Ecommerce Holiday Calendar for 2016
The holiday season is just a few months away, and now is a good time to start reviewing sales dates and considering your plans for what you will do over the next few months. The more sales data you have, the better equipped you will be to take advantage of the most common promotions and buying periods over the autumn and winter.
This is a 2-3 month window of high shopper interest and activity, and if you time your marketing right and invest in conversion rate optimisation now, you will be able to take advantage of that.
The first big holiday that is coming up is Halloween. In the run up to the end of October, look at costumes, decoration and candy – if you sell that sort of thing, then you have the chance to see a spike in interest right now. Even if you don’t, simply theming your site around Halloween for a few days could help to make it look more active. Halloween discounts and Thanksgiving discounts (even if you aren’t based in the USA) are always popular with shoppers.
The next big shopping day is November 25th – Black Friday. In the USA, this is one of the biggest days for both online and offline sales. It has become a big day in the UK too, with a growing number of retailers offering deep discounts to take advantage of bargain hunters and extra traffic or footfall. Cyber Monday continues the sales for a little longer, and could be another good day for you to take advantage of. However, don’t get too carried away. There’s no point running huge sales if you’re taking out all of your margins. Use enticing promotions and free shipping, but try to at least get some add-on sales too.
Another important day to pay attention to is December 14th, which is often called Stamp and Ship day. This is the last day that shoppers should order goods with standard shipping if they want to be able to receive them before Christmas Day. December 18th is another important deadline. Many retailers offer free shipping on that day, with guaranteed delivery in time for Christmas Eve. Add wrapping of gifts as a ‘value add’ and you could have plenty of joy with that, and attract a lot of last minute shoppers during the most competitive time of the year for online retail.
If you’d like to do more with your website, but don’t have the time or expertise to do it yourself, get in touch and let us know how we can help.