Holidays and events have always been a great opportunity for retailers to boost their sales and generate more revenue. With the recent covid-19 pandemic, more and more customers have started shopping online to avoid crowded stores and malls. 2020 has seen record growth in terms of eCommerce sales, and this trend is here to stay! With higher sales, the competition in the eCommerce world is also growing consistently. This is why you need to know the best time for boosting your sales and grow your business on an individual level. In this article, we have listed down important holidays and events that drive online sales all year round. So let’s jump right into it!
Let’s check out the biggest spending days!
1. Q4 and Winter Holidays:
The fourth quarter of the year sees a ton of big sales events such as Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. This is followed by holidays like Hanukkah and Christmas. According to research by National Retail Foundation, over 87% of consumers in the US celebrate at least one of these holidays. On average, customers spend about $6.3 every minute online on Black Friday. Amazon recently put out a statement saying, “Through Cyber Monday, 2020 has been the largest holiday shopping season so far in our company’s history thanks to customers around the world.”
2. Singles Day:
The Chinese Singles Day is the world’s biggest online sales holiday. In 2020, Alibaba and JD.com generated around $115 billion in sales across all platforms during the Singles Day shopping event. Singles Day is a one-day event, which was celebrated on the 11th of November in 2020, and promotions for it lasted for around 10-12 days. According to Alibaba, 31K out of the total 250K brands that participated in the Singles Day event were not Chinese brands. The United States was the top county selling to China during the event. This only proves that Singles Day is a huge opportunity for retailers from all over the world.
3. Amazon Prime Day:
Amazon Prime Day is a two-day event, that runs from 6th-7th August exclusive for Amazon Prime members. Amazon sold over $10.4 billion worth of products on Prime Day in 2020. This is at least a 45.2% spike from the year 2019. On Amazon Prime Day, marketplace sellers see up to an 80% spike in their sales and this is not just from Amazon as consumers look for deals on other online retail websites as well.
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Glancing through some gift-giving holidays!
1. Valentine’s Day:
Valentine’s day is celebrated by at least 50% of consumers in the US alone. Statistically, each one of these consumers spends around 200$ on gifts for their loved ones and this does not only include their significant others but also friends, family, and colleagues. Although these stats are only based on the United States, remember that Valentine’s Day is celebrated by people all around the world. While most countries celebrate Valentine’s day on 14th February, the Chinese Valentine’s Day falls on 14th August, and it brings just the same amount of revenue as it does on 14th February.
2. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day:
According to the National Retail Federation, about 80% of Americans celebrate these holidays. They tend to spend around $25 billion on Mother’s Day, and $16 billion on Father’s Day. Both these holidays are celebrated all around the world. Mother’s day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May, and Father’s day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. But a lot of countries have different dates to celebrate these occasions. So, if you are a retailer that makes gift items and sells globally, you have a lot of sales possibilities throughout the year.
Other holidays celebrated around the world:
Halloween:
Halloween is celebrated on the 31st of October every year. In 2019, Halloween brought about $8.8 billion worth of spending in America. Although this holiday is primarily celebrated in the US, a lot of other countries have also started celebrating Halloween in some way, giving the retailers additional sales opportunities.
Independence Day:
American Independence Day Celebrated by over two-thirds of the US population, on average every consumer spends about $70 on Independence Day. A total of $6.7 billion is spent by consumers on this occasion.
Saint Patrick’s Day:
Saint Patrick’s Day is originally an Irish Holiday celebrated on 17th March but is now celebrated in the US and many other countries as well. It has become a significant spending day with a record $5.9 billion worth of sales in 2018.
Blue Monday:
Blue Monday falls on the third Monday of January. It is supposedly the most depressing day of the year due to factors like weather conditions, time after Christmas, low motivation levels, and the feeling of a need to take action. And it has been observed that consumers usually tend to spend on shopping to uplift their moods on this day. The data collected, and statistically analyzed by EmpathyBroker shows that the number of searches on Blue Monday increased by 32% in 2018, as compared to a usual Monday.
Other Fun Holidays:
Apart from these popular holidays, there’s a whole lot of lesser-known holidays like the National Hangover Day or Yoga Day being celebrated widely by consumers. Retailers must do their research and take advantage of such holidays that go well with their business.
Other events and seasonal events:
Changing seasons, graduation days, wedding seasons, back to school/college – all these days can create great opportunities to boost online sales. According to the National Retail Federation, parents with school-going children spend an average of $790 per family. This amounts to a whopping $34 billion total sales on just back-to-school necessities.
Every year there are a couple of recurring events like Grammy’s and Oscar awards, sporting events, and many more. All these occasions bring tons of opportunities for retailers to increase their online sales. Besides, the recurring events, there are one-off events that come and go based on the hype during that time. For example, after Netflix released the popular show The Queen’s Gambit, inquiries for chess sets went up by 250% on eBay. This came to be called the ‘Netflix Effect’. Of course, different markets and industries will have different events that can be of advantage to them. Hence, retailers must stay up to date with these events and use the opportunities to boost their online sales.
To conclude:
Well, there you go! It’s now time to run through the calendar sales dates, do extensive research, and use these opportunities to grow your business!
We hope this article has been helpful to you! Thank you for reading and all the best!
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