Trending in the New Year: Sales spikes in January
By: The Aabaco Small Business team
In September, we shared tips and best practices around preparing your store for the busiest shopping days of the holiday season, which for most of our retailers falls between late November and the end of December. However, this isn’t the case for everyone; while the traditional holiday season is an important time to ramp up on advertising and promotions to take advantage of the typical holiday shopping season boom, some retailers see a New Year’s sales spike in January.
We found that Aabaco Small Business merchants that self-identify as seasonal retailers saw a 25% increase in sales in January 2016 compared to December 2015, while tools & hardware retailers saw an 8% increase in sales month-over-month. Other retailers saw increases in industry categories like toys & baby (up 4%), computers (up 3%) and, home & office furniture (up 2%).
Not surprisingly, health and wellness retailers also had a good January, perhaps due to all of our New Year’s resolutions. For example, Dan and Mary Schlenger, the husband-and-wife team behind OVitaminPro.com, saw a 16% spike in sales the first two weeks of January compared to the first two weeks in December. The Schlengers started their business on our platform in 2007, and they have continued to leverage their unique digital health and wellness services to reach customers who are looking to maintain a healthy lifestyle in the New Year.
What does this mean for you? If you’re a retailer in the categories mentioned above, or you can find a way to “lean in” to the renewal and resolution-focus of the New Year, we recommend planning ahead for a January “holiday shopping season” next year. Below are some quick tips to keep in mind once you start preparing for the next New Year:
- As other stores are ramping down on their advertising and promotions, be aggressive with your New Year marketing as soon as after-Christmas sales are over.
- If sales during the typical holiday season (November - December) were good, make sure you stock back up on your most popular items, as sales will likely continue to pick up in January.
- Consider your vertical and customers; the holidays are focused on presents, but depending on what you sell typically off-peak months could be growth opportunities. Not everyone stops shopping when Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over. Perhaps it’s an opportunity to highlight different items or categories than you would during the retail-focused holiday.