Commercial holidays are days of increased shopping activity, usually due to an upcoming calendar holiday or a local event.
Without a calendar for commercial holidays, you’ll miss the opportunity to prepare your store, your staff, your products, and your marketing in a timely manner, and you’ll also miss out on potential sales and revenue.
Holiday sales grew by 14.1% in 2021, with consumers spending a record $886.7 billion during the holiday season in the United States in just November and December. You can capitalize on some of this spending throughout the year and achieve maximum results by integrating in-store and online shopping options.
What You Need to Know About the Commercial Holiday Calendar
Learn the finer details of the commercial holiday calendar, including what to do to prepare your store and how to track your success. What are commercial holidays?
Commercial holidays are days of the year that see peak shopping activity, whether in physical stores or online.
Some commercial holidays, like Black Friday or Christmas Eve, are obvious opportunities to take advantage of increased foot traffic and sales. There are also some commercial opportunities that may not be an obvious profit opportunity, but could yield great results for your store.
How to Prepare for Commercial Sales Holidays
Creating an enjoyable shopping experience for commercial sales holidays involves two parts: attracting shoppers to your store and ensuring they leave satisfied with their purchases.
The first part emphasizes the importance of marketing for sales holidays: your window displays, social media activities, paid ads, gift guides, giveaways, promotional emails, discounts, and pop-up shops.
Thanks to the commercial holiday calendar, you can plan your marketing ahead of time. This way, you’ll be able to plan and create visual content, collaborate with influencers or other businesses, write emails, and prepare your website in a timely manner for maximum impact.
If you choose to open a pop-up store for sales holidays at relevant fairs and markets, this gives you plenty of time to work on all the details.
The second part focuses on the shopping experience and everything related to it. Here are some questions you can use to improve your store for the increased demand for purchases and customer satisfaction:
- How can we prepare our product display and inventory?
- Do we need to hire temporary staff?
- How should we organize staff work schedules?
- How can we incorporate experiential retail or in-store product demonstrations to enhance traffic and customer satisfaction?
- Can we offer order fulfillment options like buy online, pick up in store, or curbside pickup?
- Should we take our physical store online to serve customers who want to avoid the crowds that come with holiday busy-ness?
In this way, you can deliver on your marketing promises. The result? Not only happy customers who will buy from you again but also a happy team that made it happen.
Tracking Important Holidays
The more you use the commercial holiday calendar to plan your store’s future activities, the easier it will be to leverage past sales data and understand what worked and what can be improved.
This is where your point-of-sale system analytics can help. Use reports and dashboards to quickly discover trends, identify peak sales periods, and measure your store’s impact on sales, customer retention, and overall brand growth.
You can also compare your online and physical store performance, find out what your best-selling or most profitable products are, and determine if the tactics you used helped your store meet its quarterly sales goals.
With this knowledge, you can approach every upcoming holiday with a stronger plan and make each year better than the last.
Calendar
Global Holidays
January
New Year’s Day: January 1
The first day of the year is a new beginning for people around the world. It’s a great time to run marketing campaigns and promotional offers focused on resolutions, self-care, and annual planning or goals.
Blue Monday: January 16 (2023)
Blue Monday originated in Europe, but it is gaining popularity. There’s no real proof or science behind it, but it is considered a day in January that’s marked as the most depressing day of the year. It ignites the period between the holiday season and spring and has become an important marketing day to boost January sales. You can use this day to lift customer spirits by offering discounts.
National Customer Day: January 19 (2023)
National Customer Day occurs annually on the third Thursday of every quarter, with the first one in January. Instead of using this day to promote special offers or discounts, you can take this opportunity to gather feedback from customers, whether through written surveys or personal conversations. This will help you improve your business and strengthen relationships with customers. Since January 2022 has already passed, we have shared the 2023 date here, but there is still time in spring, summer, and fall to add it to your retail calendar. Here are the dates: April 20, 2022, July 20, 2022, October 19, 2022.
February
Black History Month
Black History Month starts on February 1 and lasts throughout the month. It originated in the United States to honor the achievements of African Americans in American history, but it is now celebrated worldwide. You can use this month to express your support and promote products you sell from African American brands. If you don’t sell any products from African American brands, you can run a marketing campaign highlighting some brands you personally love.
Galentine’s Day: February 13
Galentine’s Day is the day before Valentine’s Day, where women come together to celebrate each other and their friendships. The way to celebrate ranges from dinner and drinks to shopping and relaxing at a spa. Although there are no specific rituals for gift-giving on Galentine’s Day, this day can be a great opportunity to host an event at your store. Inform your customers to gather their friends and give them space to come together while offering special promotions on products that women own.
