Should You Do A Holiday Sale?

A funny thing about retailers having sales… it might be counterproductive.

The week I am publishing this article and podcast is the 1st week of July 2024 although I’m actually writing this on June 20th.

Today when I checked the mail I saw a piece of junk mail from a local mattress place advertising their July 4th Sales Event.

Most people rarely give their mail more than a cursory glance, like my wife. However since I’m in the advertising and marketing business, I actually read many of these junk mail pieces to see what people are doing to try and get customers.

Why do many businesses like this one run a Holiday Sale?

Simple answer is because they think the extra incentive will create more sales than they would normally get around the Holiday. And because these sales are a discount offer, they are assuming that the reason we haven’t already bought is because the price is too high and this sale will fix that.

Or perhaps they haven’t given it that much thought and they are spending money to advertise a Holiday sale because that’s what they’ve always done.  Or that’s what their competition does so it must be the right thing to do.

In retail, there are a couple of options for nearly all of us.  We can buy online or we can buy from a brick and mortar store. Even that line has blurred because I can buy online to pick up or have delivered from a local store many things these days.

I decided to investigate the offers from this mattress place and found something pretty common.  It’s impossible to do a direct comparison online. Even searching for the brand name and the product description on Amazon where this company also sells mattresses, I could not find a match.  In this case the junk mail piece gave prices and descriptions but left out a very important key element… they left out the size of the mattress they were selling at these discounted prices.  I spent way more time than most people would trying to figure out if this July 4th Sales Event was a good deal or not based on the prices on the junk mail piece.

There is one line that is honest and that should have been the main emphasis, not all these price examples that leave out important details.

That one line is: 20% off every mattress purchase.

The rest is advertising gibberish to put it politely and BS to be more blunt.

I still haven’t answered the question about Holiday sales, I know.

Hang with me for a few more seconds.

Just the concept of having a sale means you are going to reduce your profit margin.  Why would you do that if you didn’t have to?  Do you as a business owner like giving away money just to bribe a customer to spend money with you?

Bottom line as to why customers buy from one store versus another is trust first, value second and the actual price is way down the list for most people.

I wish I could tell all the businesses I work with to stop with the advertised sales.

In most cases.

If you need to clear out inventory, go ahead and mark the price.  That’s a legitimate reason for having a sale.  Grocery stores do it all the time with perishable meats, fruits, veggies and baked goods that they can either sell for a discount or it will end up in the dumpster as spoiled waste.

And now the answer to: Should You Do A Holiday Sale?

Only if it makes sense from the consumer’s viewpoint.  Not because you want to bribe us and lose profits.

Gift seasons like Christmas, Valentines Day, Mother and Fathers Day, Graduations, all of those are legitimate times to run a sale, but only on appropriate items. The day after a holiday is also a good time to run a sale on Christmas or Valentines themed stuff that otherwise has to be stored for 12 months.

Here’s a good rule to follow: Most holidays should not be sales events.  July 4th, Memorial Day, Veterans Day are all non-shopping holidays unless you are selling items directly related to that holiday like fireworks.

There is no season for mattresses, but you could get creative and do a February Valentines Mattress event.  Wink Wink Nod Nod.