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In recent articles I have focused on getting your retail shop ready for spring. This is an excellent time to run clearance sales because your customers are clearing stuff out of their homes. That means they are making space for new stuff and hunting for great deals. So you too can run your version of spring cleaning with a major clearance sale.

While I have talked a bit about setting up retail store displays for clearance sales and creative retail window display units for spring, I have not delved all that much into ideas for actual clearance sales. You might think that a clearance sale just means “Everything in the store today is 30% to 60% off,” but this doesn’t necessarily grab attention. A lot of other stores competing with yours are also running similar clearance sales, and you need to do something creative to stand out from the bunch.

So here are some ideas for running successful and creative clearance sales this spring:

• Do a complete makeover of your store’s layout. Give your store a different look and feel. If there are areas of unwanted congestion, look for ways to make traffic flow. At the same time, see if you can use those pathways to create congestion where you want it, at the store display racks for your clearance sale items. You may be surprised what a difference it makes simply to rearrange your store; this can generate interest, because buyers suddenly notice shelves and racks that they might usually ignore.

• Take advantage of obscure holidays. For example, did you know that May is National Bike Month? If you run a retail store that sells bikes, take advantage of that fact. Week 2 in May is Wildflower Week—perfect for running sales if you run a garden shop. May 3rd is National Teachers Day; if your store sells office and school supplies, you can organize a clearance sale around that. On that note, Week 3 of April is Organize Your Files Week—another great opportunity if you happen to sell organizing supplies for the office. Believe it or not, in the same industry, you can also take advantage of International Juggler’s Day, since this day also recognizes and celebrates office multi-taskers!

• Increase the discount amount every day or week for the duration of the clearance sale. This can generate excitement as well as a sense of urgency. People want to snag the biggest discount, but they also know if you keep raising the discounts, it becomes more and more likely that buyers will swarm your store and snap up everything good before they get there. So you will still get a lot of sales early on when you use this method and advertise it effectively.

All of these ideas for running clearance sales can help to draw attention to the products that you want to fly off your shelves as quickly as possible. But these are not the only tactics that you can use. Be sure to check out Part 2 for even more creative clearance sale ideas.