Marketing for a Pandemic Holiday Season

This year, the sales surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday looked different from the typical Black Friday sales that customers have gotten used to. Instead of one-day-only “doorbuster” sales with a myriad of discounted products where customers line up outside for these limited in-store offerings, retailers across the world, including big box retailers, have had to find new ways to approach these sales in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specifically, many retailers are doing away with offering the best deals in-person, and stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy have made some of their most enticing sales online-only to de-emphasize the importance of in-store shopping. This shift toward online shopping is creating another challenge: ensuring that customers receive their purchases in time for the holidays. With postal services more burdened than ever (as people send away for things that they would normally buy in-person, whether it is food, household supplies, or holiday gifts for others), retailers have changed their marketing and overall approach to online sales. First, they are spreading out the promotions over a period of days and even weeks to smooth demand, and many offered these sales earlier in November and even in October to account for shipping delays closer to the holidays. Second, they are encouraging in-store/curbside pickup for items bought online to alleviate challenges regarding shipping, with some stores like Nordstrom even offering small gift cards/free cups of coffee/other incentives to pick up your online order in-store or at curbside. Stores will likely use these tactics more to drive in-store/curbside pickup as the holidays get closer and postal services become more strained.

While some customers prefer this new approach to holiday sales, which allows them to explore more in a given amount of time and make all the purchases they want, retailers also understand that online sales make it harder to encourage impulse purchases: customers have more time to think about a particular item before purchasing, and they are not swayed by the holiday music/decorations or chaos/crowds that make them feel the desire or need to buy something in a rush. I will be interested to see what other marketing tactics retailers roll out in the coming weeks to combat these challenges and encourage holiday shopping in this pandemic environment.

Sources: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/30/cyber-monday-2020-time-to-test-the-limits-of-e-commerce-.html , https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/23/holiday-2020-so-long-doorbusters-retailers-roll-out-weeks-of-deals.html , https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/23/holiday-2020-so-long-doorbusters-retailers-roll-out-weeks-of-deals.html