US Online Shopping Sales Calendar 2019: Gear Your Store for Maximum Sales

Please visit this link for the updated 2020 shopping calendar

eCommerce stores have huge opportunities to boost their sales by incredible margins – that is peak shopping days! There are a lot of important dates coming up that you must mark on your calendars. We bring you the US Shopping Sales Calendar 2019.

31st October – Halloween 

Celebrating all things spooky, Halloween is becoming increasingly popular all around the globe. For eCommerce sites, not only is it a big deal in terms of traffic, but it translates to huge sales and revenue. 

According to NRF, in 2018 in the US alone, $9 billion was spent on Halloween. 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!

Ensure you are stocked up, your product listings are pre-prepared and ready to be rolled out. 

Now, in case your business doesn’t align with Halloween at all, you can still capitalize on it by offering Halloween-themed versions of your product or adding Halloween touches to your website. You can also take advantage of social media by posting anything Halloween related! 

29th November – Black Friday 

Originating in the US as a Thanksgiving shopping holiday, Black Friday has made its way around the world. This day is known for notoriously crashing websites because of the explosive influx of customers. 

Not only do you have to prepare to meet the high demand, but you also need to ensure your online website can handle the rush of traffic without crashing. 

This is a good time to work on your SEO and also run Adword campaigns to ensure you show up in the top results for the right keywords. All marketing efforts should start focussing on Black Friday at least a month or two ahead of time! 

It’s a highly competitive day, so 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.

Bear in mind, you need to also ensure your product listings are accurate and unique. If you aren’t able to dedicate valuable time to managing product listings, there are tools to help you generate multiple listings in a few seconds

2nd December – Cyber Monday 

Consider Cyber Monday to be an offspring of Black Friday for the online world. Originally, since Black Friday was primarily for retail stores, Cyber Monday was born to for eCommerce to capitalize on the Thanksgiving holiday. But fortunately or unfortunately, eCommerce has capitalized on both. 

According to Business Insider, online shoppers outnumbered in-store customers on Black Friday 2018.

While it means more opportunity for sales, it also means you need to be doubly prepared to face both days so close to each other. Effective promotion in the form of banners, emailers, messages, Google ads, and content needs to be handled all the way through. For both days, you need to market the best deals to your customers to entice them to buy from you. 

14th December – Free Shipping Day 

Launched in 2009 by Luke and Maisie Knowles, 14th December is a one-day event on which eCommerce merchants offer free shipping to customers with guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve.

Customers usually shop on Black Friday/Cyber Monday to buy their Christmas gifts in advance at crazy prices. But the majority of customers worry if they’ll receive it on time. 

Free Shipping Day is a great opportunity to gain more customers doing their Christmas shopping in advance. 

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

Nobody should even bother telling you 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.

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.

Mark these dates and start preparing for them well in advance. We would recommend giving it 6-8 weeks of prep before the sales date especially for Black Friday and Christmas!

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!

The biggest online shopping season is about to start. Ensure your online store is equipped with the best Site Search, Product Recommendation Engine & conversion optimized category pages, to maximize sales this season.