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Tag: Holiday Sales

  • A Record 187 Million Shoppers Expected for Black Friday Weekend

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    As the holiday shopping season begins, the latest data from the National Retail Federation (NRF) shows record crowds for Black Friday. That’s an estimated 186.9 million shoppers between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. At the same time, many consumers are finding fewer bargains and confronting higher prices across the board.  

    If you’re an entrepreneur, this moment offers more than a snapshot of retail trends, and it’s a call to action for our small businesses. 

    A call to action for founders

    So, why do this year’s Black Friday sales matter: 

    • When big-box retailers pull back on steep promotions and consumers tighten budgets, the spotlight turns to value—both in product and in relationship. 
    • That shift presents a critical moment for smaller, independent businesses to shine, whether by emphasizing that special, local connection, niche expertise, or community impact. 
    • Small business owners want to build trust, purpose, and distinctiveness, not just discounts. 

    Enter Small Business Saturday. 

    After Black Friday, don’t forget about Small Business Saturday. This year, more than ever, backing our local entrepreneurs is not just nice, it’s strategic. Whether you’re a founder, investor, supplier, or customer, here’s how you can tune into the opportunity: 

    • If you’re a founder, use this week to highlight your unique story: why you exist, whom you serve, and what difference you make. 
    • If you’re a partner or investor, re-think supply chains and marketing spend. Can you reallocate a portion to help local, under-represented businesses scale? 
    • Consumers, know that your dollars are super important. A purchase at a local business often circulates through the community more effectively than a purchase at a national chain. 

    Here’s to elevating small business success in 2025 and beyond. Let’s support the entrepreneurs who are defining the future by staying grounded in the local, the creative, the equitable. 

    Happy Small Business Saturday to all, and stay tuned. A special episode of The Big Idea drops this Saturday featuring Tina Wells, brought to you by PayPal. Tina is an entrepreneur, author, and brand strategist known for her work helping companies better understand and reach modern consumers. 

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    Elizabeth Gore

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  • When Is the Right Time to Think About Your Holiday Inventory? | Entrepreneur

    When Is the Right Time to Think About Your Holiday Inventory? | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    It’s currently summer, so most people are thinking about attending barbecues and buying fireworks — not planning their holiday shopping season. However, if you run a brick-and-mortar store or ecommerce business, this is the best time to begin thinking about the holiday inventory.

    Successful planning in June and July will set you up for profitability in November, December and January. Here are six ways you can successfully plan for increased inventory demand during the holiday season.

    Related: July Is Just Early Enough to Start Planning for Holiday Selling

    1. Come up with a timeline

    The holiday season is the most profitable sales period for most retailers. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), holiday sales exceeded $964 billion in 2023, a 3.8% increase from the previous year.

    So start by coming up with a timeline of key dates when you can anticipate increased sales and demand. These dates most likely include:

    Think about the shipping cut-off dates for each of these holidays, and add them to your calendar. That way, you can let customers know the last days to receive standard and expedited shipping on their orders.

    2. Determine what you’ll need

    Next, you’ll forecast the types and amount of inventory you’ll need for the holiday season. Having enough inventory on hand to meet customer demand will ensure you don’t lose out on business to competitors. It will also help you avoid overstocking items you don’t need.

    The best way to estimate holiday demand is by looking at previous sales data and taking note of customers’ shopping patterns. Of course, shopping habits can change slightly from year to year, so you also want to look at industry trends. For example, you can see what your competitors are doing and how they’re preparing for the holidays. And if you have an NRF membership, you’ll receive insights into consumer and retail trends.

    Once you’ve done adequate research, you can begin planning your holiday inventory. You can also start to think about when you should begin marketing and how much staff you’ll need to have on hand to manage the increased demand.

    3. Do an inventory audit

    An inventory audit involves regularly reviewing your inventory for accuracy. During an inventory audit, you’ll verify that your physical inventory matches what you’ve recorded in your financial records. An inventory audit can also help you spot inefficiencies in your supply chain.

    To perform an inventory audit, you’ll start by organizing your inventory to reduce the odds of miscounting items. From there, you’ll begin physically counting and recording each item into your inventory management software.

    Once the audit is complete, you’ll reconcile the count with your inventory records. If there are any discrepancies, you can investigate where they came from. You can also begin developing a plan to reduce discrepancies in the future.

    Related: You Should Be Planning Now for Holiday Sales — Here’s How

    4. Check in with your suppliers

    Once you know how much inventory you’ll need to meet the holiday demand, you should begin reaching out to your suppliers. Checking in early with your suppliers will ensure you’re on the same page and you’re not caught off-guard by changes to their order times or pricing.

