2021 E-commerce Dates Every Marketer Needs to Know

Every savvy e-commerce platform knows it’s never too early to start strategizing for major money-making dates in the year ahead. And with the global pandemic shifting spending habits, fine-tuning your sales strategy is more important than ever.

From your email campaigns to releasing timely content to seasonal promotions, planning how to best leverage major e-commerce milestones in the upcoming year will give you a leg up on the competition.

And once you’ve got a solid marketing strategy set for these cash-flowing events on your calendar, you can hone your strategy every year to keep increasing margins.

Everyone knows about the big sales on Black Friday and leading up to the holidays. But there’s probably at least a few major e-commerce dates that you didn’t realize could be so lucrative — like who knew that before COVID, Halloween was one of the top 5 e-commerce dates of the year?

Looks like shoppers love to trick-or-TREAT themselves! (We accept pity laughs).

And putting more important e-commerce dates on your marketing calendar is just the first step. Knowing how to leverage these dates strategically could be the key to seeing increased leads and conversions this year — even during those spring and summer lulls.

Here’s your guide to making the most out of every major e-commerce event in 2021:

2021 Major Ecommerce Dates:

2/14/2021: Valentine’s Day

Key stats:

• Valentine’s Day is the first major e-commerce sales date of the year.
• Cart abandonment at this time is high: 76% for retail and 86% for travel.
• Even though sales decreased from 2020, 2021 is still one of the highest-grossing Valentine’s Days ever with over $21.8 million spent by Americans

Strategy:

• Play up this day of love — people are looking for the best restaurants in the city, romantic jewelry, and new outfits and makeup for the big night
• Not to mention how many Americans are buying flowers, cards, chocolate, and other romantic gifts for their sweetheart
• Design an ad for AdWords or Facebook featuring a holiday-relevant product or service for the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day (and keep your promotions going the day of — we’re all guilty of scrambling for last-minute gifts)

3/17/2021: St. Patrick’s Day

Key stats:

• Americans spend over $5 billion a year on green clothes and festive accessories for St. Patrick’s Day

Strategy:

• Create a St. Patrick’s Day promotion to engage shoppers and push traffic to your site — and include a holiday discount or free shipping
• Choose a festive design for green emails, social, & on-site promotions

4/1/2021: April Fool’s Day

Key stats:

• This is a day when companies try to bring levity and fun to their brand messaging and end up either entertaining or enraging their audience (pro-tip: don’t be the second one)

Strategy:

• Build brand voice and entertain your audience through tasteful, appropriate humor — don’t promise your customers something they’re not actually going to receive, or pretend a cataclysmic human crisis is on the horizon (“Just kidding! You can come out of your bunker now, suckers.”)
• Don’t plan on releasing important information or news on April 1st, as anything you say could be taken as a joke to your users

4/4/2021: Easter

Key stats:

• Bust out the pastel sundresses and Bermuda shorts — your customers are looking for warmer-weather deals and spring merchandise

Strategy:

• Reach out to your email list with festive promotional messaging
• Offer an “Easter egg” hunt on your site over Easter weekend — hide egg icons throughout your site that offer pop-up promotions, prizes and deals when found and clicked

4/22/2021: Earth Day

Key stats:

• Earth Day is a big promotional favorite for outdoor brands
• Even if you’re not a hiking boot brand or a climbing equipment company, this is a great time to partner with environmental brands on promotions and find opportunities to give back to the environment

Strategy:

• Choose an environmental organization or cause that aligns with your brand’s mission and donate a percentage of all proceeds from Earth Day’s sales
• Swap out any banner ads on your site with promotional banners to build hype
• Run paid social ads to get the word out about the promotion and send an email blast to your list

5/9/2021: Mother’s Day

Key stats:

• Mother’s Day the third largest retail holiday in the US
• Americans typically spend over $20 billion on moms for Mother’s Day
• Key products sold on Mother’s Day: jewelry, flowers, clothing, electronics, and gift cards.
• Mother’s Day is KFC’s largest sales date of the year!

