Golf Cart Holiday Sale: Running a Christmas Promotion Without Giving Away the Margin

A golf cart holiday sale is a short list of carts, an offer built from things that cost you less than a discount, and a delivery date you can promise. That is the whole promotion. You pick the carts, put a bow on each one, add a spring service and a few accessories, and tell your list twice before the 24th.

The margin stays in the deal. The buyer still feels like she got something. And on Christmas morning a cart rolls off your trailer while the whole street watches.

Who buys a golf cart in December?

A gift buyer. Not the man who has been kicking tires on your lot since June.

Picture the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. 9 p.m. A wife is on the couch with her phone. Her husband has talked about a cart for two years. He brought it up again at Thanksgiving dinner and her dad said “just get the thing.” So now she is typing “golf cart dealer near me” and looking at photos of carts she cannot tell apart.

She wants to know three things: can it be here by Christmas, can she keep it a secret, and is this the one he would have picked.

A price war is for the June buyer who knows what everything costs. A Christmas golf cart promotion is for someone who would rather pay full price and be sure.

What does the gift buyer need when she is not the one driving?

She needs you to ask the questions he would have asked.

The June buyer sits in three carts. The December buyer cannot, because the whole point is that he does not know. So she is guessing. Take the guessing away:

• Who drives it most? Him, the kids, the grandparents.
• Where does it go? The neighborhood, the lake road, the back field.
• How many ride at once? That decides four seats or six.
• Has he ever pointed at one? A color, a lifted cart at a neighbor’s house. That answer often picks the cart.

Then point her to one or two carts on the holiday list, not ten. Ten choices make a nervous gift buyer go quiet. Two make her pick.

Take away her one fear, that he will not like it. Offer to swap an accessory in January. It costs a little shop time in a slow month and it lets her say yes tonight. The questions a first-time buyer asks are close to the gift buyer’s, and the answers are in first time golf cart buyer questions.

Which carts go in a golf cart holiday sale?

Not the whole board. Six to ten carts, picked on purpose.

The aged units. Walk the back row. The four-seater that has been on the lot since spring. The color that did not move. The clean trade-in nobody asks about. The December buyer does not know it has been sitting. She sees a cart with a bow. If you keep an aged list the way golf cart dealer inventory management lays out, the holiday list writes itself from the top of it.

The carts that look like a gift in a photo. A red or white cart with a big red bow looks like Christmas. A lifted six-seater with a bow looks like the best gift on the street. Some carts look like a gift and some look like equipment. Pick the gifts, because the photo is the ad.

Leave the rest of the board alone. Your best-selling new units do not need a bow.

When the six are gone, the sale is over. That is the honest way to say “while they last.”

What do you offer instead of a discount?

Things that cost you less than the discount would, and feel like more.

A buyer forgets a price cut by New Year’s. She remembers the bow, the cooler, and the tech who came back in April:

• Accessories bundled in. A rear seat kit, a windshield, a cooler, lights. You buy them at your cost. She sees them at retail.
• A full detail. Your guys do it anyway. Now it is part of the offer.
• Delivery on the date she picks. The 23rd after dark. The 24th at 7 a.m. before the kids are up. Free delivery is a discount you were going to eat anyway. Delivery on the exact date she needs is a gift.
• A spring service. One visit in March or April for batteries and tires. It costs a tech’s morning in a quiet month and puts the cart back in front of you when the accessory wall is stocked.
• A bow and a card. It is the thing in the photo.

Made-up math: say a cart is priced at $9,500. Every dollar you knock off comes out of the margin. Bundle in accessories at your cost and a morning of tech time, and she reads it as a bigger gift than the money. The price did not move, so the February buyer does not ask why it went up.

A price cut teaches your market that your carts are cheaper in December. A bundle teaches your market that you do something nice at Christmas. Only one of those is a problem in January.

If you offer financing, put the button on the cart page and keep terms out of the ad. How that piece and the warranty fit is in golf cart dealer financing and warranty.

When does the holiday calendar start and end?

Two windows, and a delivery cutoff you say out loud.

Black Friday weekend. Thursday night through Cyber Monday. Your Black Friday golf cart deals are the holiday list, live on the site with a bow on every photo, by the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The list has to be there when she looks Thursday night.

The two weeks before Christmas. Roughly the 10th through the 23rd. The people who meant to decide on Black Friday and did not, and the people who just found out what their spouse wants. This is where the delivery date does the selling.

