Rupert Adam — December 7, 2017 — December 7, 2017
Aghh, with just a few weeks to go until Christmas, no doubt you have started to have a discussion in the office as to when putting your tree up is too early. With the big event taking the prominence, and the before Christmas sales kicking in already, what are you planning for the period between Christmas and New Year? Take a look at some of our suggestions on how to boost your sales between Christmas and New Year…
Predominantly this period was sales time, but in recent years this period has started to move to before Christmas. If you look at the top 10 shopping days from 2016, compiled by ShopperTrak, you will see that 9 of the top 10 are in the pre-Christmas period, with just Boxing day sitting at number 2. Business Insider have also got their own list and this time no post-Christmas days feature in the top 10 days. However, Boxing day does feature in their shopper visits report, at number 5.
I suppose historically, pre-Christmas shopping was all about buying gifts for nearest and dearest and post christmas shopping is much more about yourself. From a seasonal goodwill point of view it’s good that the pre-Christmas spend is much higher but, from a retailer’s point of view not so much. So, how can you boost sales in that period between Christmas and New year?
Special Deals
If you are anything like me, you will be shopping in a wide variety of stores and websites for Christmas gifts, and I am sure that you will also find that these shops are very different to your usual haunts. So look at ways you can incentivise these new and also loyal customers to return after Christmas. Offering a discount or money off coupons that are only valid for a short duration of time can help to get them back through the door and, if there isn’t anything of interest to them in your store, you may find that they pass this offer on to the person they brought the gift for in the first place!
Sales
You will find that most retailers will start their sales on Boxing day, unless like John Lewis in 2016, who kept their physical stores closed on Boxing day so their staff could enjoy extra time with their family. However in 2016 the footfall for the boxing day sales was down by 6.7%* on 2015, as shoppers are starting to opt in to staying in and shoping online. Will this trend continue in 2017? In 2016 online boxing day sales were expected to increase 15% year on year to £984m, and it is worth noting that it is expected on Christmas day online spend will be £805m, up 10%**. The actual figures are hard to come by as retailers generally post figure for December, and not specific dates.
So throughout this post-festive period, utilise your subscribers by issuing them special and relevant sales items right to their inbox by using some dynamic content. Entice that Christmas day spend, with some seasons greeting and a special promotion. If you have a physical store on the high street or in a retail park, use you emails to drive shopper to in store special offers.
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