The Holiday Retail Royal Flush

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2016 in the bag, which remaining days in December are the best bets for late-season sales? The five days of December 15 – 19 presents a royal flush of days that offers the best set of circumstances for peak sales in what remains of the holiday season. Considering that the average holiday shopper is only half-way done with shopping by mid-December, there’s plenty of holiday spending still available for affiliate marketers to grab.

Read on to find out which days are the highest scoring, in terms of revenue opportunity, and why.

The ACE: Thursday, 12/15   

In our royal flush of days, the Ace of late season shopping will be the Thursday before Free Shipping Day. Thursdays during the holiday season typically are high converting days, with conversion rates averaging 5.5%--and the Thursday before Free Shipping Day (usually on a Friday) has been one of the highest converting days in December beyond Green Monday (Dec 12). This day is a good bet for doubling down on marketing pushes to shoppers and refreshing sites and offers with the latest last-minute shopping promotions.

The KING: Free Shipping Day, Friday, 12/16

The appeal of guaranteed-by-Christmas Eve delivery for free explains the perennial popularity of Free Shipping Day. This promotion generates a lot of media buzz that pushes up the overall retail sales on this day. Its proximity on the calendar leaves shoppers with just enough time to receive their online orders, and provides incentive for shoppers to close out much of their remaining shopping. Free Shipping Day creates a halo-effect from which all digital marketers can benefit by anticipating the demand and interest in shipping offers.

The QUEEN: Sunday, 12/18

Sundays have emerged as the second-highest revenue driving days of the season, due in large part to mobile connectivity and mobile sales. This Sunday (the last before Christmas) will likely be the last high yield/high converting day of the 2016 holiday season and represents a great opportunity for marketers. Need and urgency, on the part of shoppers, will converge and (if early season growth in online sales is an indicator) they’ll turn to the online channels for gifting ideas and purchases. Smart marketers on this day will highlight shipping deadlines and gift guides whilst also being optimized for mobile searching and purchasing.

The JACK: Monday, 12/19

Mondays in December consistently deliver the highest sales of the week, and this Monday will be no different. This is the last hurrah for gift purchases that require shipping with no rush charges. As Monday closes, online marketers need to switch up their promotions for the rest of the week to focus on three key opportunities: gift cards, site-to-store offers, and pick-up in-store shopping. Due to falling on a Sunday, there are two more shopping days before Christmas than last year and these type of offers are the best way for online marketers to stay in the last-minute shopping game.

The 10: Saturday, 12/17 

The low-scoring day of our shopping royal flush is Saturday. Coming right after what has historically been high-converting days, Saturday has the potential to be a pause day for shoppers. That said, as a weekend day just one week out from Christmas Eve it still ranks high in terms of revenue opportunity, just not as high as the other days in the five-day flush. Growth in mobile browsing and shopping could easily make this a higher revenue day that it has been in the past.

If the increased YOY success Thanksgiving – Cyber Monday saw this year is any predictor, the season is far from over—especially not if you also take Boxing Day into consideration!

Hopefully you feel inspired and empowered to make the most of this run of late-season shopping days! For more trends and insights around this holiday retail season, check out the CJ Affiliate 2016 Holiday Intelligence Report.