More gifts from Pet Engine Marketing to our community members! We’ll be unwrapping some holiday retail marketing retail trends from 2018-2019 so that you can make informed decisions when it comes to your pet store’s marketing strategy this holiday season. Because nobody likes throwing money, or time, or effort at marketing and not knowing what’s going to happen!

It’s already the middle of November so there’s really no time to waste! Gotta get things going. Speaking of getting things going, know what would be a great gift for your pet store? Calling us and seeing where the path leads to working with Pet Engine Marketing - we’re looking for pet store owners that want to grow their pet store and have goals of doubling their revenue, maybe open another location, take back ownership of their time, and build with a true marketing partner invested in their business.

If that sounds like you, let’s get things going. Treat yourself this holiday season and hit this button.

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Holiday Retail Marketing Trends 2019
Part 1

We’re breaking this into two parts, just so you know ahead of time. Keep this bite sized so you can get back to your pet store. But first, a little bit of reflection.

When you get to the core of it, what is holiday shopping about? Is it retail therapy? Is it shopping just to shop? Is it expectation? Hopefully, it’s none of the above (although sometimes, it is, or at least partially, and that’s okay too). When we really think about it, holiday shopping is about finding the perfect gift for the special people (or pets) in our lives.

So how do you find that perfect gift? Santa doesn’t deliver it. Elves aren’t building it. It’s entirely possible, or even probable, that the perfect gift was discovered on Instagram, vetted on a website, and purchased via an email blast. Here’s our five holiday retail marketing trends of 2019 that we’ll be getting into:

Holiday shoppers are going bigger, earlier
Shoppers won’t tolerate bad buying experiences
Window shopping is shifting to Stories
People are purchasing in-store
Messaging is fueling loyalty

And we’ll also make sure that we are taking these trends and providing a few actionable takeaways for pet store owners and your pet store’s marketing strategy to thrive with these trends.

Holiday shoppers are going bigger, earlier

When did you start seeing holiday decorations going up around town? When did you start bringing in holiday items? At this point, the holiday shopping period starts November 1st.

In 2018, 43% of shoppers started shopping for the Holidays in November or earlier.

Last year, conversions visible to Facebook starting to increase as early as October. By late-November, nearly 1 in 10 holiday shoppers had finished shopping (Source: Facebook).

As a pet store owner, what can you do about it? Mirror your shopper’s behavior. Go big even earlier, and stay big even later. If you are bringing in special items that you and your customers will love this holiday season, your initial promotional pushes can actually create demand for the items. For more on this, make sure you join our free community for pet retailers to maximize your holdiay season marketing.

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Shoppers won’t tolerate bad shopping experiences

Your customers have more options and more choice than ever before. They are engaging with brands across multiple channels before making purchases and are less willing to suffer any inconvenience, or friction, when it comes to getting what they want. Is your shopping process as painless and convenient as possible? Check out our series on Enhancing Customer Loyalty for ideas on this.

70% of consumers say technology has made it easier than ever to take their business elsewhere.

This is especially true during the holiday season which, for many pet store owners, is the busiest time of year. Though mobile experiences may be improving, most of the time we see that pet stores still have a long way to go. Globally, the data doesn’t lie: 85% of holiday shoppers have experienced at least one problem while seasonal shopping on their mobile devices (Source: Facebook).

What do they do when they have an issue? For the most part, they’re going elsewhere. So what do YOU do about it? Make sure that your customer convenience is focused on a mobile-first world, because your growing customer base is mobile-first. Again, check out the series on customer loyalty for ideas on that.

Holiday Retail Marketing Trends 2019
Part 1 Conclusion

Hopefully you noticed that we’ve only discussed 2 out of 5 of our holiday retail marketing trends of 2019. There’s more to come! Stay tuned to get part 2 in the next week or two, and let us know what you’re seeing on your end with these trends. What are you doing when it comes to pet store marketing that is keeping your store ahead of the curve this holiday season?