    It’s also a good idea to ask if any of your suppliers offer pre-sale discounts or promotional pricing. It never hurts to ask, and some may be willing to give you a discount for large orders.

    5. Think about financing

    As you begin planning for your holiday inventory, one of the biggest issues is how you’re going to pay for everything. Many small businesses don’t have the cash flow to pay for a large inventory order, shipping supplies and the unexpected costs that come along with it.

    If you find yourself in this place, financing may be a good solution. Inventory financing is a one-time loan or ongoing line of credit you can use to purchase inventory for your business. The inventory purchased is used as collateral for the loan.

    Financing can help you maintain consistent cash flow during seasonal fluctuations in your business. It will also give you the flexibility to respond to increased customer demand. If you’re interested in exploring your financing options, you should begin looking into this now so you’ll be well prepared come fall.

    6. Place your orders early

    Many customers begin their holiday shopping in September and October out of concern over product shortages and slow shipping times. So you want to place your inventory orders as soon as possible so you can capture those early shoppers.

    However, it’s impossible to forecast exactly how much inventory you’ll need, and you’re bound to run out of items. So you also want to have a plan for how you can quickly replenish out-of-stock items. For example, a good inventory management system will alert you when you’re running low on certain items and need to re-order.

    Related: Keep Calm and Holiday On: How to Plan for the Holidays Year-Round

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    Joseph Camberato

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  • Snag This Limited-Time $6 Audible Deal For Last-Minute Gifting

    Snag This Limited-Time $6 Audible Deal For Last-Minute Gifting

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    All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, StyleCaster may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

    It’s certainly been a year of buzzy book releases, from Britney Spears’ The Woman In Me to Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. But if you’ve yet to pick up copies of your own to join in on the conversation, there’s a very easy (and better yet, cheaper) way to catch up.

    For those who prefer to listen to stories instead of reading hardcover books, Amazon’s Audible is a great option. The online service carries bestselling audiobooks, exclusive Originals, podcasts, and much more for listeners to access on a daily basis. And right now, Audible is running one of its most enticing promotions to date—pay $5.95 for the first four months.

    You’ll enjoy unlimited listening to an ever-growing selection of titles with zero commitments—you can cancel anytime. In addition, the deal comes with one credit per month to purchase any premium selection title you please. 

    Audible Limited-Time Holiday Offer

    Now’s the perfect opportunity to listen to celebrity tell-alls, like Jada Pinkett Smith’s Worthy or John Stamos’ If You Would Have Told Me. You can also stack your reading list with hit book-to-cinematic pieces like Lessons in Chemistry
    , Normal People
    ,     or Killers of the Flower Moon
    .

    This deal only lasts through December, so make sure to opt in for the 60 percent discount while it’s still available through Amazon’s Audible homepage—just click ‘Get This Deal.’ It’s the perfect last-minute gift for anyone on your list!

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    Maya Gandara

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  • BeautyBio’s 12 Days of Blushmas Shopping Event Has Some of the Best Deals on The Internet Right Now

    BeautyBio’s 12 Days of Blushmas Shopping Event Has Some of the Best Deals on The Internet Right Now

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    All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, StyleCaster may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

    ‘Tis the season of holiday sales, and while we’re often at a loss at where exactly to begin, this December, BeautyBio is one of the first stops on our list. The brand is currently having a too-good-to-be-true promotion called the 12 Days of Blushmas, which kicked off at the beginning of the month. Every day, up until Dec. 13, there will be a new deal to be had — but the catch is that you only have 24 hours to shop it.

    We’ve already seen some amazing discounts, like 50% off of stocking stuffers (which included a Healthy Hair Kit and some must-have brightening eye patches) and a free gift if you spend over $200, but there’s still plenty more to be had. For instance, on Day 8, it’s buy one, get one free on all accessories for BeautyBio’s famous GLOfacial, which is a hydrating, facial pore cleansing tool that has Blue LED.

    Courtesy of BeautyBio

    On day 12, there will also be 30% off everything on the site, so you can scoop up some essentials, like the brand’s best-selling AM + PM Serum Bundle and the Healthy Scalp Dry Shampoo.

    Courtesy of BeautyBio

    BeautyBio’s 12 Days of Blushmas:

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    Samantha Sutton

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  • No7 Beauty’s Holiday Sale Includes a $22 Nighttime Cream That Softens Fine Lines ‘Within 3 Weeks’

    No7 Beauty’s Holiday Sale Includes a $22 Nighttime Cream That Softens Fine Lines ‘Within 3 Weeks’

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    No7 Beauty Holiday Sale 2023: Anti-Wrinkle Creams Are 25% Off – StyleCaster

























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    Maya Gandara

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  • Black Friday online buying hits a record $9.8B in the US, $70.9B globally | TechCrunch

    Black Friday online buying hits a record $9.8B in the US, $70.9B globally | TechCrunch

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    A rush of deep discounts and the growth of flexible payment options were the drivers behind $9.8 billion in online sales in the U.S. on Black Friday — a record figure for the day. According to Adobe Analytics, sales were up by 7.5% on last year’s numbers (you can see those here).

