From international holidays to awareness days there are various themes in a year. Whether you are a brick-and-mortar or Ecommerce retailer it's worth celebrating and creating marketing campaigns around special days. That's why you need to focus on retail calendar!
Retail sales grew as the holiday season began. It's a great opportunity to maximize your sales and increase your customer base during the year. To do it successfully, you need to plan in advance using a retail calendar to set a budget for your teams and achieve your business goals.
In this blog post, we will guide you through which dates to focus on globally.
Let's start.
Retail Calendar
The retail calendar is a special calendar used by the retail industry. The calendar breaks up the year into four and five-week periods. The most commonly used methods are called 4-4-5 and 4-5-4. The one recommended by NRF (National Retail Federation) is 4-5-4.
The retail calendar can show the special days and help you get prepared for this year. You can also need a helping hand from software that tracks competitors' prices and price your products competitively! You can increase your profit margins, attract more customers and make data-backed moves about pricing.
January
January 1: New Year's Day
The first day of the year is a great start for people around the world. It's a great opportunity to create marketing campaigns and promotions and make your first sales of the year!
Quick Tip: For this time of year, there are obvious marketing tactics that you can use to attract more of your customers with psychological pricing strategies.
January 16: Blue Monday
Blue Monday is originally from Europe, but it's growing in popularity. There is a hypothesis that January has been marked as the most depressing day of the month.
Quick Tip: Use this day to cheer up customers by offering discounts and promotions.
January 19: Get to Know Your Customer's Day
Get to Know Your Customers Day happens annually on the third Thursday of each quarter, with the first one happening in January. Rather than using this day to promote special offers or discounts, you can take the opportunity to get feedback from customers.
Quick Tip: Use customer service regularly and take feedback from customers. Your customers can teach you which parts you need to improve in your business.
February
February 13: Galentine's Day
Galentine's Day is the day before Valentine's Day when women come together to celebrate each other and their friendships. This is a great opportunity to capture a large audience!
Quick Tip: Run special promotions for special gifts to encourage purchases. You can also create bundles to make sales that look more reasonable and affordable
February 14: Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day is the most important retail day in February! Around the world, love is celebrated on February 14. It's a day when romantic gifts are exchanged.
Quick Tip: You should offer the right price for your customers. This day does not depend on affordability but on value and quality. Consider adopting a value-based pricing strategy.
March
March 8: International Women's Day
This is one of the most important days in the retail calendar for March. International Women's Day is a time to celebrate the influential women in business and women's equality.
Quick Tip: You can share a special offer such as discount coupons. Don't forget to share social media posts to attract your online customers.
March 14: National Pi Day
National Pi Day is a time to celebrate the mathematical constant of pi. It's on March 14 (3/14) since the first digits of pi are 3, 1, and 4.
Quick Tip: You can run social media stories to remind this day to your customers. Making attractive social media posts can lead some of your customers to your store.
March 17: St. Patrick's Day
St. Patrick's Day is an Irish holiday. Most people in the U.S. plan to wear green and make some purchases on that special day.
Quick Tip: You can run a promotion on your products that are in green color or environment friendly which are considered green products.
March 20: First day of spring
This is the perfect time for launching new products or sharing new features of your existing products. You can also highlight your seasonal products.
Quick Tip: You can create marketing campaigns to highlight your products on social media.
March 24: International Cash Mob Day
Cash Mob Day is the day for shoppers to get together at a certain time to support local businesses. It's a great time for customers to discover new brands and find new products.
Quick Tip: By knowing that day in advance you can start creating promotions that are attractive. Use differently designed pop-ups for your product pages!
April
April 1: April Fools Day
April Fools Day is the day for pranks and jokes. But it's also a great time for Ecommerce stores to have fun around their customers.
Quick Tip: You can use this day to share your sense of humor around the world on social media. Posting funny images and videos can make your brand more recognizable to some of your customers.
April 15-18: Easter (Holy Week)
Easter is the time of the year when children get around to having fun by playing games with their friends and family members.
Quick Tip: Easter is a great time to offer your products if you are selling children's products. Run marketing campaigns on social media and make your product pages attractive to make more sales.
April 22: Earth Day
Earth Day is a time to support environmental protection. Since people around the world consider the environment more important, it would be a great opportunity if you are active on this special day.
Quick Tip: Share social media posts and videos or emails about sustainability in business. This can be a great way to make your brand stand out. You can also offer promotions for this day.
May
May 10: Mother's Day
Mother's Day is an important special day you should mark on the retail calendar. Many countries celebrate Mother's Day in May except the U.K.
Quick Tip: Creating product bundles is a great way to sell more products. But you should be careful while pricing since lowering too low might end up with low sales. Therefore consider smart pricing tactics.
