When is too early to start
planning your holiday shopping? Years ago the few weeks leading up to the
holiday season was a madhouse at the local malls and department stores. Then
the internet made online shopping easier and the crowd thinned out slightly.
Along came Black Friday and the day after Thanksgiving was the unofficial first day of the holiday shopping season. Then as online became more popular both online and retail stores began to compete for Black Friday attention, with online stores getting a day early head jump, often launching their online deals on Thanksgiving day, allowing people to shop from home.
It was brilliant actually, as the majority of people are home on Thanksgiving, so the right deals will trigger them to get online and buy. Last year in 2018 online spending during the holiday season increased by 14.8% and this year should see another increase as well.
Now we have Cyber Monday as well, Small Business Saturday and a bunch of other pre-holiday sales. With so many deals to take into consideration it’s never too early to start mapping out your holiday shopping.
Holiday Special Offers Get
Announced Early
The first thing to remember is
that holiday deals get announced earlier each year it seems. There are even
some online stores that have special “Christmas in July” specials and drop
offers and deals that mirror the same amazing deals that you find closer to the
actual holidays.
Always keep your eye open, and don’t
be shocked if you start to see some offers and the hype dropping as early as
July, five months before the holiday season.
Keep Your Eye on Social Media for
Black Friday Deals
You might be wondering how you can
keep track on everything. The easiest way is to follow the brands and stores
you love on Facebook and Instagram. Those to tend to be the social media
accounts that companies put the most focus on.
When they have a special offer to
announce you can be sure that they will put it out on social media. It costs
them no money to do that, whereas regular advertising does, so they always look
to take advantage of that “free” audience they have on social media.
Have Your Online Targets
Identified Early
You probably already have an idea of who will be on your holiday shopping list, what they are into, and what stores are the best options. It doesn’t matter if you plan to shop on Whohou or shop on Amazon and help them beat their record setting 2018 holiday numbers.
If you really want to step your
holiday shopping game up, you can create spreadsheets broken down by category
that track deals, allowing you to compare and secure the best deals. While
extreme it is the norm for some, as they treat holiday shopping like a sport.
Subscribe to Newsletters
The easiest way to stay up to date
on deals and to receive notifications when the best specials go live is to sign
up for the newsletters of the companies you plan on shopping at. Be prepared to
be flooded with emails as the dates approach closer.
To help you avoid a messy email
inbox set up filters that push all emails from these stores into a separate
folder. This way they don’t distract you from your more important email
messages, while still allowing you to have easy access to them in one
convenient spot.
