Welcome back to my FREE Reselling as a Business Mini Course! I hope that you enjoyed the past 2 weeks of my mini course. I apologize for not providing you with a new topic last week as I was out of town. This week, we will be talking about consumer trends. Specifically, we will explore how to find consumer trends, how to interpret predicted consumer trends when making business decisions, and how to make more sales using consumer trends. Before we get into it, I just wanted remind you that if you missed week 1 or week 2’s discussion, you can check them out HERE and HERE. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into this week’s topic, Consumer Trends!
Week 3: Consumer Trends
In this section of the course, we will be discussing 3 topics related to consumer trends:
How to Find Consumer Trends
How to Interpret Predicted Consumer Trends
How to Make More Sales Using Consumer Trends
A) Why Do I Need to Learn Consumer Trends
As a reseller since 2013, I can tell you that consumer trends are (one of) the most important factors in the success of your reselling business. Why? Because consumer trends influence people’s buying decisions. People are coming to your closet or shop in hopes of finding items that they are actively looking for so it is imperative that those items be readily available for them. In order to figure out what these high-demand items are, you, as a seller, may need to do a little research….
B) How to Find Consumer Retail Trends
There are SO MANY FREE RESOURCES available to you when it comes to finding consumer trends. You just need to know where to look for them! Below, I want to share with you some of the many resources that you can use to find consumer trends:
Posh Parties on Poshmark- This is a great resource for resellers who are on the Poshmark app! Poshmark features Posh Parties at various times throughout the day. These parties are a great resource because the focus of each party is to focus on trending brands and categories within the app at any given moment. TIP: If you head on over to the Poshmark website on your computer, you can actually see all of the Posh Parties that have occurred within the past few weeks. This provides you with some great insight on what is popular on the app at the current moment.
Google Upcoming Season’s Fashion Trends- Each season, runway houses release new fashion collections. As a result, fashion magazines will compile a list of commonalities that occur between collections. These commonalities form the season’s “hottest trends.” Within this list are 2 types of trends: runway trends and ready-to-wear trends. Runway trends are trends that are only found within the collections released in runway collections; Ready-to-Wear trends are predicted trends that will be popular amongst everyday people and what most people will be wearing that upcoming season. Both are important to be familiar with but I would focus my attention on the ready-to-wear trends as those are the trends that your buyer will be looking for.
Use Platforms like LikeToKnow.it– This is such a great place to learn what trends are popular among consumers! LikeToKnow.it focuses on promoting items are super trendy within the influencer/blogger world. Influencers are so important in modern-day marketing and utilizing platforms like LiketoKnow.it will help you to stay up-to-date with current blogger trends. ALSO: Be sure to follow me at Recycled_Roses if you happen to join!
Ask Yourself- This one may sound silly but why not learn from your own consumer wants and patterns?! If you are searching for the perfect bathing suit right now for an upcoming vacation, odds are that other people are looking for one too! Sometimes, you can figure out overall consumer trends by analyzing your own consumer shopping patterns. If you are looking for a specific seasonal item, chances are that others are looking for it to!
Look at Your Previous Data- Looking at your data from previous years could provide you with insight on consumer patterns that are consist season to season from year to year. If swimsuits sold well for you during May and June of 2020, then there is a good chance that swimsuits will be popular again the following year.
Ask Your Audience- If you have a social media platform, why not use it?! Poll your audience and ask them what they are currently shopping for. I’m sure that they would be more than happy to provide you with that information!
**BONUS TIP: Use Retail Sites- Not a lot of resellers talk about this resource so I thought that it would be helpful to provide it to you here. Did you know that there are some hidden tools within retail sites that are actually extremely helpful in finding consumer trends?! Let’s look at the site, SheIn.com, for example. Did you know that if you hover over the search bar, you can actually see what the “hottest searches” (aka top searches) are?! SheIn is actually providing consumers with a quick and easy way to see what items are popular on their site at any given moment. Talk about helpful info!
C) Consumer Behaviors
Another topic that I think is worth quickly noting is consumer behaviors. Consumer behaviors refer to consumer shopping patterns that are occurring at any given moment. With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, global consumer behaviors changed significantly in 2020 and the impact of these changes will continue into 2021. As a reseller it is important to pay attention to these new consumer patterns as consumer behaviors will affect how people shop for items moving forward. Tip: To learn more about current consumer behaviors, do a quick Google search and you will find many articles regarding the topic.
D) I’ve Learned Consumer Trends, Now What?
Now that the hard part is out of the way, let’s talk about how we actually use this information in our businesses.
First, let’s discuss how consumer trends can affect a business seasonally. Let’s take a look at my reselling business as an example. As a rough guide, I like to try to stay 3-6 months ahead in my business practices when it comes to consumer trends. What I mean by that, is that I like to anticipate what consumer trends will be 3 to 6 months in advance. Why? Because this gives me enough time to make sure that I can source and stock my closet with the proper items in time for the upcoming season. This is especially important for me here in Florida as I have an extremely difficult time finding fall and winter items here year round. I have to shop off-season in order to ensure that I have enough in stock come time. Keeping up with consumer trends and anticipating future consumer trends, helps to set you up for better success in the future.
Next, let’s talk about how consumer trends can affect a reseller’s buying decisions. As a reseller, sourcing is probably everyone’s favorite part of the job (okay, most people’s anyway) but not all resellers approach sourcing with the same mindset. I’m not going to say that there is a right or wrong way to source because ultimately there is not. However, I will say that when it comes to sourcing, I have noticed that people go into it with 2 different mindsets: (1) I am going to purchase items to sell that I am personally attached to or (2) I am going to buy items that are going to sell regardless of whether I feel personally attached to them or not.
Both of these mindsets will probably result in sales, however, one of them will result in more sales than the other. (And I’ll let you figure that one out.) As a reseller looking to make some serious money, I would suggest taking your own personal preferences and emotions out of the equation. If your goal is to make as much money as you can, your focus should be on buying and selling items that consumers are actively looking for. The idea is that you should sell items quickly in order to recoup your investment and then reinvest your money back into new inventory, trying to repeat the cycle as many times as your can. Although you might think that an item looks cute, it doesn’t mean that it is going to sell.
With that in mind, is extremely important to do your homework when it comes to current consumer trends while sourcing. Let’s take a look at shorts, for example. I think that we can all agree that shorts are big sellers in the spring and summer months BUT within each season, certain styles are better sellers than others. For this current spring/summer 2021 fashion season, high waisted shorts are extremely popular. Therefore as a reseller, I know that I will probably have better luck selling high waisted shorts than mid rise shorts because that is what consumers are actively looking for.
E) How Can I Use This Info to Make More Sales?
At the end of the day, only you know what is best for you and your business. However, I will provide you with a few suggestions in how you can use your knowledge of consumer trends and behaviors to help you in your business:
* Focus on selling items that are “in-demand” and try to learn upcoming trends ahead of time
*Use data from shopping platforms to make more focused sales
*Focus on trends over brands
*Source items that people are actively shopping for and take emotion out of the buying process
FREEBIE
For this week’s freebie, I will be sending out a worksheet to help you organize any consumer trends that you find. Be sure to check your email for the link!
If you don’t already, be sure to check out my Instagram for more Reselling Tips at @ RecycledRosesGuide (Click HERE) and my Facebook page HERE.
You can instantly shop all of my looks by following me on the LIKEtoKNOW.it shopping app HERE.
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