Valentine’s Day: February 14
Worldwide, love is celebrated on February 14. It’s a day for exchanging romantic gifts, but you can also remind your customers that it’s a great day to celebrate family, friends, and other important relationships. In 2022, Valentine’s Day spending was the second highest year in the United States – consumers spent $23.9 billion on gifts for partners, friends, pets, and more. Like other marketing campaigns, Valentine’s Day promotional campaigns should start before the day to boost sales and ensure people have their gifts in time.
March
International Women’s Day: March 8
Across the globe, International Women’s Day celebrates gender equality and their cultural, political, and economic achievements. Depending on your brand values, celebrating this day may be important or unimportant, but if it is, be sure to acknowledge it with appropriate messaging. You can share a special offer, run a fundraising campaign for a local women’s organization, or use it as an opportunity to remind your audience of your brand’s story and the achievements you are proud of.
Pi Day: March 14
Pi Day may be an unexpected commercial holiday to celebrate, but it can be a great opportunity if your audience is interested in mathematics. It’s a day to celebrate the mathematical constant pi (often represented by the Greek letter π), and it occurs on March 14 (3/14) because the first three digits of pi are 3, 1, and 4. If your target audience loves math, this is the perfect day to run a contest for a discount code or a free gift.
Day
Saint Patrick’s Day: March 17
This Irish holiday is celebrated by many people. In the United States, 80% of people planned to wear green on Saint Patrick’s Day 2022, and consumers were expected to spend an average of $42.33 on that day. But how can this be translated into retail? You can use several ways to incorporate Saint Patrick’s Day into your retail calendar. Run a promotion a week or two before the day on items that are green or eco-friendly, thus considered “green” products. Organize a St. Patrick’s Day-focused event in your store to increase foot traffic, and offer discounts on purchases made that day. Collaborate with other brands to create a green gift bundle filled with green or eco-friendly products and promote it on social media ahead of the holiday.
First Day of Spring: March 20 (2022)
In the Northern Hemisphere, the spring equinox is a great time to highlight seasonal products. Depending on your area, your customers may be feeling nostalgic for the sun and looking forward to warmer, longer days. You can offer a discount on the first day of spring on certain selected items.
International Cash Day: March 24
International Cash Day started in Buffalo, New York in 2011, but it has spread globally with events in many countries. It is a day when shoppers come together at a specific time to support local small businesses and stimulate the local economy. This not only helps local merchants increase sales and compete with larger businesses, but it also encourages consumers to discover new brands while having a fun time. Knowing this day is approaching, you can run creative campaigns for Cash Day. For example, you can encourage customers to bring three or more friends to your store for a 15% discount for themselves and their friends.
April
April Fools’ Day: April 1
This day is filled with pranks and jokes, not just for friends and family. Use this day to share your playful spirit on social media or in person. You can post funny memes or videos to engage with your audience and increase awareness of your brand.
Easter Holiday: April 15-18 (2022)
While Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday are not as shopping-centered as Christmas, they are still a time to consider running spring sales or special deals on products. If you sell children’s products, you might also host an in-store event with an Easter egg hunt, rewarding the winners with a discount or a free item. In some cases, adults may also be interested in the fun.
Earth Day: April 22
Earth Day occurs annually on April 22 to celebrate a movement that started in 1970. Now, a billion people across more than 193 countries organize events on this day to support environmental protection. Sustainability in retail is a lasting trend, and Earth Day is a great time to remind consumers of your commitment to sustainable business practices, such as recyclable product packaging or eco-friendly manufacturing processes. You can share your story on social media and through email marketing or create a fundraising campaign or increase awareness for an environmental organization.
May – July
Mother’s Day: May 8 (2022)
Mother’s Day is an important sales holiday you should mark in your retail calendar. According to a survey by the National Retail Federation in 2021, 83% of consumers planned to celebrate Mother’s Day, and shoppers were expected to spend an average of $220.48. This was $16 more than the previous year and the highest amount in the survey’s history. Many countries (except the UK, where it occurs in March) celebrate Mother’s Day in May. If you sell products for mothers or expecting mothers, create a marketing campaign celebrating them and their significance in our lives. And remind their loved ones (husbands, children, or friends) to buy gifts ahead of time. For example, you might run a promotion on gift bundles for Mother’s Day or offer special in-store discounts for women to treat themselves too.
Source: https://www.shopify.com/retail/retail-holiday-calendar
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