June
June 19: Father's Day
Father's Day is an important day just like Mother's Day. Many countries celebrate this can in June but it might change across a range of dates depending on the countries.
Quick Tip: One great way to celebrate this day might be creating a Father's Day gift guide. You can create images for social media that include your product images as a gift guide.
June 21: First day of Summer
This is the beginning to turn your attention to summer. You might see that retailers run promotions in their stores to attract more customers with new products.
Quick Tip: Many Ecommerce sites offer promotions on this day, to not get behind you can track your competitors' prices, gain insights then price your products.
July
July 11-12: Amazon Prime day
Amazon Prime Day is a great time for Amazon sellers to increase their sales to the maximum level. If you are selling on Amazon you should plan ahead to be able to compete with your competitors.
Quick Tip: It's time to run promotions, create coupons and offer personalized experiences for your customers. If you are a Buy Box winner it's also great since Buy Box offers higher sales for stores. If not you can start learning tips to win a Buy Box on Amazon.
July 24: Back to School Day
Back to school season is one of the most important times for retailers. This is because most students, teachers and parents will start preparing for the year ahead.
Quick Tip: First you need to get prepared for back to school season by checking your inventory levels and setting the right prices for your products. You can create back to school deals if you sell products of these.
September
September 22: First day of Fall
After school starts it's time for the transition from summer to fall. If you are selling seasonal products like sweaters, boots or decorations such as candles it's a great opportunity for you.
Quick Tip: It's a great time to highlight your products by running marketing campaigns on social media.
October
October 10: World Mental Health Day
It's a day to celebrate awareness and education around mental health. Whatever products or services you sell you can celebrate this day with your customers.
Quick Tip: Be active on social media to show that your brand is showing support. You can also reshare other brands' posts and support each other on this day.
October 31: Halloween
Halloween is a very important day in the U.S. and it's gaining popularity in other countries as well. Customers will have choices of stores to make their purchases therefore you need to attract customers by doing something different!
Quick Tip: If you are selling party products it's a great time for you! Brick-and-mortar stores can use this as an opportunity to decorate stores and Ecommerce stores can theme their websites and social media.
November
November 11: Single's Day
Single's Day is an unofficial holiday for celebrating singlehood. It can be considered as the opposite day of Valentine's Day as singletons purchase themselves some gifts.
Quick Tip: You can share posts on social media to celebrate the independence of singlehood. Product bundle s can be attractive that can help you sell more of your products.
November 25: Black Friday
Black Friday is one of the most important days on the retail calendar. Across the world, Black Friday sees a massive increase in sales compared to a regular shopping day. Therefore, you need to get prepared in advance.
Quick Tip: You will have many visitors to your store and the competition will be intense. That's why offering dynamic pricing can help you. Track your competitor's prices, change your pricing if you need and maximize your profits.
November 28: Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday is a worldwide event that is originally created by marketing companies to get more customers in online stores.
Quick Tip: For this special day you don't need to encourage your customers. Promote many of your products including the ones that you could not sell on Black Friday. You can use promotional pricing to increase your sales.
November 29: Giving Tuesday
It's a global generosity movement day around the world. The aim of this day is to remind people that giving encourages people to do good.
Quick Tip: You can promote some of your products and services explaining that a percentage of your sales will be donated. You can also make discounts for some of your products by showing you are being generous to your customers.
December
December 18: Super Saturday
Super Saturday is the final Saturday before Christmas. It's a time when people do their last-minute shopping.
Quick Tip: Use this day as an opportunity to promote gift items on your website and social media. If your shipping operations work smoothly you can guarantee to deliver orders by Christmas Day as well.
December 24: Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve always sees massive traffic in the U.S. Most people wait for this day to buy a present. In general, brick-and-mortar stores get the most benefit.
Quick Tip: If you are an online retailer you can offer same-day delivery options so that you will benefit from this special day. You can create discounts to make post-Christmas sales!
December 25: Christmas Day
Christmas is a time when most of your customers spend their time with their families and friends at home or at a restaurant.
Quick Tip: You can create special designs for your online stores or brick-and-mortar stores to attract customers. Creating your own gift sets or gift boxes are one of the easiest ways to drive more Christmas sales.
December 31: New Year's Eve
This is the time for foods, drinks and suppliers for New Year's parties for last-minute party planners. You can also find some customers that want to take advantage of final Christmas discounts.
Quick Tip: You can start offering discounts online at midnight so that your team can start planning for orders right away. You can use different pricing strategies for different products in your store.
Takeaways
Whether it's Black Friday or New Year's Day, special days are great opportunities to boost sales, maximize your profits and strengthen your brand image. The key to success is to ensure that you are prepared and offer smart pricing for your products. After reading our blog article you will be able to compete with your competitors and get closer to having the most sales during the year!
e-commerce marketing
