In 2024, Black Friday sales events are not limited to the United States. Australia witnessed one of the most successful Black Friday sales in 2023, surpassing the performance of all the previous years in eCommerce history.
Boxing Day sales, on the other hand, have always been a part of the Australian retail sector. Before we get into how you can ensure that your online store performs well and generates revenue during this Boxing Day Sale, let us start with what it is, and its significance for Australian retailers — online and offline.
What are Boxing Day Sales in Australia?
Ask anyone about the biggest sale of the year or the best day to shop in a year and they are most likely to know or talk about the Black Friday sale or Cyber Monday sale. However, it is important to consider that before Black Friday became a global phenomenon, it was only considered a big deal in countries like the United States, where it originated.
However, other countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia have celebrated Boxing Day sales, dating back to when Black Friday was not even a thing. Even today while Black Friday is an event focused on generating more sales by taking advantage of Christmas shoppers, the Boxing Day sale is a way for retailers to get rid of excess stock and maximise revenue in the holiday season.
The Boxing Day sale, celebrated on December 26, is quite different compared to Black Friday or Cyber Monday, considering it involves a large number of people returning unwanted gifts in exchange for credit or refund. Additionally, the sale also caters to people who might be looking to use the gift cards they might have received for Christmas.
6 Important Benefits of Boxing Day Sale for Australian Retailers
Boxing Day Sale in Australia observes most homegrown and international brands offering discounts and deals to generate extra holiday revenue. Here are a few primary benefits Australian retailers can expect from maximising their Boxing Day sales.
1. Massive Boost of Revenue
Boxing Day Sale is the perfect way to generate some last-minute revenue that contributes to your annual performance. Aside from being one of the biggest sales events of the year, the best Boxing Day sales can attract more consumers to online stores and online platforms that offer lucrative deals and offers.
Plus, the Christmas gift-giving season can be the perfect impetus to encourage people to seek competitive bargains on products they want to buy and cash in gift vouchers they may have received. The Boxing Day sale can bring a large crowd of online and online customers to your store within a short period.
Additionally, this sudden demand surge can allow you to maximise the return on the investment you poured into the Boxing Day promotions and advertising.
2. Clearance of Inventory
Whether you are a traditional retailer with a brick-and-mortar store or an online retailer, you want to clear out your inventory to make room for fresh stock in the new year. Online retailers want to be prepared for the holiday season and popular sale events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday by stocking up on products.
As a result, they can often end up with a stock surplus post-Christmas which is difficult to push out of the inventory before the year ends. Having a Boxing Day Sale can help retailers get rid of excess stock, especially seasonal products and keep the inventory turnover rate going strong. Lack of inventory optimisation can also result in high storage costs.
By leveraging Boxing Day sales, you can also prevent further markdowns which can further damage your profit margins.
3. Acquire and Retain Customers
As mentioned earlier, shoppers often end up at a retailer during the Boxing Day sale to cash in on a gift card or exchange unwanted gifts with store credit. As a result, retailers will often have first-time customers in the Boxing Day sale.
Retailers can offer attractive deals to potential consumers and appeal to a broader audience who can become loyal customers if they deliver a good shopping experience. On the other hand, even existing customers can be incentivised to show more brand loyalty and return to your online store.
By leveraging the Boxing Day sale right, you can also expect repeat purchases in the future, as long as they enrol in loyalty programs and email marketing campaigns.
4. Increased Traffic and Brand Exposure
Boxing Day sales when promoted right can bring a lot of attention and exposure to retailers and boost traffic in your physical and online stores. In eCommerce stores, this can translate into a higher number of clicks and a boost in visibility.
Marketing campaigns including a large array of tools and platforms like social media ads, TV or radio promotions, and email campaigns can give your brand a lot of exposure. This exposure can impact your brand awareness and even bring new high-value customers to your website.
Even if customers do not purchase from your online store during the Boxing Day sale, they may check out your store during the promotional hype and return to shop from you later.
5. Boost Online Sales
Online retailers already face a lot of fierce competition in the market and that is even more amplified during the Boxing Day Sale. Even retailers with physical locations focus their efforts on their online stores so they can reach a wider audience.
Many Australians prefer online shopping over traditional shopping due to the added convenience, and Boxing Day sales can help retailers truly make the most of this trend. You can also boost your online sales by optimising your website and offering exclusive deals for customers who want to avoid the rush in crowded stores.
What’s more, you can get valuable insights into your customers’ behaviour and preferences by monitoring real-time data and performance of your Boxing Day Sale.
6. Maximise the Seasonal Momentum
The holiday shopping season generally starts right after Thanksgiving with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. However, the Boxing Day sales in the US and other countries grants retailers the opportunity to extend the shopping season further and can help them capitalise on consumer spending habits.