The delivery cutoff. Say the 20th. Every cart ordered by the 20th is delivered by the 24th. Say it on the cart page, in the email, in the text, in the ad. It gives the gift buyer a reason to stop thinking and text you, and it saves your driver from a Christmas Eve with nine stops.

This is also when a dealership in a cold state feels the slow season coming on, and the holiday list fills the delivery calendar anyway.

How does the holiday push fit inside the rest of your year?

It is one block on the calendar, not a scramble in November.

The store that remembers on the Monday before Thanksgiving posts the list after the couch shoppers already looked. Pencil it in instead:

1. October. Order the bows and the accessories. Start the aged list.
2. Early November. Pick the carts. Detail them. Shoot the photos.
3. Wednesday before Thanksgiving. List live, first email out.
4. December. Second email, texts, deliveries.
5. January. Follow-up, spring services booked, list down.

A year laid out by month is in golf cart dealer marketing plan.

What do the holiday email and text say?

Two emails, two texts, all short, all from a person.

Your list is every buyer you have sold, every lead that never bought, and every service customer. Watch the lead who never bought. She priced a cart in July and the husband said “maybe next year.” It is next year. Building the list is covered in golf cart dealer email marketing.

Email one. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Subject: Six carts, a bow on each one, delivered before the 24th

Hey, it is NAME at YOUR STORE. We pulled six carts off the lot for Christmas. Each one comes with a bow, a full detail, accessories, and a spring service in April. Order by the 20th and it is in your driveway before the 24th, after dark if it is a surprise. The six are here, with photos and prices. Text me and I will tell you which one I would pick.

Email two. Around December 10th.

Subject: Three left, and the 20th is the cutoff

Three of the six Christmas carts are spoken for. The other three are here. Order by the 20th and we deliver by the 24th, on the day and time you want. Need to hide it until morning? Ask me how.

Text one. Black Friday morning, to last year’s leads.

Hey, it is NAME at YOUR STORE. You looked at a cart with us this summer. We have six set up as Christmas gifts with a bow and delivery before the 24th. Want the one closest to what you were looking at?

Text two. Around the 15th, to anyone who did not reply.

Hey, NAME again. Cutoff for Christmas delivery is the 20th. Two carts left. Want the link?

No countdown timers, no five emails in a week. The rest is in golf cart dealer text message marketing.

What do the holiday ad and the cart page look like?

One ad, one photo, one line. And a cart page that answers the gift buyer’s three questions before she asks them.

The ad. One cart from the list, bow on it, in a driveway with a wreath on the door. “Christmas cart. Bow included. Delivered before the 24th. Order by the 20th.” The button goes to that cart’s page, not your homepage. Swap the photo when that cart sells. The setup is in Facebook ads for golf cart dealers, and the driveway angle is one of the golf cart Facebook ad examples.

The cart page. This is where the December buyer decides, at night, alone. Every cart on the list gets its own page with:

• The bow photo first, then eight or ten regular photos. She cannot judge the cart, so she judges the photos. How to shoot them is in how to photograph golf carts for sale.
• The price, in plain text.
• A line near the top: “Ready for delivery before the 24th. Order by the 20th. We deliver after dark.”
• What comes with it: bow, detail, each accessory by name, spring service.
• One way to ask about this exact cart, with a real person’s name on it.

The wife on the couch will not call at 9 p.m. She will read the page twice and text “is the white one still available” at 9:40. If the cart is a thumbnail with “call for price,” she finds the dealer who has a page.

A site where every cart has its own page, kept current from a phone, is an online showroom. December is the month it earns its keep, because the buyer cannot come by.

How do you answer the gift buyer and close the sale?

Fast, by name, and with a date.

The 9:40 text gets an answer that night if anyone is on, or at 8 a.m. before she leaves for work. “Yes, the white one is still here. It comes with the bow, the detail, the rear seat and the spring service. When do you want it in the driveway?”

You are not asking if she wants it. You are asking when.

Some gift buyers call. Thursday, 4:50 p.m., from the school pickup line, talking low so the kids do not hear. Pick up on the second ring. Do not put her on hold to check if the cart is there. Tape the holiday list by the phone: sold, held, open. The full call is in golf cart phone sales.

She does not want a negotiation. She wants someone to tell her it is the right cart. Use her answers: “You said he takes four grandkids to the lake. That is the six-seater. That is the one I would pick.” Then ask for the date and the deposit in the same breath. More on that in how to close a golf cart sale.

