Things Wineries can Do Now for a Successful Christmas

The lead up to Christmas has officially begun. With less than 100 days to go, taking the time now to get organised can have a huge impact on how smoothly your winery runs over this hectic period (as well as your personal stress levels.)

Not sure what to do to help? This quick checklist will get you started fast.

1. Plan your stock

With any luck, Christmas is the time of year that you will be able to move a lot of stock. Take the time to look at what wine you are running low on and what you have excess stock of. This will help you to plan the best promotions to drive sales while not disappointing customers.

2. Create a Holiday Gift Package

Don’t underestimate the power of this! An easy way to create one is to package together a bottle of your best selling wine and poorer selling wine. Bonus points if you include a sparkling option. You can even go ahead and add some local products or other wine related items, so make sure you order those now as well as any packaging you need.

3. Set your revenue goals

Use your historic data and your general sales results to set realistic revenue goals across all of your channels. While it is important to have a final figure, we recommend breaking down your sales for your cellar door and e-Commerce to better understand where your profits are coming from.

4. Plan your shipping dates

Talk to your chosen courier now and get their shipping deadlines over the Christmas period. This will help you create your own deadlines, allowing you to work back for your promotional calendar.

5. Create your marketing calendar

Whether you focus on sparkling wine, your Christmas hampers or a gift with purchase, take the time to plan promotions that will suit your customers as well as plot out any relevant emails, website updates and social media posts.

Extra tip: you should also consider whether you want to run promotions for Black Friday or Cyber Monday!

6. Update your website

Take the time to update any new products, Christmas promotional shots or other information that your customers will need over the period. As part of this, you should include your shipping deadlines somewhere easy for customers to find.

7. Plan your technology

Christmas is not the time to be risking your systems going down. If you’ve been having issues or are planning to upgrade, we recommend doing it now to give you plenty of time to smooth out any problems.

8. Look at your staffing

Many wineries will require additional staffing over the Christmas period. If that’s you, you should start looking to hire now to make sure you get good staff and have plenty of time for any required training. 

9. Decide on any Christmas displays

While it might not be time to put up your Christmas decorations, it is time to make sure you have everything you need! Whether it’s for promotional displays or simply for the festive spirit, organising this now will make sure you’re not in a mad rush in a few weeks.

10. Start creating your social media content

Anything that you can do to get ahead of the madness of the festive season is a good thing, so take the time to plan and create the social content you need in the coming months. If you can, you can even go ahead and schedule it to tick one thing on your to-do list.