summer season. He can ’explore hilly places’ to sell his products where there are ’winters for an extended period’.
Seasonal businesses can also be extended by giving off season promotions and schemes to attract consumers before and after the season.
| If your business Season is Diwali (Business Period - 1 week) | If your business Season is Winters (Woolen clothes) (Business Period - 4 Months) |
| You can extend your period by giving off season promotions like Pre-Diwali offers. | Add 2 months pre-winter season. |
| You can extend your period post-Diwali offers. | Add 2 months post-winter season. |
| Extend your season for 2-3 months before and after Diwali. | Bring some schemes in pre and post-season months to attract customers |
By extending your business season you can increase the size of your business even during offseason.
Tip #3: Contract Manufacturing/Channel Partner
Instead of selling your products with a small brand name and limited reach or customer base, you can make a deal with big brands to sell your products even during off-season through a heavy dose of branding.
It is one of the tips on how to make profit in offseason.
? Contact with Big brands to sell your products with their brand name.
? Build business partners in locations where you don’t have to reach.
Tip #4: Serve Other Industries
Even during off-season you can explore the opportunity to sell your products to different industries by creating market demand through marketing and sales strategies.
Don’t depend only on one Sector or Season to sell your products.
The below example will tell you how to bring customers in offseason of your business.
Example:
A cracker manufacturer, apart from Diwali season, can sell crackers to event organizers, wedding planners, national festivals and other celebrations.
A cracker manufacturer, apart from Diwali season, can sell crackers to event organizers, wedding planners, national festivals and other celebrations.
Tip #5: Stay on the Top of your Customer’s Mind
Through various marketing and branding strategies, you can influence customer’s minds during the off-season to increase sales.
Make optimum use of ’guerrilla marketing’ to stay on top of customer’s mind via Social Media, Print Media, TV/Radio Ads, and Hoarding/Billboards.
Tip #6: Build a Referral and a Loyalty Program
There are some businesses that run during some specific period or season and remain saturated during the rest of the time such as Aviation, Hospitality, and Tourism, etc.
During the summer season, hotels in hill stations get maximum customers, while their business remains saturated during other seasons.
To know how to make profit in off-season, you should:
? Build loyalty with your past & existing customers
? Give them attractive offers and deals through various mediums
? Try to get the reference of new customers from existing customers
Tip #7: Add Complimentary Freebies Product or Service
Instead of giving discounts during off-season, you can give your customers off-season promotions schemes like ’small freebies along with the main product’ to increase your sales.
You can give exciting offers to your customers like free home delivery, gift & voucher, and extended warranty, etc. These are some of the offseason promotions techniques.
Tip #8: Focus on What You can’t do During the Season TimeDuring business season, since you remain too busy with customers and vendors in selling and buying products that you hardly get time to focus on other activities which can increase your sales and stop leakages.
However, you can perform such activities during off season to increase your sales in the upcoming season.
To know how to make profit in off season, you can focus on below given things:
? Build a low-cost infrastructure
? Reduce purchasing cost
? Create web/digital infrastructure
? Build a digital marketing team
? Hire and train better manpower
Tip #9: Build a New Product Line Specifically for Off-Season
You can also bring required changes in your product as per customer’s demand to sell it during the off-season to keep your recurring revenue from fluctuating.
Example:
A manufacturer of blazer can design a light waistcoat which can be sold even in the summer season.
A manufacturer of blazer can design a light waistcoat which can be sold even in the summer season.
Tip #10: Money Saved is also Money Earned
When there is a slowdown in your sales during off-season, you can work on implementing new ideas to reduce your operational cost by a leakage management system.
It is another tip to how to make profit in offseason.
You can reduce your operational cost during off-season by changing:
? Supply chain
? Hiring contractual staff
? Changing vendor
’Business can be seasonal but commitment should not be seasonal’