Even though the peak shopping period ends once Christmas is over, the Boxing Day Sale can help retailers tap into the residual excitement of the holiday season. Shoppers are usually eager to spend money with their Christmas gift cards and retailers can leverage this enthusiasm and momentum to maximise their profits.
Boxing Day Sale Statistics and Trends
Now that you know why the Boxing Day Sale is so important for online retailers, let us look at a few statistics and trends that can attest to its importance in Australian eCommerce.
Consumer Spending
In 2023, Australians were predicted to spend over $24 billion during the Boxing Day Sale period until January 15, which marked a 1.6% increase from 2022. Even with the rise in cost-of-living expenses pressuring Australians to spend less, Black Friday 2023 and Boxing Day Sales 2023 were some of the biggest retail events of the year.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the retail turnover fell by 2.7% in December 2023 - in stark contrast to November 2023, as most of the consumers had already spent a lot on Black Friday sales. The other reasons attributing to this fall are high-street store chains closing down for Christmas and Boxing Day and limited budgets due to the increased cost of living.
Demographic
As of September 2023, 65% of Millennial consumers and 83% of Gen-Z consumers were expected to shop during the best Boxing Day Sales 2023, representing the biggest consumer demographics. The older age groups were identified to take a more prudent approach towards the Boxing Day Sale knowing they are likely to spend a lot during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events.
11 Marketing and Sales Tips for Boxing Day 2024
As we have learned so far online and traditional retailers could gain numerous benefits by leveraging the Boxing Day sale and if the predictions and performance of the Boxing Day Sale 2023 are any indication, this year’s sale event can be expected to be even bigger.
However, none of this would be useful for your online store if you don’t use the right marketing and sales tactics to attract customers and boost revenue during the period. Here are some useful marketing and sales tips you should consider implementing during the Boxing Day Sale 2024.
1. Start Your Promotions in Advance
When we talk about marketing and promotional campaigns, you have won half the battle if you get the timing right. Since almost every brand in the eCommerce market runs extensive marketing campaigns to promote their Black Friday deals, it is easy for your Boxing Day sales deals to get lost in the noise.
However, you must start promoting your Boxing Day deals and offers in advance so that potential customers can compare deals and decide what they want to buy from your online store. By promoting your Boxing Day best deals, you may be able to ensure a spike in your sales revenue during the event.
2. Identify and Push Your Top Products
While most of your products may already have been sold during your Black Friday and Cyber Monday events, you may want to stock up on your popular products. Not only this, the Boxing Day sales will also help you get rid of the excess stock that might be lying in your inventory after the holiday shopping season.
Take a look at the order histories of your long-term and new customers to understand their purchase patterns and preferences so that you may identify the most popular products in your online store. These are the products that you must prioritise pushing out to your customers with the help of higher discounts and better shipping options.
On the flip side, you can also attempt to push out your less popular products by offering bigger discounts and offers on them.
3. Retarget Abandoned Carts
Even the biggest discounts offered on your online store cannot stop customers from abandoning their carts. You will be dealing with abandoned carts even during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales and the Boxing Day Sale is the perfect opportunity to rectify this issue.
The Boxing Day sales online will help retailers retarget customers they might have lost or not fully converted during Black Friday sales. Your cart abandonment rate reflects poorly on the quality of your website design and online store, making it important for retailers to retarget these customers through emails and social media.
With the help of highly effective retargeting campaigns, you can ensure that customers who almost abandoned your website proceed with and complete their transactions.
4. Optimise Your Landing Pages and Website
Depending on the products you sell on your online store, certain pages on your website can be more valuable than others. For most online stores, the key landing pages and product pages may take precedence over the other web pages on your website.
These valuable web pages on your website should be optimised for SEO and technical performance so that you can make the most of the Boxing Day sale traffic. Technical errors and issues in your website or performance issues in your web pages can hamper your customers’ overall user experience.
5. Create Urgency With Limited Offers and Deals
Boxing Day Sale is your last chance as a retailer to capitalise on the holiday shopping season and generate some extra revenue before the year ends. Unfortunately, customers who have already spent a lot on the Black Friday sale are likely to think twice before shopping in the Boxing Day sale.
You will need to have a few extra tactics up your sleeve to attract customers and generate revenue. A proven tactic that almost always works is creating urgency so that customers feel the need to go ahead with their purchase.
A lot of retailers use this tactic by showing a warning when an item is likely to get stocked out soon, or offering high-value items at a discounted price for a limited period. These tactics are likely to create FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in customers and prompt them to purchase a product without any further delay.
6. Promote Loyalty Programs
A great way to maximise your sales during Boxing Day is to target your existing customers first. Customers who have already shopped in the Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale will hold back from shopping too much in the Boxing Day sale, especially from a new retailer.
However, if a trusted online store that a customer already shops from offers exclusive deals as part of their loyalty program, customers might reconsider making a purchase.
