According to Statista, the US online shopping sales during the 2019 holiday season surpassed $135 B. Sales season is a great opportunity for eCommerce stores to boost their revenue.
There are a lot of important dates coming up that you must mark on your calendars. We bring you the US Shopping Sales Calendar 2020.
- 12th April – Easter
- 4th July – Independence Day Sale
- 7th September – Labour Day Sale
- 31st October – Halloween
- 27th November – Black Friday
- 30th November – Cyber Monday
- 14th December – Free Shipping Day
- 24th December – Christmas Eve
- 26th December – Boxing Day
12th April – Easter Sale
According to NRF, a US adult who celebrates easter spends about $151 on average. Food, Clothing, Gifts, and Candy are the top purchased items during the easter weekend. Retailers can launch sale count downs or other marketing campaigns to engage the visitors. Sending out personalized emails with sale coupons is a time-tested strategy to attract visitors.
Make sure to optimize eCommerce product listing pages with trending products on top. This is very important because most visitors do not scroll beyond 3-page scrolls
4th July – Independence Day Sale
According to NRF, US Shoppers spent about $6.8 B during the 2019 July 4th weekend. About 9 in 10 US adults celebrate Independence day and the most benefitted verticals are food, travel & accessories, and patriotic supplies. Other retailers can try adding patriotic-themed products to their catalog to leverage the season benefit.
7th September – Labour Day Sale
Labour Day sale is an emerging trend in recent years and has worked out well mutually for both retailers and consumers. According to Digital Commerce, the 2018 labor day online sale racked in at $2.08 B. The popular sought after categories during the season are Home & Office furniture, Dinnerware, Back to School supplies.
Mobile visitors are usually on the move and hence it is important to engage them with diverse products within the top results on a landing page. Product Sequencing helps retailers to satisfy this purpose.
31st October – Halloween
Halloween is becoming increasingly popular all around the globe. According to NRF, in 2018 in the US alone, $9 billion was spent on Halloween. For eCommerce sites, not only is it a big deal in terms of traffic, but it translates to huge sales and revenue.
If you fall into the category that can cater to customers in terms of costumes, accessories, decor, food, candy, and so on, you need to start getting your game together right away!
Retailers need to stock up their supplies in advance and prepare their product listings to roll out.
29th November – Black Friday
Black Friday is a ‘Thanksgiving’ shopping holiday primarily in the US, but today the trend has spread across countries. Crashing websites because of the explosive influx of customers is common news during Black Friday which speaks about its popularity.
Hence retailers should ensure two things. 1) Prepare your online store to handle the rush of traffic without crashing 2) Plan resources to meet the high demand.
It is a highly competitive day and hence your website needs to function smoothly. Customers will be quick to jump to the next website if yours is slow or hangs for even a few seconds.
According to Business Insider, online shoppers outnumbered in-store customers on Black Friday 2018.
2nd December – Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday is considered to be an offspring of Black Friday in the online world. Originally Black Friday was associated with physical retail stores and hence Cyber Monday was introduced to compliment eCommerce stores. But fortunately or unfortunately, eCommerce has capitalized on both.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday give a double opportunity for sales but it also means that retailers need to be doubly prepared to manage it.
Effective promotion in the form of banners, emailers, messages, Google ads, and content needs to be handled all the way through. For both days, retailers need to market the best deals to your customers to entice them to buy from you.
14th December – Free Shipping Day
14th December was launched as Free Shipping Day in 2009 by Luke and Maisie Knowles. On this day eCommerce merchants offer free shipping to customers with guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve.
Free Shipping Day is a great opportunity to gain more customers doing their Christmas shopping in advance.
Also, shoppers who missed shopping on Black Friday & Cyber Monday wait for free shipping day to make their purchase
Preparing for this day means you need to have your logistics sorted out in order to deliver any orders placed on this day by Christmas Eve. It might be worth it to check out temporary logistics providers to meet the demand of the season.
24th December – Christmas Eve
It is universally known that Christmas is the biggest shopping week on planet Earth! According to Google Insights, 23rd December is the biggest shopping day regardless of what day it falls on.
Retailers can e-decorate their online store with Christmas themed banners, logos, etc.
You can monetize on last-minute shopping if you are ready for it. ‘Where to buy?’ and ‘Same-day shipping’ are the top searches pre-Christmas time.
26th December – Boxing Day
Boxing Day is tricky for online merchants. The truth is that store retailers see a higher footfall on this day and there are reasons for it. Post, Christmas, shoppers are usually redeeming gift cards, making returns, or exchanging gifts. But that doesn’t mean eCommerce can’t take advantage of this day.
The trick is to set yourself up much earlier. During the previous sales days, you need to think smart and offer gift cards, or coupons and vouchers that can be redeemed after Christmas. Have a good exchange or return policy in place that can help you draw in more customers who received gifts.
You can use such opportunities to recommend products while they make their return/exchange. Use up-sell or cross-sell tactics to increase your sales during the post-Christmas day as well.
These days open up a huge opportunity to bring in more customers. This is the best time to provide them with a great experience so that they keep coming back for more!
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