What Online Retailers Can Learn Post-Christmas Rush

It’s that time of year again. Chaotic shopping trips, laundry lists of gifts and decorations for this relative or that friend. Christmas is a time of year when people are flocking to stores hoping to pick up a good deal. However, while the stores are open, the easier choice for Christmas shopping is to do it online. Online retailers make Christmas shopping easier than ever, with just a quick Google search and a click you can have the ideal present sent to your door!

However, while the convenience of online shopping is almost an absolute necessity these days, online retailers often experience a sharp drop-off in sales in the days following Christmas. As a result of these sharp and sudden slumps, online shops can find themselves footing the bill for all manner of costs. What was once a glorious period of profit, is now a logistical and statistical nightmare.

Easing out of this downturn takes a little marketing finesse, but keeping sales consistent during the downward spike of post-Christmas rush could be the helping hand your business needs.

Remarketing for online retailers

Let’s say that those wholesale photo frames that sold like hotcakes throughout the Christmas period aren’t doing so well after Boxing Day. What happened? Did everyone suddenly lose interest in displaying their photographs?

The problem is not with the product itself, but rather with time. A photo frame is a good, easy, impersonal gift for many kinds of relations that people may feel obligated to give a gift to. This can be distant relations with little contact, minor acquaintances or colleagues, or members of a particular community. However, once those people have already bought and gifted their photo frames (of which you may likely have to accept some returns), then it’s unlikely that they’re going to be the hot item for the same audience within a matter of days, is it?

This is where remarketing comes in. Remarketing is easy enough to understand, it’s the practice of leveraging an already present audience. Rather than relying on your frames to see you through, cater to the needs of the people who bought them to drive sales. While selling your frames, you probably got a few customers signing up to your mailing list. This is a significant tool in your remarketing efforts, as you can now set up your marketing emails for the festive season to appeal to your newly acquired clientele.

The question remains, how do you appeal to them?

Is Boxing Day for online retailers

Boxing Day is one of the biggest days of the year for online retailers. As such, shopping centers are positively packed with people. Many will want to avoid this congestion and the heat of Australian summer by taking advantage of shopping online. Especially those who were given gift cards!

Lean into this event with exclusive deals offered to those on your mailing list. Discount codes or buy-one-get-one-free deals can be hugely lucrative and can be the first step in mitigating the post-Christmas doldrums. There are a myriad of things that can be done to leverage Boxing Day, and a lot of it can lay the foundations of your remarketing strategies later.

7 Days of Giveaways

After Boxing Day, people are going to be pretty sick of spending. After all, the Christmas period is one of the busiest times of year for the whole country, and people are exhausted. However, with the gentle approach of the New Year over the next week, people are starting to look at themselves and what they want out of their lives.

This is where you can leverage an annual phenomenon that people engage in like clockwork, the New Year’s Resolution.

Whether they go filled or unfilled, hundreds of thousands of people make New Year’s resolutions in the lead up to January 1st. There are several common resolutions that people typically undertake during this period. With the contacts gained throughout the Christmas period, you can promote products that feed into these resolutions. Not only will this keep your stock relevant during the Christmas come-down, but it will also help you keep afloat during the post-Yuletide quiet. Consider also, promoting supplies for New Year’s parties!

Merry Christmas To All

Christmas can be a truly wonderful time of year. It’s colorful, it’s got beautiful music, and friends and family gather and wish each other well, eat delicious food and take part in the pure joy of gift-giving. 

However, retailers can often have a difficult time after Christmas, and though there are many ways they can overcome the difficulties associated with the Christmas thaw, this article provides a brief discourse on one of the most common, and often most neglected methods of keeping relevant after Christmas. With that, we say to all a good night!

Photo by Tom Rickhuss on Unsplash