Navigating Ecommerce Seasonality: How to Choose the Best Sales Season to Maximize Profitability

While Christmas, Black Friday and Cyber Monday dominate sales for many ecommerce businesses, it can be expensive to sell during such a saturated and competitive time of year. Shipping fees and surcharges often increase leaving brands who offer promotions or discounts during that time with slim profit margins.  

Add to that many fulfillment providers may have fee increases during the holiday season—extra charges extra for over-time, specialty projects, and more. 

Brands that want to maximize profitability should analyze their online sales fluctuations, product mix, and target audience and consider pushing sales at alternative times of the year.  

Which Holidays are Best to Optimize Ecommerce Seasonality  

Choosing a non-Christmas holiday for your company’s peak season will depend largely on two factors: the type of goods you sell and your ideal customer. For example, seasonal sales of pool toys will have more conversion rate success during summer months and in warm regions, than trying to sell to cold-climate customers during the winter.  

Mother’s Day  

The second biggest selling time of the year is for Mother’s Day. Beyond just gifts for Mom, this time of year brings online shopping interest in summer activity items, outdoor gear, gardening products, patio accessories, and warm weather goods like beach hats and swimsuits.  

Amazon Prime Day  

A major mover of seasonal trends is Amazon’s once-yearly sale: Amazon Prime Day. Prime members get exclusive deals for one or two days only. For Amazon sellers, this may be the single limited-time offer you give all year to entice customers and attract new potential customers. Success will come from optimizing your Amazon ecommerce store, product pages, and SEO tactics to boost your rankings on the Amazon platform.  

Dad and Grads Season  

A popular time for gifting is June—graduations and Father’s Day combine for a peak season that leans toward grilling products, summer sports, memory keepsakes, and more. If your products are best suited for these celebrations, aim your marketing campaigns at this target audience.   

New Year Trends  

Consumer behavior often dictates an uptick in certain categories of products during January. Most are health related, due to a potential over indulgence of the holiday season. Wellness products, supplements, indoor fitness equipment, and winter sport activities are some of the most popular and should be the focus for online retailers.  

Other peak seasons  

There are some seasonal events that can become a peak season if you products fit the bill. Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Fall, Back-to-school, are examples of holidays that may see a big uptick in a niche category of ecommerce sales. If your order volume is naturally spiking around one of these holidays, it may benefit your brand growth to lean into those numbers. But if your products don’t fit any of these specific celebrations, keep close watch on ecommerce trends that you may want to capitalize on when the market shifts. We all remember the toilet paper shortage of 2020, and the uptick in loungewear.  

How to Set Up Promotions to Match Non-Christmas Peak Season Sales 

Before you start any promotions, it’s important to make sure your operations and fulfillment can support any spike in volume. Always connect your sales with your operations first, as the team who will be the ones filling orders and packaging up goods, they need to have time for a full optimization of your fulfillment flow.  

When you find the holiday or season that seems to work best for your brand, make sure you set up your strategy for messaging and marketing efforts. You’ll want to leverage social media  to promote your products, set up lead-generating landing pages, and connect any ecommerce platforms like Shopify or other APIs.  

Once you’ve launched your promotions, start A/B testing product messaging that work for your target audience. Enhance your order flow and checkout by offering product bundles and add-ons.  

Bottom Line  

Once you’ve honed your marketing strategies for your non-Christmas sales volume, be sure to ramp up customer support, optimize your checkout flow, fine-tune inventory management, connect all ecommerce platforms, and streamline all aspects of your supply chain. Online shoppers expect the very best service, no matter what season they shop. Any great interactions they have with your brand will keep them coming back for more year-round. 

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