Holiday Shopping in 2019

Busiest Shopping Days of Christmas –      Are You Ready?

For the first time ever, spending on Christmas is expected to exceed $1 trillion dollars, and the majority of this will be spent in 6 fewer days than last year.

If you own a retail store, you have heard all the doom and gloom about people spending their money via online or e-commerce.  The truth is, it’s growing, but e-commerce still only makes up 12.3% of holiday spending.  The other 87.7%, or $877,000,000,000 (that’s $877 billion), will be spent in “Brick N’ Mortar” stores.

Businesses that are well planned and run well-executed events and promotions can help garner more than your fair share of the holiday shopping pie. Knowing when the shoppers are ready to shop and being ready for them is paramount to getting that fair share.

Stores that plan in-store special events and then promote them will see greater store traffic and greater sales than those that simply sit back and “hope” people stop in. Getting them into the store at key buying times can and will make all the difference.

Are you ready?

According to Forbes magazine, here are the 10 busiest shopping days anticipated for 2019, in order:

1.   November 29, Black Friday
2.    December 21, the last Saturday before Christmas
3.    December 26, the day after Christmas
4.    December 14, two Saturdays before Christmas
5.    November 30, the Saturday after Black Friday
6.    December 22, the last Sunday before Christmas
7.    December 23, the Monday before Christmas
8.    December 28, the Saturday after Christmas
9.    December 27, the Friday after Christmas
10. December 7, the first Saturday in December

I work with a couple of retailers to help promote them during the holidays.  One of them has a Holiday Open House this week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to kick off the season before Christmas and they really do it up right with special events each day geared to their customers.

For another retailer I work with, we promote a 12 days of Christmas Savings the first dozen days of December.

Just because it is the end of the year holiday season, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should run a special promotion, it really depends on your business and if it is appropriate. If you would like help in planning any of your marketing and/or advertising events for this holiday season, it’s not too late.  Contact me and I will gladly sit down with you and help come up with creative ideas to help you have a successful 2019 holiday shopping season.

This is also the time of year to get all your marketing planning started for 2020.  That’s what I’ve been working on recently and I’ll help you too.