Have you ever had a New Year’s Resolution to ‘get more organized’? I have, and let me tell you, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Let us help you finally get organized. With this extensive list of the best holidays to run sales, you’ll be able to plan out your entire year without missing a golden opportunity to generate business. Let’s make this the best year yet!
January 1- New Year’s Day
Kick off the New Year with a big sale! Think about running a clearance sale on tons of last year’s items. This will set the tone for the year to come so make sure you really take the time to interact with your customers and put lots of effort into marketing your sale and store.
January 16- Martin Luther King Jr Day (Monday)
This is a day to celebrate a historic figure. It’s also a day for no school and… SALES! All the major players are running sales so you should too. If you don’t want to make it exclusively about MLK you can instead call it Winter Clearance Sale or Winter Blow Out Sale. Whatever you call it, run it through the weekend and include Monday.
January 20- Inauguration Day (Friday)
You get an extra ‘holiday’ in 2017 with this one. If you aren’t exactly thrilled about it… you can still use it to your advantage and run another weekend sale.
February 5- Super Bowl Sunday
Help football lovers celebrate the competitive nature, fan-devotion, jersey-wearing day (or weekend) with a sale. This is a good time to be a little more personal and maybe use a football pun to get people interested.
February 20- President’s Day (Monday)
As you probably know, the weekend is the best time to run a sale. So, make this a weekend sale and end it with a bang on Monday. Think about different kinds of sales: utilize coupon codes, buy one get one, don’t fall into a rut by running the same kinds of sales all year.
March 17- St. Patrick’s Day (Friday)
Have anything in your store that is green? Put it on sale! Just on Friday though, then run a sale for the rest of the weekend for good measure.
April 1- April Fool’s Day (Saturday)
Have fun with this one! Send a funny, creative email to your customers. Make sure you tell them that your sale is real and not a joke though.
April 16- Easter (Sunday)
You don’t have to be religious to have a sale for this weekend. You could always opt to call it a ‘Spring Sale’.
April 22- Earth Day (Saturday)
Learn about Earth Day here: http://www.earthday.org Take this opportunity to share some knowledge with your customers, make a personal connection with them, and then tell them about your sale. This would be a good holiday to run a one-day-only sale instead of weekend sale.
May 14- Mother’s Day (Sunday)
Another one-day-sale opportunity comes with Mother’s Day. Celebrate mom and all she does by running a sale. Try to make some kind of connection between your store products and moms. Maybe even share a story about how your mother inspired you to get to where you are today.
May 29- Memorial Day (Monday)
You can educate yourself on the history of Memorial Day here: http://www.usmemorialday.org/?page_id=2 Again, share some information with your customers and honor those who have fallen for our country by running a stellar sale.
June 18- Father’s Day (Sunday)
Same as Mother’s Day, but for dads!
July 4- Independence Day (Tuesday)
Celebrate freedom on July 4th! You can also think of this as a ‘Summer Sale’. This would be a good opportunity to run a 4 day sale (Saturday through Tuesday) since the weekend before will be a big spending weekend.
Mid August- End of Summer
Summer Clearance Blowout!! Make room in your inventory by having a clearance blowout sale. The word ‘clearance’ will get people’s attention since it signifies deep discounts.
End of August/Early September- Back to School
Back to School has been found to be one of the larger shopping opportunities. Everyone is gearing back up and getting their kids ready to go back to school after a long summer of shenanigans. It may be hard to determine a good time to run a sale so instead create a coupon code that anyone can use during the end of August and through September.
September 4- Labor Day (Monday)
A long weekend= more time for shopping! Run a weekend sale and include Monday since a lot of people and students will have this day off.
October 9- Columbus Day (Monday)
Same as Labor Day^
October 31- Halloween (Tuesday)
Run a fun and spooky sale. Again, have fun with this and let your creativity show. Maybe do something a little extra like include some candy in your shipments.
November 10- Veteran’s Day (Friday)
This is your last sale before the craziness of holiday sales! Think about running a smaller sale and save the bigger ones for the huge shopping days coming up.
November 23- Thanksgiving Day (Thursday)
Send an email out to your loyal customers the day before Thanksgiving telling them that your store will be down all day during Thanksgiving so you and everyone else can focus on what is important that day- giving thanks and family. But be sure to tell them to check back in on Friday for the BEST BLACK FRIDAY SALE EVER! Or something like that…
November 24- Black Friday
You know what to do here… run a big sale! Run it through the weekend and then end it with a bang on Cyber Monday! Think about increasing the percentage or dollar amount off just for Monday.
November 25- Small Business Saturday
Are you a small business? Well then celebrate yourself! Maybe even support some other small businesses you know of.
November 27- Cyber Monday
SALE SALE SALE SALE!! This is the biggest day for online shopping. Beat out the offers of those other guys and make that money!
November 28- Giving Tuesday
After 4 days of orders and sales it might be hard to keep the momentum going. But Giving Tuesday is getting bigger every year. Try running a sale and letting your customers know that a percentage of the money you make that day will be going towards a charity of your choice. Maybe even let your customers choose what charity to donate their portion to!!
December 25- Christmas (Monday)
Think about running sales every weekend in December leading up to Christmas. You could also try 12 Days of Deals, or something like that where you have a different sale each day. It may be a lot of work but it’ll be worth it!
December 31- New Year’s Eve (Sunday)
Run an end of year clearance sale and be sure to thank your customers for an awesome year!
Other special dates to consider:
Anniversary- The day you started your online store
Some of our personal favorites:
January 28- National Have Fun at Work Day
February 18- National Drink Wine Day
March 13- National Napping Day
April 5- National Deep Dish Pizza Day
May 16- National Love A Tree Day
June 23- National Take Your Dog to Work Day
July 6- National Fried Chicken Day
August 4- National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day
September 19- Talk Like a Pirate Day
October 20- Get to Know Your Customers Day
November 3- National Men Make Dinner Day
December 16- National Chocolate-Covered Anything Day
We hope that this list will help you get organized and generate good ideas for different sales! Good luck!