Articles and News
Holiday Sales Success Index: An Excellent Season So Far, With Creative Marketing Ideas That Work | December 12, 2018 (0 comments)
Merrick, NY—The second full week of the holiday season (December 3 through 10) has been a good one for upscale jewelers. 77% of respondents to the Centurion Holiday Sales Success Index are in positive territory, posting sales gains over the same period last year—and almost one-third of respondents (32%) are posting sales gains of more than 10% over the same period last year.
5% of respondents each reported their sales for the second full week of the season holding even with last year or slightly off (between 1% and 5%). 13% reported sales are down between 6% to 10% from the same week last year, but nobody reported a sales plummet of more than 10%.
Jewelers employed a variety of marketing strategies to achieve their sales results. The most popular strategy was social media and/or other digital, with 28.5% of respondents crediting those as their most successful marketing tools.
Tried-and-true marketing strategies—TV, word-of-mouth, personal outreach, in-store events, direct mail, and community involvement still work: more than 50% of respondents credited these strategies with boosting their sales numbers.
How Was Business For The Second Full Week Of The Season, December 3 Through December 10?
Proving that consumers still love a bargain or a freebie, 14% of respondents credited a discount or giveaway with driving sales. Particularly noteworthy for creativity was one Michigan jeweler’s free ring giveaway—or, rather, a free "Ring" giveaway. For every purchase over $1,500, her customers received a free Ring video doorbell (image, top of page). Customers who spent more than $3,000 also got to choose additional accessories to go with the Ring doorbell package.
Another jeweler in Florida harnessed the power and immediacy of social media by hosting pop-up sales online, which drove results up from last year. And another, also in Florida, emphasized that holiday marketing is something that needs to be an all-year strategy. This jeweler, whose sales leapt more than 10% over the same period last year, says involvement in town all year long is paying off now. “We’re seeing new customers at a better rate than ever--whom I met at different functions all year!”
In the broader retail picture, consumers are feeling merry—and flush—this season, especially online, says an article in Fortune magazine. The National Retail Federation anticipates they’ll collectively spend between $714 billion to $720 billion, a 4.8% increase over last year’s holiday season.
Fortune says they’re often heading to their keyboards to do that spending: Adobe Analytics reports consumers have already spent $80.3 billion online from November 1 through the end of December 6 this year. That’s an 18.6% increase over the same period last year. Mobile shopping especially has seen rocketing growth of 54.8% year on year and 2018 is the first holiday season where more than half of visits to digital storefronts came from mobile devices, says Fortune.