How to plan the festive season if you sell tote bags

Tote bags sit in an interesting spot. They are useful, cheap enough to buy on impulse and easy to personalise, so they show up in several kinds of buying at once. A student buys one for campus, a family buys a few as return gifts, a shop owner orders them for carrying purchases. Planning the festive season for a tote seller means thinking about each of these and working backwards from when you need stock to ship.

This post does not give you festival dates, because they move each year, or demand numbers, because you will see your own. Check a current calendar and your own past orders. What follows is the order of work.

Start with who buys in your busy weeks

List the three or four kinds of buyer you already have. For a tote seller this often includes:

• Students and clubs ordering around college events.
• Shoppers buying a bag for market trips, as a reusable alternative to plastic.
• Gift buyers who want something printed or personal.
• Small businesses or events wanting bags in a set quantity.

Each group orders at a different time and in different sizes. Gift buyers want it early, a club wants a number of identical bags, a shopper wants one. If you already take group orders, read bulk orders and lot pricing.

Work backwards from the date you want to ship

Pick the day you want stock in the hands of customers, then go backwards:

1. Last date to accept orders, leaving a few days of buffer for transit.
2. Last date to pack, which depends on how many orders you can pack in a day.
3. Last date to finish printing or stitching the bags.
4. Last date to buy plain bags, fabric, ink or thread from your supplier.
5. Last date to finalise designs.

Write each date next to each step. If any date has already passed, you know right now which step to shorten.

Decide quantities from your own history

Do not guess a number. Open your past orders and see how many totes each month moved, and which designs sold. Then decide a safe quantity for each design. For designs you are unsure about, make a small batch and keep a reorder window in mind.

A simple split: put most of the effort into the two or three designs that already sell, and treat new ones as tests. Festive season selling: a calendar for small brands shows how to lay out the calendar side.

Prepare the store before the rush

• Photograph every design flat and in use. How to photograph bags and wallets lists useful shots.
• Make sure size, material and strap length are written in the description.
• Set the right stock per design. In the Varchas admin each product has a stock count, and colours can carry their own count and photos, so a design sold in two colours does not confuse the numbers.
• Decide your cut-off message: tell shoppers up front when an order will ship.

Packing and shipping supplies

Buy mailers, poly bags and tape in advance. A shortage of tape on a busy day is a real problem. Review packing tote bags for courier safely so everyone helping you packs the same way.

After the rush

Count what is left, note which designs sold out, and write one line about what you would change. That note is the most valuable thing you will have when planning next year.

A festive plan for tote bags is not clever. It is a list of dates, worked backwards, written down early enough that you can still act on it.