How to sell travel products

Travel products were year-round sellers right up until the world ground to a halt in early 2020, when demand dropped through the floor instantly. That means that travel has been firmly off the cards for most of us over the past few years – and now that the world is opening back up, we’re all ready to book our seat on the plane to somewhere sunny. With those holiday dreams and bookings, come the thoughts about what we need to buy for our trips.

Since we’ve been in lockdown situations, our travel goods have been packed away in attics, lofts, and in cupboards, which leads to our holiday essentials becoming mouldy and mildewy, or simply out of date. That means that customers are looking for replacements – and they’re browsing for them ahead of their trips, to give themselves a taste of the holiday to come.

Which travel products sell well?

When it comes to deciding which types of travel products to source for your business, there is a huge range to choose from, and plenty of variation to be found within each type of product too.

Luggage

While there are some that are happy to hop on a plane with just a rucksack with a change of clothes in it, those people are few and far between – and when you’re on holiday, you want to be able to dress nicely for dinner and drinks in the evening. That means that sourcing suitcases, weekend bags, and holdalls – not forgetting sit-and-ride cases for children – is likely to end up with more sales.

It isn’t just the bags that hold our clothes for the week that customers will be looking for. On the outside of the luggage, name tags, luggage locks and straps are must-haves for security and easy identification at the carousel, and inside, organising outfits is much easier with packing cubes.

Finally, those weight limits need to be stuck to – and for those of us that have a tendency to overpack, travel scales help to keep us from needing

Travel organisation

Even though many of our tickets and travel documents are on our phones now, and we spend using our credit or debit cards, there are still many people that prefer to have document wallets, passport holders, and different coin purses for foreign currency. It is a smaller category, but worth sourcing.

PPE

Although the need for PPE due to COVID has dropped dramatically recently and fewer people are being treated for severe cases, nobody wants to get sick on their holidays – and how many times have you flown and caught a cold? Many customers will remain extra cautious to avoid all kinds of illness on their trips, and so face masks and hand sanitiser is likely to stay in demand for a while.

Tech

There are few of us that are prepared to give up our tech for our holidays – and with different voltages and socket styles, there is always demand for electrical adaptors. Source these for your range, alongside items like USB cables, battery packs, and waterproof mobile phone pouches will ensure that those add-on sales will continue to roll in from customers that want to make sure their tech is fully charged and safe.

Products for travelling

Thinking of being at the airport and on the plane, you can’t have a range of travel goods without neck support cushions and inflatable pillows. The inflatable ones might not provide the type of comfort that we would like in a tiny plane seat, but customers buy them over and over – and so keep them in your inventory to make those extra sales.

In the resort

When you’re looking at products for travel, there’s definitely always going to be a demand for beach towels, as well as swimwear, and holiday fashion. Fashion is such a huge category to source from, but when you’ve sourced the bulk of the products that customers want, you can continue to grow your range by adding flip flops, sandals, bikinis, beach cover-ups, and swimming shorts too.

Finally, family holidays simply aren’t the same without a good swim inflatable for the pool, whether it is a lilo, a giant rubber ring, a swan, or a completely different shape entirely. The profit margins on them might be small, but as add-on purchases, they are well worth having in your inventory.

Sourcing travel products for your business

If you’re already running a successful retail operation, then of course, you have the option to simply buy travel products from a supplier or wholesaler, and dispatch them from your warehouse as you usually would. But when warehouse space is at a premium, and customers demand so many more products to retain their interest, those bigger, bulkier items like suitcases and beach towels quickly start to take up room. Add to that the fact that you can rarely be certain that those items will sell – especially if they are from generic brands, rather than household names – and you might be reluctant to invest.

Bulky items, and where there’s a chance that the products won’t sell is where many businesses use DropShipping. This retail model is where retailers don’t hold any stock, but sell items that they have sourced from suppliers. When they make the sale, the retailer then pays the supplier for the item, and the supplier dispatches the order directly to the customer.

This has additional benefits for retailers too – not only does DropShipping save on warehouse space and reduce risk, but it also reduces costs. Since your team don’t have to be responsible for picking, packing, and dispatching those orders, you can use your staffing budget more effectively, and your team members can be given different tasks to do.

How to set up a business selling travel products quickly

When you know what you want to sell, then you want your business to be up and running as quickly as possible. Getting started can be time-consuming though, and for every hour that passes, you’re missing out on potential sales. When you know the category that you want to sell in, you want to source the products you need, and get your website set up immediately.

Rather than having to source your products individually, and figuring out what the right solution is for your website, together with BigCommerce, we’ve developed the Click To Launch solution to set up a web store, and source a range of products in the category you want to sell in less than 90 seconds.