    Sales easily surpassed Thanksgiving figures and growth rate, as well as Adobe’s own predictions for the day. On Thursday U.S. consumers spent, $5.6 billion, up 5.5%; the analysts originally predicted sales of $9.6 billion for Black Friday.

    Salesforce, which uses different metrics to Adobe and says that it crunches numbers on transactions for some 1.5 billion consumers, also said that Black Friday online sales exceeded its expectations. They totalled $16.4 billion in the U.S. and $70.9 billion globally, and a record 79% of all shopping traffic — both browsing and buying — was carried out on mobile handsets.

    Black Friday is a bellwether shopping day, for years seen as the day that the holiday sales period, the most important for retails, kicks off. These figures will provide some surprise holiday cheer to retailers, which have been seeing, overall, sluggish growth. According to figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, retail sales last quarter grew just 2.3% over the same period a year before. E-commerce, as a younger and smaller proportion of that (around 15% of all sales), typically does grow faster and last quarter also grew around 7%.

    “Black Friday online sales performance exceeded any retail executive’s expectations,” said Rob Garf, VP and GM of Retail at Salesforce, in a statement. “Retailers stepped up their discounting game and shoppers, in turn, clicked the buy button.”

    Adobe works with hundreds of large and small online retailers and says that it bases its calculations on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, the movement of some 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories.

    Inflation of just over 3% is definitely down on last year (when it was over 7%) but economic uncertainty does continue to weigh on consumers, so it’s notable that buy now, pay later options, as a complement to other kinds of credit, continued to grow in popularity. Adobe said that orders using BNPL were up by 72% on last year across the week going into Black Friday, and that BNPL revenue as a result of that is up by $79 million for the period.

    The big question will be whether retailers can sustain the growth rate over the next several weeks. The next big barometer-style sales day is Cyber Monday, in two days. We’ll provide more updates when those figures come through.

    Some other notable details from yesterday:

    — Discounts remain a big driver for sales and are coming in as high as 35% off retail price. The name of the game remains buying presents and home electronics.

    — Smartphones accounted for $5.3 billion of sales on the day, up a whopping 10.4% on 2022 and representing 54% of all online sales. Adobe predicts that is going to be the norm for the period: mobile sales will actually overtake desktop this holiday season, it said, with more than 51% of sales.

    — Perhaps because people are still concerned about spend, they are opting for cheaper “standard” shipping more often than in previous years. (And frankly why get something faster now if it’s for a present for the end of December?) Adobe said 80.5% of all orders used standard shipping.

    — Adobe thinks “Cyber Week” (from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday) will rack up $37.2 billion in U.S. online sales, nearly 17% of all sales for the holiday period. Salesforce is more bullish: it says it will account for 25% of all holiday purchases this year and will total $53 billion globally.

    “Black Friday re-asserted its dominance this season with record spend of $9.8 billion driven by new demand for the major sales’ day,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital Insights, in a statement. “The decline in online prices over the last year has created a favorable environment for consumers with strong discounts this season that are tempting even the most price conscious consumers.”

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    Ingrid Lunden

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  • How to Prepare Your Business to Win Big on Black Friday | Entrepreneur

    How to Prepare Your Business to Win Big on Black Friday | Entrepreneur

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    There’s no shopping day quite like Black Friday. Whether you participate online or battle your way through hoards of determined shoppers, Black Friday can be a stressful time for retailers looking to make money.

    But just like how shoppers plan out their mall trips to maximize their time while getting everything they need, stores need to ensure they are equally prepared for a massive influx of shoppers. A little digital preparation can help you stay ahead of your shoppers while you compete with some of your larger competitors. As you build out your Black Friday planning list, make sure to include some gentle research on your customers and their spending patterns, as well as what other businesses like yourself are doing for their marketing efforts.

    It’s estimated that one in three Americans plan to shop on Black Friday and that number is expected to rise as stores take advantage of online marketing and add more days for consumers to shop. Minimize your stress and any headache by preparing and putting your business in the best position to succeed.

    Related: The Best Black Friday Deals of 2016

    1. Research and engage with your customers.

    Like any other store sale, it’s important to research your customers and identify marketing tactics to research your target audience. If you have an email list full of loyal customers, give your customers a heads up and let them know of the sales that are coming up. Or you can build hype around Black Friday by offering special rewards and loyal customer discounts for certain items. You can also utilize free tools like social media to encourage shoppers to come to your stores or hosting giveaways prior to Black Friday.