Strategy:

• Offer targeted promotions for Mother’s Day shoppers a few weeks out
• Team up with an industry influencer to create a unique gift-guide for moms using your products or services
• Use paid social campaigns to target moms and offer promotions that allow them to treat themselves

5/31/2021: Memorial Day

Key stats:

• Memorial Day is both the kickoff off for summer and a big day for sales on the retail front
• Although it’s generally effective to try to connect your brand with current events, holidays like Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day call for tact and respect for the culture of the holiday
• Memorial Day is a time to honor American troops tactfully and respectfully, so if you do host a Memorial Day promotion, it should be centered on giving back to organizations that benefit troops
• Don’t make your social followers or email list cringe with exploitative posts that can be seen as disrespectful — like some of these major Memorial Day marketing fails

Strategy:

• Show appreciation for the men and women who have served by offering special promotions and discounts to veterans
• For example, veterans can receive free shipping or 20% storewide
• Offer relevant and fun Memorial Day content like blogs with seasonal recipes that feature food from your grocery store, or craft ideas using products your hardware store sells, or Memorial Day outfit ideas coordinated from the clothes sold in your boutique

6/20/2021: Father’s Day

Key stats:

• Just like Mother’s Day, your shoppers are looking for unique and valuable gifts for dad

Strategy:

• Build your brand trust by providing your audience with relevant and engaging content: from the best gifts for dad to best locations to spend Father’s Day, this is a perfect time to support Father’s Day sales and build your blog library
• Partner with an industry influencer to create a unique gift-guide for dads: think beyond ties and mugs to market unique gift ideas that will get traction with your audience

7/4/2021: Independence Day

Key stats:

• July is the slowest month for e-commerce
• Sales dip by as much as 30% compared to big sales months like December

Strategy:

• Use this time to run a lead generation campaign to build your email list
• Leading up to the holidays, offer fun and seasonal sales on red, white, and blue products
• Build your blog with engaging holiday content like tasty Fourth of July recipes that use ingredients from your market, holiday decoration ideas that use your company’s products, or a style guide featuring red, white, and blue clothes and accessories that are sold by your boutique
• A “Christmas in July” sale is a creative way to bring in sales during this slow month
• Consider an automated email sequence or retargeting campaign to keep your brand on your audience’s radar during this dry spell and to keep eyeballs on your brand until back-to-school time

8/1/2021: Back to School Shopping

Key stats:

• August is the peak time for back-to-school shopping

Strategy:

• Heavily promote the products that most align with back-to-school — clothing, shoes, backpacks, electronics, and school supplies
• Plan a 3-7 day sale during this period that you focus your promotions on

9/6/2021: Labor Day

Key stats:

• Labor Day is a big travel weekend as families try to squeeze the last few days out of summer before school really ramps up
• Customers are looking to take advantage of the last days of the season and finish up back-to-school shopping
• This is the time that people start thinking about fall apparel

Strategy:

• Present the first reveal of your fall products through an email sequence and offer early-bird shopping discounts
• Be prepared with a fall photoshoot and fall branding and design for banner ads and social posts

10/31/2021: Halloween

Key stats:

• Pre-COVID, Halloween was one of the top 5 e-commerce holidays
• Even though sales have decreased, people are spending more per person on costumes and decorations
• Free shipping is one of the most valuable online shopping promotion for Halloween buyers

Strategy:

• Not many e-commerce sites sell candy and costumes, but everyone can benefit from the Halloween e-commerce uptick
• Create fun, seasonal sales promotions leading up to Halloween
• Offer free shipping!

11/25/2021: Thanksgiving

Key stats:

• Online shoppers spend over $15 billion on the Saturday and Sunday following Thanksgiving each year
• Even though in-store retail traffic fell 52% last year, Americans spent 116 million hours shopping online on Black Friday
• 165 million Americans shop over the Thanksgiving Break

Strategy:

• Many people are checking their emails for Thanksgiving deals well before the holiday hits
• Send out holiday-themed Black Friday and Cyber Monday reminders to your email list and social followers so you’re on their radar before the big shopping weekend
• Design banner ads for your site and create a sales page before Thanksgiving to direct visitors to

