What Christmas looks like for businesses
Long queues in store-fronts, phone blowing up with orders, and running out of stock too quickly. Yup! That’s the business look of Christmas all around the world regardless of the different Christmas traditions. While people are in celebratory spirits, being jolly, and having fun during the holidays, every business must think about how to prepare for the wave of demand from customers (online and offline). We are going to look at how businesses handle the Christmas season and try to make the most of it.
Different businesses reacting to Christmas around the world
From Les Treizes desserts of France to the outdoor Australian Christmas celebration, the Galve goat tradition in Sweden and Krampus in Austria, Christmas remains a highly celebrated season. Despite differences in Christmas traditions, we see a lot of similarities in how they affect businesses. So, below are examples of companies reacting to this season.
– Morrisons 2018/2019 holiday sales: A close look at Morrisons’ profit after the 2018/2019 holiday despite a general low Christmas sale in Britain is fantastic and in fact, an eye-opener. The business turned around their stakes in the impending Christmas sale trend by focusing on online stores. This is impressive because not only are they expanding the chances of sales, they are taking some of the holiday-shopping stress off the customers, which is what almost all consumers hope for.
Wholesale on Amazon and McColls experienced gains in sales growth. There is a lot to draw from this experience and decision by McColls. One of them is to understand where customers are and to offer them some sort of value to solve some problems with holiday shopping.
– KFC: Of course, you cannot talk about businesses getting in on the holiday spirit and leave out KFC. In Japan, although the season holds a secular meaning to the people, an exciting tradition of KFC dinner has emerged. Amidst taking vacations, gifts giving, and spending time with family, enjoying a bucket of crispy KFC is how you honour the season.
KFC became a tradition at Christmas in Japan.
As expected, that means queues and an enormous amount of orders rolling into KFC this period. With this crowd, people tend to pre-order their chicken and place their orders online to avoid standing on frustrating lines at the outlets. With huge sales coming in, it’s crazy to think that this started with a brilliant campaign to create awareness for the new KFC outlet in the country.
– Macy’s: Macy’s as usual, went on a story-telling campaign in 2018 that captured the spirit of Christmas. This method was an emotional grasp on the tradition of Christmas and a way to drive up sales by appealing to customer’s emotions. It is amazing when a brand understands the unique Christmas traditions and does not fail to show it. This year, their theme is ”
This year’s theme is “Believe the Wonder.” The six enchanted windows will take spectators through a journey with Santa Girl and her adventure.
And talking about retail, we couldn’t mention one of our favourite London shopping windows: Selfridges. Selfridges has lunched (as usual very early in the year) its “future fantasy” campaign rethinking the whole Christmas concept by representing some classic fairy tales in a futuristic key.
Selfridges: one of the most photographed windows in the UK and probably in the world and the future fantasy theme windows,
Selfridges’ London store alone has taken a multi-specialist team of 100 people more than 500 hours to produce, working non-stop rotated shifts for the past 10 days. A 500 people team was employed in the whole Christmas campaign (including online and offline).
At the end of the day, what businesses can take from the insight is that Christmas is still a massive opportunity for sales regardless of traditions that follow it. All you have to do is prepare for these sales so that it doesn’t catch you unawares.
Here’s what to expect; higher demand, diversity of customers because of people travelling for a holiday, and finally, customers looking for brands that “care.” To prepare, you ought to figure out a way to handle the higher demand; it could be anything from having an online sale outlet or allowing customers preorder just like KFC.
Secondly, another dilemma is handling diversity. You have people coming back home for the holidays, and we have holidaymakers from all around the world travelling to experience a unique Christmas celebration, and you have to prepare for them. Having localized content and personnel that can relate to your diverse customers is a great way to get a competitive edge over everyone else. Everything from translating your web pages and providing ads in different languages may be what your business needs to pull the holiday crowd.
Lastly, show your customers that you care. The jolly of the season can easily take a stressful toll, and the last thing you want to do is add on to the stress. This is why you see discounts and sales flying around during the holiday season. You can go further than that by preparing for demand and diversity. All you need is a dedicated sales team and proficient translators to help you nail it. TranslationsinLondon is experienced in assisting businesses to prepare for customer diversity this season, and we know just how to tailor your content so that they speak to your target audience.
Finally, we would like to wish you a fabulous celebration this season!
Thank you again for all your support!
