In these difficult economic times, running a small business can be extremely hard work. In spite of news items suggesting that online retail sales have rocketed (Retail Gazette for example, reports that ‘online retail sales rose 16 per cent year-on-year last month (March 2013), driven by clothing sales despite the freezing weather’) you may be in the unfortunate situation where you are a small business with a small website and nothing, but nothing, is shifting.

Now it could be that there is no demand for your products currently. People will only buy what they need when their funds are low. Or it may be that you are not attracting enough sellers coming by on the off chance. You see this on the High Street, when shops close down and foot traffic slows down on the street, this eventually leads to more business failures. Well surprisingly the same thing can happen online and even on eBay. There is no reason to suppose that people will want your products particularly if there is a narrow focus to what you sell. However, you can remain within your niche and then broaden your product range, and by doing so you may actually attract new buyers who come by on the off chance and then pause to peruse your wares.

So if sales are slow, what should you for? Well one answer would be to generate a sale and see if you can stimulate some interest that way. If that doesn’t work you could look at diversifying your stock. Diversification is a corporate strategy that can be used to increase sales volume by adding new products, new lines and new markets. Diversification is all about expanding into a new segment of your chosen industry, or investing in your business but outside of the scope of what you currently do.

Just to illustrate what I mean by this; let’s assume you retail children’s clothes and you sell on eBay or a market stall. If someone is looking for a dress, then ‘girl’s dress’ is what they will type into the search engine or what they will look for on your stall. If you only sell boy’s shirts, they won’t look at your shop. If you happen to sell girls dresses, and boys’ shirts, then the chances are good that you will figure in the search results and the customer might not like your dresses but she may really like your boy’s shirts.

At the moment on Wholesale Clearance UK we have a great range of children’s products that will widen the appeal of the stock you hold. Besides our clothing, we’ve just had some really fabulous clearance job lots in. My personal favourite has to be this Billy Goats Gruff (see photo) which is part of this https://www.wholesaleclearance.co.uk/one-off-job-lot-of-171-kids-mixed-toys-accessories_3.htm Mixed Toys job lot on offer at £383.50, but with an RRP at £980.59! The really great thing about job lots such as this is the range of goods you get. This gives you the opportunity to try things out and see what sells well for you. Will it be Hello Kitty or the sunglasses? There may be items that you would never think of trying, but in a job lot, it’s worth having a go, isn’t it?

We also have these fabulous Battery Operated Mini Guitars. Now every kid can be a rock star! Don’t just sell them to boys, get the girls involved too! Remember, Beyonce asked ‘Who run the world?’ and the answer was ‘Girls!’ Speaking of which, in the job lot https://www.wholesaleclearance.co.uk/one-off-job-lot-of-73-mixed-baby-and-children-toys-and-equipment.htm there are these really super puppets. You can sell these by reminding parents that using puppets is a great way to stimulate language development in children.

By taking on one of our job lots you will be effectively diversifying your range of products and you’ll be able to see what sells well and what doesn’t. Try and keep stock ticking over by running sales every now and again if you think you’re getting stuck in a rut with your products. You never know what treasure you’re going to uncover if you try one of our job lots and let’s face it, if you’re anything like me you’re going to be having really intelligent conversations with the Indian puppet in a sari and be pretty loathe to sell her! ;-p