Christmas and Hanukkah have their own unique products and holiday decorations. If customers shop at your bakery to find their holiday gifts and fill entertainment needs, they’ll appreciate good product visibility and selling support. For example, you can usually find Hanukkah gift wrap, stickers, tissue hangings and menorahs in wholesale party good stores.

Unlike most traditional bakeries, DEERFIELDS employs a good deal of self-service displays. You can too, to make a dual-merchandising task a bit easier. Standard metal shelving can house an entire Hanukkah display, and can be placed in one section of the store and stocked with prepackaged holiday items. Decorated signage, featuring menorahs (a nine branched candelabrum), dreidls (four-sided tops), and six-pointed stars of David, can help lure Hanukkah shoppers to that section, and really create a special place for their holiday goods.

Because the Hanukkah period lasts eight days, it might behoove you to create some unique “house specialties” for gift-giving. Speaking of houses, my husband’s son, Kurt, has had success with Hanukkah houses, a counterpart to our traditional chocolate chip cookie houses. These whimsical Hanukkah houses are made of chocolate chip cookie bars or rocky road chocolate bars, and are adorned with gilted gold, menorahs and dreidls. After overwrapping them in clear plastic and tying them with a blue, white or yellow bow, we place the houses in every possible high location in the store to add real pizzazz to the store.

Consider making fancy Hanukkah pastries, such as menorah petit fours, and dreidl cookies and brownies. Place prepackaged pastries at your registers as a point-of purchase item.

Advertising a dual-holiday promotion is an integral part of any successful merchandising program and may take many forms: a telephone answering machine with recorded messages, newspaper ads, radio spots, in-store videos, etc. Whatever media mix you employ, remember to parallel-promote both holiday menus to Christmas and Hanukkah customers. If you’ve made the production effort, you need to make the same advertising/merchandising effort.

But whether or not December’s holiday dichotomy presents a new dimension in merchandising for you, just remember the best angle to approach any uncertainty is the try-angle.

Season’s greetings to all!

Each year, you’ve probably used your calendars to coordinate your holiday baking schedule for the year ahead. So, advanced planning for production volume is nothing new.

However, merchandising the store can sometimes by tricky, especially when holidays overlap. When two baking holidays converge, as Christmas and Hanukkah often do, you’re challenged by the important task of prioritizing merchandising, as well as doubling your overall creative approach.

In many ethnically mixed communities, the Christmas-Hanukkah overlap may not appear to be a significant problem. Yet it might be worth your time to consider the potential such convergence offers December sales. Instead of regarding extra planning as “double trouble,” try thinking of it as “higher profits.” You’ll find yourself anticipating those selling challenges.

This December, you’re getting a break because hanukkan falls at the beginning of the month. And, the holiday ends early, allowing plenty of time to create a grand Christmas promotion. Still, if you want to capitalize on this selling opportunity, as DEERFIELDS is doing, plan to take down Thanksgiving decorations on Friday, and be ready to dazzle your public with an exciting Hanukkahcampaign. After the first two or three days, Hanukkah will gradually lead into Christmas. Since Hanukkah runs eight days, it will end on December 9.

To capitalize on this extra selling opportunity, carefully plan your promotional calendar to allow for a quick and dramatic transition from autumn to Hanukkah, then to Christmas.

To help our customers, we distribute holiday menus at the registers. This year, two separate menus will be available immediately after Thanksgiving, early enough to let party planners and gift-givers see what’s available throughout the entire month of December. We’ve found menus to be invaluable selling tools because they greatly reduce telephone inquiries, and provide customers time to plan their purchases.