How do you hold a cart for a holiday delivery?

Take a deposit, tag the cart, and write it down where the whole store can see it.

She orders December 2nd for the 24th. For three weeks that cart sits on your lot with her name on it. Someone sells it again, the shop pulls a seat, or the battery is dead when the trailer shows up. Stop all three that day:

• Mark it held on the cart page. Do not take the page down. A held cart with a bow tells the next buyer the list is real.
• Tag it on the lot. Her name, the date, “do not move, do not strip.”
• Fill in the delivery board. Date, time, address, gate code, where to hide it.
• Write down her cell. Not the house phone. A confirmation call that reaches him ruins the surprise.
• Put it on the charge list for the week of delivery.

Repeat the date back when you take the money and send it to her in writing that day. The rest is in golf cart deposit.

How do you make Christmas morning the ad for next year?

By treating the delivery like the main event, because to the buyer it is.

The trailer pulls up at 7:15 a.m. on the 25th, your driver in a Santa hat if he will wear one, and a white four-seater with a red bow rolls down the ramp. The husband comes out in his robe. The kids are screaming. Three neighbors are on their porches with coffee. Somebody’s phone is already up.

That is the photo. Not the one you staged in front of the showroom. The one the wife posts and the neighbor sends to the family group chat. That is golf cart dealer holiday marketing in one picture. It cost you a bow.

The delivery still has to go right. Your driver carries a short list: charged, detailed, accessories working, bow tied, card in the seat, two minutes with the new driver on charging and who to call. The full handoff is in golf cart delivery checklist.

Make the photo easy:

• At deposit, ask: “Christmas morning, Christmas Eve after dark, or a day you pick?”
• Before delivery, ask if she will send a photo or if your driver can take one.
• Post the driveway photos, one a day, from the 26th on. How is in golf cart dealer social media.

Why every sale should end with one is in golf cart delivery photo. Each one is next year’s ad.

What happens December 26 to January?

The list comes down, the photos go up, and you go back to the buyers who did not buy.

December 26 to 31. Take the holiday list off the site or mark every cart sold. A holiday sale still up on New Year’s Day looks like nobody is running the store. Send one email: six driveway photos and one line, “We have carts ready for the season.”

The first two weeks of January. Text every holiday lead who went quiet. “Hey, it is NAME. Hope Christmas went well. We still have a couple of carts ready if he is still thinking about it.” A buyer talked out of it in December can get talked back into it when the relatives leave.

The rest of January. Book every holiday buyer’s spring service on the April calendar.

Then run a small open house in late January or February and invite the holiday buyers to bring the neighbors who watched the delivery. What comes after that is in spring golf cart sale.

What do you do with the holiday carts that did not sell?

Take the bow off, and look at them honestly.

Say two of the six are still on the lot January 2nd. They were aged before Christmas. They are older now. And a red bow in a January photo looks like a leftover.

Ask of each one:

• Is it the cart or the page? Bad photos or a missing price will hold a good cart all winter.
• Is it a spring cart? A four-seater with no lift may be a March cart. Make it the first photo of the spring list.
• Is it the price? If nobody bit through Christmas, fix it in January, before the spring buyer sees two prices.

Shoot new photos without the bow and put those carts in the January text to every lead who did not buy. The full method is in aged golf cart inventory.

Where does Cart Launch fit?

We build the cart page the wife on the couch is looking at. You pick the carts, tie the bows, send the emails, and drive the trailer.

Everything above runs through a page for every cart, with the bow photo, the price and the delivery line. That is what golf cart dealer websites built as an online showroom do.

Your team updates it from a phone: held, sold, new driveway photo. You see which carts got looked at and who reached out. The domain and the content stay yours.

We do not run your sale. We do not post for you or send your emails, texts or mail. Your team does that. We never answer or follow up the leads. For established dealers, once the online showroom is ready, we run Facebook, Instagram and Google ads that send buyers to it.

Between the owners there is 14+ years operating in 8-figure golf cart dealerships.

Want your holiday list on a page a gift buyer can buy from? Book a call before Thanksgiving. The call is a free audit: we look at how buyers find your store, what they see and what happens after they reach out, and walk you through the biggest opportunities.

Keep reading

• Golf cart lead follow-up: what to say to the buyer who went quiet
• How to write a golf cart listing that gets the message
• Golf cart dealership marketing ideas that fill the calendar