Transition Between Retail Seasons Successfully

Whether or not you make a New Year’s resolution, January 1st can make anyone feel behind. Does this sound familiar?​

• You crave uninterrupted time to big-picture-plan for 2025
• You’re pumping yourself up to take a running start into Q1 — with or without a clear path 
• You will finally tackle that project you never got to

But your future self gets pulled back to face things you’re ready to move past:

• Dealing with last year’s overstock
• Wrapping up Q4
• Completing your year-end inventory count

(I’ve got my hand raised.)

We face this repeating and unsolved tension every year.

The promise of a new year — 364 days on the retail calendar — exists beyond January 1st. The promise remains even in the messy middle of Q4 rolling into Q1.

Here’s the good news. January is a transition month and you’ve got four more weeks until the retail new year!

Over the next three weeks, we’ll explore milestone action items. Use these emails to guide or supplement your planning. This week, let’s keep it simple since today might be your first “real” day back from taking time off.

🧭 Four Pillars of Merchant Method™: Focus on this before planning
📚 Merchant Skills: Discover an elegant solution
✏️ Your Assignment: Set realistic expectations for what can get done

​🧭 FOUR PILLARS OF MERCHANT METHOD
Reach your goals by focusing on your processes

This focuses on the Process pillar to help you wrap up Q4 with intention before jumping into Q1.

New to the Merchant Method or need a refresher? Get oriented.
 
📚 MERCHANT SKILLS
Addition by subtraction 
When it comes to retail operations, one of the most meaningful ways to work through Q4 (and wait well for Q1) is to organize your physical and digital work areas in order to remove potential friction before you implement your action plans.

This doesn’t need to be full-scale spring cleaning or redesigning your workflows. Think of tidying as the pre-work of seasonal transitions.

Remember, an effective space plays host to efficient and productive work.

✏️ YOUR ASSIGNMENT
Hold yourself accountable

Use a timer-based technique to work in sprints:

• Organize by putting things back in their general spaces
• Gather like items together that you can deal with later time
• Sort computer work into groups to minimize task switching

Hot Tip: Work on a task that fits in the time you’ve allotted. Too often, we expect to finish something that takes more time to complete than we’ve planned for.