A great example of this is the Prime subscription offered by Amazon. Amazon Prime members get early access to Boxing Day sales on Amazon and get highly discounted rates on products and shipping, increasing the average order value of Amazon’s existing customers.
You can also promote the benefits of signing up for the loyalty programs to new customers so that you can continue reaping the benefits of the promotions, even after the Boxing Day sale is over.
7. Utilise Social Media to Promote Deals
Choosing the right platform to promote is as important as crafting the right marketing campaign to target your customers. Popular social media platforms when used right can be great marketing tools and help you promote your Boxing Day deals and offers.
For instance, your store may be looking at slashing the prices of electronics such as laptops and desktop computers by 50%. You can boost the reach of this offer and ensure that a large number of people get access to this deal by promoting it on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
By placing a link to the product in the social media post, you can redirect your customers directly from your social media post to the product listing page on your website.
8. Offer Personalised Offers and Deals
Personalisation goes a long way when you want to create a highly targeted marketing message that hits the mark. The Boxing Day sales in Australia can be the perfect opportunity to target customers with tailored offers and discounts and ensure that they purchase from your online store.
You can craft highly impactful marketing messages based on customers’ preferences and order history, and offer discounts on products that you think they would like. You can also slash prices on products that are on the customers’ wishlists to encourage them to purchase those products.
What’s more, you can also leverage your loyalty programs and customers’ search and order history on your online store to prepare irresistible deals and personalise the whole experience right up to the product packaging.
9. Prepare for Demand Spikes
Every store that ever thinks of running a sale event should be prepared to handle the crowd control that comes with it. For online stores, this crowd arrives in the form of traffic spikes and even the most seasoned marketplaces and eCommerce retailers have made mistakes when handling these situations tactfully.
You need to ensure that your online store is prepared to handle a traffic spike or eCommerce surge, and does not crash when multiple shopping carts are being checked out. If you are offering a lot of limited-period deals, you can expect demand spikes to be even steeper at certain times.
When utilised properly, demand spikes can be highly profitable for your company, and can even lead to more revenue from your sales events.
10. Strengthen Your Supply Chain Operations
The biggest mistake that an online store can make is to prepare a lot for Boxing Day Sales Australia, but not pay attention to the supply chain and logistical processes. Imagine selling out all your high-value and popular products and getting a bunch of new customers simply because a lot of customers landed on your store by searching “boxing day sales near me”.
The euphoria of selling out your goods will, however, be quite short-lived, if you are unable to fulfill those orders on time and end up with unavoidable delays. What’s more, you may even face issues with impatient customers and end up with cancellations and refund requests.
Strengthening your supply chain operations before the sale starts is a great way to pre-emptively avoid any such issues derailing your sales performance. This includes partnering up with the right courier partners and being on top of your packaging process.
11. Run Paid Ads on Various Channels
Nothing works like paid ads when you want to generate sure-shot results within a limited time frame. Paid ads can be used as an aggressive yet effective marketing strategy, wherein retailers can promote their best offers and deals on related websites and platforms to maximise their reach.
Running paid advertisements on relevant websites can help you acquire highly engaged customers who are likely to complete their purchases on your website. Aside from running Google ads on the search engine, you can also consider running paid ads on social media platforms and relevant websites.
Concluding Remarks
The Boxing Day Sale is as important in Australia as Black Friday and Cyber Monday are in the United States. When leveraged right, good Boxing Day sales can help retailers get rid of excess stock left from holiday season sales, and generate revenue from the stock in their inventory before the year ends. You must ensure that you follow the best possible marketing and sales tactics to maximise revenue from the sale and make the most of it.
Get a quote from PACK & SEND to get the perfect logistics partner to support you during the peak Boxing Day sale periods.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. When is the Boxing Day Sale 2024?
Most online retailers will start the Boxing Day Sale 2024 on December 26 and run it until December 31. However, some retailers also prefer to start the Boxing Day Sale a bit early or end it much later around mid-January.
2. What’s the difference between Black Friday and Boxing Day sales?
Black Friday takes place on the last Friday of November after Thanksgiving and marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Customers leverage the Black Friday sale to shop for Christmas gifts and retailers leverage it to maximise sales and revenue.
On the other hand, the Boxing Day sale refers to the discount period starting on December 26 after Christmas, predominantly used by retailers to get rid of excess stock left after the Black Friday sale.
3. Are the Boxing Day sales good in Australia?
Aside from the past couple of years, the Boxing Day sale has always been a bigger deal than the Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales offered by retailers in Australia. It is only recently that Black Friday has outdone Boxing Day Sales’ popularity and broke its records.
4. Is Boxing Day Sale good for online stores?
Boxing Day Sale can be good for online as well as traditional retailers. Online stores will be able to get rid of any excess stock they have left from the holiday shopping season and generate more revenue before the year ends.