How Can Seasonal Retail Events Influence Your Point Of Sale Displays?

Shopping trends fluctuate at various times of the year, resulting in peak seasons which include the periods before Christmas, Easter and summer, as well as smaller (but nonetheless significant) events such as Mother's Day, Father's Day, Cyber Monday, and Halloween. These peak seasons are usually the same every year, so it’s a great idea to implement a plan on how your retail store can cope with the high level of demand, while also creating more demand for your products.

Point of sale signage plays a huge role in getting customers into your store, as well as influencing their purchase decisions once they are in store.

Annual occasions and events, such as Easter or Black Friday, offer huge potential for you to tailor your displays to attract seasonal shoppers to your business. 81% of UK consumers believe that brick and mortar shops are still vital to the shopping experience. It is imperative that you use your knowledge of seasonal shopping trends to maximise the effectiveness of your POS displays and provide customers with the information and pull-to-buy that they need, in order for your business to make a sale [1].

Key dates in 2024

Here’s a comprehensive list of all the notable UK seasonal holidays and retail events for you to make a note of.

What do I need to prepare before a retail event or peak season?

A lot of planning needs to go into any retail event, so you will need to give yourself and your business plenty of time to prepare.

1. Identify your call to action

No matter which seasonal event you are planning for, every retail event needs to have a clear goal and call-to-action that helps you achieve it. You can identify many different call-to-actions in e-commerce stores, such as signing up to mailing lists, clicking on an advertisement and calling a number. However, brick-and-mortar stores are all going to have the same big call-to-action: buy now!

2. Use bundled displays in your seasonal merchandising

A bundled display is when you place related items that wouldn't usually be in the same section of your store together. This technique is seen most often in supermarkets, where you could find end-of-aisle displays consisting of buns, sausages, burgers and condiments next to each other during the summer barbecue season, for example.

Studies have shown that shoppers evaluate bundled products better than products that have been displayed in their traditional sections of the store, while ‘bundled presentations have even been shown to put shoppers in a better mood' [2].

3. Use window signage to entice customers

Signage is absolutely key to any seasonal retail event. Even though most people will be aware of annual holidays and occasions, if you don’t let customers know that your store is holding an event around this time then they may not notice. The most obvious way of using signage to gain new customers is to first focus on window displays.

You will need to tailor your window displays to your target customers and to the seasonal shopping trends within your sector. If you are a luxury clothing brand, then large, aspirational, photographic window displays may work better than simply using display stands of your products. However, it truly depends on the product that you are selling, as luxury jewellery does benefit from their products being displayed in windows!

‘Visual perceptions are likely to be influenced by the shopper’s tasks and information processing capacity limits in a given context. The same window displays may therefore work differently depending on whether a store is located in the busy streets of New York City or a shopping mall in a small town’- Oh and Petrie [4]

You will need to use window signage to advertise your event a few weeks before the start date, as this gives people time to take notice of the signs and make a mental note to return to your store. Once your event has begun, your window signage will play a huge part in drawing new customers into your store. Use eye-catching, bright signage to attract attention and showcase your bestselling or heavily discounted products.

4. Product placement

The placement of your sale items is key. When it comes to retail, eye level is buy level. If your customers are not instantly presented with the products they want, then it’s less likely that they will take the time to search for it and therefore buy it.

Placing smaller low value items on our around the checkout area is proven to boost the rate of impulse purchases and consumer spending, so this is a great place to display gifts and accessories related to the seasonal event in order to further boost sales.

5. Upselling and cross-selling

Cross-selling refers to the practice of recommending other products to a customer based on the one currently in their basket, while upselling is offering customers an upgraded or premium version of their chosen product. Studies show that ‘unplanned purchases make up between 46% and 70% of total purchases’ so you could be missing out on a lot of money if you don’t try to upsell or cross-sell in store [5].

For example; if you are selling a smartphone, you could use cross-selling to encourage the customer to also buy a set of compatible Bluetooth headphones. Upselling in this situation would be persuading the customer to purchase a phone within the same range that has a bigger storage capacity or larger screen. Always provide value to your customers when upselling and cross-selling - anything else can come across as being pushy and you may end up losing your original sale.

6. Offer something extra

You may have some fantastic discounts on your bestselling items to entice passersby into your seasonal retail event, but often it is a good idea to offer customers something extra on top to seal the deal. However, this added extra does not have to be material. Customers are just as likely to be happy with measures that have been put in place to make their shopping experience more pleasant. This could be simply providing more staff at the checkout to ensure that customers are not queuing for too long.

Other examples of added extras within your retail store could be providing a gift wrapping service, personal shoppers or providing a price match guarantee during your sale event.

You may consider using a seasonal event to launch a brand new product, but this could be a risky strategy. When launching a new product, you want the customer's attention to be solely focused on it, which wouldn't be the case during a seasonal event where lots of different products will be promoted. However, if the new product launch is directly related to the seasonal event, then launching it to start your event could be the catalyst you need to draw customers into your store.

‘If your product is perfectly suited [to launch during a seasonal event], then go a few steps further than other brands. Immerse yourself in understanding the customer [...] and how your product can fulfil a need, then you will be better placed to engage with them on a whole different level.

Cut through is not just about how loud you shout but how well you sing. You want to be music to their ears, not just background noise’- Alexis Eyre [7]

7. Be prepared to extend your retail events

If it's financially viable, always be prepared to extend a seasonal sale event. If the initial event is successful, then it makes sense to give customers a few more days to attend your store and boost profits. Announcing an extension to your event may provide an added boost to your event’s exposure which, in turn, could lead to more customers turning up. ‘19% of customers are still-last minute shopping on Christmas Eve’, so never end your events too soon [8].

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