Ready, Set, Go: Why Winning the Festive Period Means Running Many Races, Not One

The phrase ‘it’s a marathon, not a sprint’ is one most retailers can relate to as we enter the festive peak season. It can certainly feel like a long couple of months, as the industry sees as much as 50% of its annual turnover crammed into a make-or-break few weeks.

However, according to online marketing platform Mailchimp, a more useful way for retailers to view the festive season is as a series of separate sprints, all with their own rules and unique characteristics. In a recent report, the company outlined how customer behaviours and priorities change throughout the period; indeed, you’re often catering to different customer personas at different times who approach their Christmas shopping in different ways.

According to Mailchimp, these changing segments and priorities can be mapped out into distinct phases throughout the festive period, from catering to the earliest of early planners who like to feel smug about getting all their Christmas shopping done in October, to the post-Christmas self-gifters and self-improvers who turn their shopping attentions onto themselves come the New Year.

The sprint analogy references the fact that the phases are short, in many cases just a couple of weeks, or even shorter in the case of the ‘last-minute’ rush right before the big day. And it captures the need for agility and speed on the part of retailers – someone who likes to take their time curating the perfect gift selection deliberately and methodically has very different needs to those in a last-minute panic desperately trying to grab whatever they can before it’s too late. And retailers have precious little time to adapt their offering to each successive group.

So what can store owners glean from this in terms of adapting to changing customer needs and ‘winning’ every sprint? Here are three key phases to consider in the run-up to Christmas, and how to prepare.

The Bargain Frenzy

Black Friday falls on 28th November this year, which means the peak discounting blitz will cover the last week of November and the first week of December. This is when you can expect footfall to ramp right up, especially over Black Friday weekend. The bargain-hunting crowds are in a rush to get to the next deal and hate being kept waiting, no matter how good the deal is. So this is the time to break out all your best queue-busting manouevres, from pop-up POS points to mobile POS tablets to help staff process sales on the fly.

It’s also important to have complete mastery of your inventory data. Nothing annoys bargain hunters more than rushing to a store to grab a deal they’ve seen advertised, only to find the items are not on the shelf or out of stock. Set up live alerts through your POS to flag when stock is running low. Have teams on stand by for replenishment and, if and when the stockroom levels are running low, have signage and other forms of communication (like emails, SMS and app pushes) ready to tell people as much. This also plays on the feeling of FOMO that drives so many sales during this mini-period.

Getting into the Festive Spirit

After the bargain hunters have had their fill, a different kind of festive shopper will take over in early December (though this year there may well be some crossover with Cyber Monday falling on 1st December). These are the people who want to enjoy Christmas shopping as an experience – they’ve not yet left it late enough to feel rushed, they want to take their time and immerse themselves in the Christmas spirit. And they want to capture that warm, fuzzy feeling of choosing the perfect gift for loved ones.

This is the period of late-night shopping, Christmas songs on the hi-fi, mince pies and mulled wine. It’s the time to switch your messaging and merchandising away from deep discounts, and focus on the story behind your products – what makes them such a great gift? If staff have been prepped in the weeks before to be on queue-busting duty, this is the time to flex those sales skills, spend time with customers to understand what they are looking for, and pull out the stops to help them discover those perfect gifts. This is also a great time for festive-themed in-store events to add to the experience.

The Last-Minute Rush

Finally, probably in the last week before Christmas, the mood among shoppers starts to change. They no longer have the luxury of time to approach discovery and inspiration in a leisurely way, or even to enjoy the experience. They’ve left it late. Panic is starting to set in.

For these last-minute festive shoppers, a retailer’s job is simple – make it as easy as possible for them to get what they need as quickly as possible. They don’t have time to learn the stories behind products. Their decisions will be driven by convenience and impulse, so play into this by focusing merchandising on best sellers, easy wins and products that are visually appealing. Make pricing (including any deals) as obvious as possible. Stressed-out shoppers are also less likely to want to invest the time and mental energy engaging with staff, so this may be the time when self-service options come into their own.