The Retail Email Index: The top online retailers sent each of their subscribers 3.1 promotional emails on average during the week ending July 22, 2011. That’s up 4% week-over-week, up 5% from where it was four weeks ago, and up 12% year-over-year.
The Retail Email Participation Rate: Tuesday and Friday were the most popular days to send retail emails last week.
The Retail Email Seasonality Meter: The holiday season is off to a slow start. Not only have fewer retailers begun their holiday messaging, but last week less than 2% of retail emails referenced Christmas. During the corresponding week last year, more than 5% of emails referenced the holidays. It’s still early, but it appears that retailers have soured on “Christmas in July” campaigns this year and are overall perhaps feeling less pressure to begin their holiday messaging. If the trend holds up, it will speak to retailers being more optimistic about holiday sales and the economy in general.
Selling Seasons on the Horizon:
Back to School (June-Sept.): 2010 Season Finale
Labor Day (Sept. 5): 2010 Season Finale
Christmas (Dec. 25): 2010 Season Finale
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BROWSE... Archive / Post Categories / Selling Seasons / Topics Covered / Retailers Tracked
2 comments:
Is it _really_ "beginning their holiday email campaign" if they send a Christmas in July email and then don't send anything else holiday-related until November?
How many ACTUAL holiday email campaigns are started this early? I find it hard to believe 9% of retailers at this point have started their holiday campaigns in earnest, except for the throwaway Christmas in July promotions/messaging.
I wrestled with this a little several years back. Are "Christmas in July" campaigns really holiday references? What if they promote holiday items like ornaments and trees? What about holiday references in August? September? Are those "real"? What if a retailer mentions the holidays in email every month July-October before getting into their core holiday messaging?
Everyone may draw the line differently, so I decided to count everything and leave it up to you to decided what's real.
On Twitter, I've been publishing the percentage of retailers who have made at least one reference to the holidays. And on my blog, every weekend I published the percentage of emails that referenced the holidays during the past week. Between those those data points you can decide how far along you think the email holiday season is.
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