11/26/2021: Black Friday

Key stats:

• Black Friday accounts for over $7 billion in online sales
• Black Friday sees over $2.9 billion in mobile sales
• More than half of Black Friday purchases were made from a mobile device in 2020
• Email marketing is responsible for the most holiday sales, generating over 25% of all Black Friday sales
• In 2020, almost half of all sales came from mobile and social media
• Black Friday 2020 was one of the biggest online shopping days ever — second only to Cyber Monday 2019

Strategy:

• GO BIG
• Start planning for Black Friday in Q2 by upgrading shopping apps and introduce mobile payment apps
• Use social media advertising to get your deals in front of as many people as possible. While you can cast a wide net with Facebook’s targeting, you can build warmer audiences on Facebook by uploading your existing email list or targeting previous site visitors based on your Facebook pixel. Then, build lookalike audiences based on those
• Design banner ads to promote your Black Friday deals
• Run an email series promoting your Black Friday deals at least a month in advance of the date

11/27/2020: Small Business Saturday

Key stats:

• 70% of Americans know about Small Business Saturday
• In 2020, Americans spent a record $19.8 billion supporting small businesses

Strategy:

• If you’re a large corporation, this could be an opportunity to partner with smaller local businesses for cross-promotion and brand building
• If you’re a brick or mortar business, this is your time to shine — be sure to plan plenty of special promotions for this holiday in advance, and get the word out to your faithful followers through your email list, organic and paid social presence, and through banner ads on your site

11/29/2021: Cyber Monday

Key stats:

• Americans spend over $1 billion on Cyber Monday

Strategy:

• Present a call-to-action pop up to direct shoppers to your sales pages
• Use an exit offer on the cart page to drive same visit sales
• Extend Black Friday sales through Cyber Monday

Pre-Holiday

Key stats:

• December is the biggest e-commerce month of the year
• Green Monday (named for money, not environmentalism) is one of the biggest online sales days in December (12/13/2021).

Strategy:

• Retarget people most likely to make a purchase
• Show ads to your existing list
• Create a lookalike audience based on your existing list to find similar users, but don’t use the same ad (this audience doesn’t know you yet)
• Create dynamic retargeting ads to bring users back who added to their cart but didn’t check out
• Coordinate an email drip campaign to keep your holiday sales and promotions top-of-mind for your list
• Create engaging and enriching holiday content that relates to your business (Example: How to go green during the holidays, How to find the perfect gift for your #girlsquad, or top luxurious locations to spend the holidays) — get creative and choose a topic that relates to your industry
• Make sure you advertise the last day for shipping before Christmas

12/25/2021: Christmas

Key stats:

• People generally aren’t shopping on Christmas — this is a time to wind down and relax
• Christmas spending surpassed $1 trillion in 2020

Strategy:

• Building brand trust with friendly holiday emails and social posts to maintain your presence

12/26/2021: Boxing Day

Key stats:

• Boxing day is on December 26th, when most of America rounds up the slippers and toasters they don’t need and head to the mall for returns

Strategy:

• Boxing Day is huge for customer service and returns, so it’s your time to build brand trust and loyalty by providing the best customer service possible
• Make sure your customer service team is ready to answer phone calls and emails, and monitor social chats to address returns and provide a great experience to customers

1/1/2022: New Years

Every one of your followers has one thing in common once New Years rolls around: resolutions for a better year ahead.

Play up the unique resolutions of your customers to create targeted promotions. Do they want to improve their business processes, spend more time in the gym, or save money on car insurance? Anticipate what your clients will want to improve in the upcoming year and have a powerful promotion ready.

Learn from last year’s ad campaigns and promotions. Use Google Analytics to determine which marketing strategies worked and what didn’t. Check out which ads and products got the most traction with your users and strategize how to make them even better for next year’s big e-commerce dates.

Can’t figure out why your ads aren’t converting or blogs aren’t being read? Enlist the help of experts who can find out where your ship is leaking, and how you can patch the proverbial hull of your digital marketing strategy so you can sail swiftly into the new year.

Learn about how we improved customer flow on a client’s website and increased their sales by 120% »