    “The success of a Black Friday promotion is no longer determined by in-store deals, nor is it determined solely by sales on Black Friday itself,” says Steve Cuffari, Senior Content Marketing Manager from CouponBox.com. “Most retailers now begin their promotions and sales well in advance of Black Friday and continue them long after. For example, big players like Best Buy and Bed, Bath and Beyond create promotions branded as Pre-Black Friday sales, Sneak Peeks and Black Friday Previews.”

    Related: 10 Early Black Friday Deals You Can Get Now!

    2. Organize all of your sales.

    While the goal of Black Friday may be to sell all of your products, you also want to make sure you keep track of all of your inventory. The holiday season is crazy hectic; it’s important to stay organized so you know exactly what you have in your stores at all times. When you organize your products in a spreadsheet format, you can identify which products you want to put on sale and also determine how much of a sale you can afford to discount your items.

    With an organized spreadsheet, you avoid mispricing items on-the-fly as customers roll into your stores, and it also helps you create a contingency plan if you need to order additional products prior to the sale. The last thing you want is to face a horde of angry shoppers looking for a popular item that sold out in the first minutes of Black Friday.

    Related: Retailers Are Finally Realizing That Starting Black Friday on Thanksgiving Is a Terrible Idea

    3. Put your stores to the test.

    If this is your first time preparing for Black Friday, you may want to test your website and store to ensure you can handle increased traffic. One of the worst things that could happen to your store on Black Friday is your website crashing due to the surge in traffic, which could result in lower sales and increased customer frustration.

    You also want to test your physical storefront to make sure your employees are ready to deal with waves of customers. Trina CEO of Primal Life Organics states. “We are using Shopify, you won’t have to worry about this. Thousands of high-volume Shopify merchants regularly experience huge traffic surges, including the infamous Shark Tank effect, without any interruptions.”

    Now is also the time to clean up your stores; place items within reach and remove any items that may block the pathway for shoppers running throughout your storefront. Prior to Black Friday, communicate with any vendors and suppliers to ensure they can also keep up with the increased demands that come with the holidays.

    4. Optimize your email chain.

    In 2014, the average cart abandonment rate for shoppers on Black Friday was a whopping 65% and that rate fluctuates depending on what platforms your customers are doing their shopping. To prevent such a high abandonment rate, create abandoned cart emails to remind customers of the items they have not yet purchased. You should also make sure your website is mobile and tablet friendly.

    A 2015 IBM study found smartphones accounted for 44% of all online traffic on Black Friday and we should expect that number to grow as the number of customers with smartphones also increases. Optimize your website so it is fully functional and responsive on mobile devices. Talk to your web designer and gain feedback from customers to identify what works and what needs to be improved before the holiday shopping starts. With a strong mobile presence, you ensure your customers can access your store no matter where they may be in the United States.

    Black Friday is a major shopping day for retailers and customers alike. For the customers, it’s all about finding the best deals for anything they could possibly imagine. And for retailers, the Thanksgiving shopping experience is all about maximizing profit by selling as many discounted items as possible. With proper planning and a sound game plan in place, you can ensure your business – both large and small – can take full advantage of the American shopping experience that is Black Friday.

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    Josh Felber

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  • The Only Sale You Need to Shop to Cover All Your Holiday Party Needs

    The Only Sale You Need to Shop to Cover All Your Holiday Party Needs

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    The final weeks of 2022 have a lot of things in store — aside from obvious holiday festivities, there’s something else that should be on your radar: end-of-year sales.

    Right off of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, brands are looking to treat their customers with discounts on some of their most sought-after products. And if you’re in still in search for holiday outfits, you can look no further: Reformation‘s holiday sale gives shoppers the opportunity to stock up on velvet gowns, printed bottoms and flirty blouses for up to 40% off — and it’s live now. 

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    Fashionista

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  • Fashion’s Favorite Sale of the Year Is Live

    Fashion’s Favorite Sale of the Year Is Live

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    The moment fashion people have been waiting all year for has finally arrived — and just in time for the holidays: The Ssense sale is officially up and running, with thousands of items available up to 50% off. 

    From statement crochet to puffer slippers to opera gloves, this shopping event has something to offer for every type of fashionmonger. Spruce up your festive ‘fits this season with bold garments and grab wardrobe essentials to last a lifetime. If you need a little help sifting through the endless amount of options, our editors have selected the pieces they want to invest in. See our picks from the Ssense sale in the gallery below.

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    Brooke Frischer

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