Why Easter Sales are as important as BFCM for online business

June 17, 2024

March 16, 2021

•

6 min read

Important notes about Easter sales

Easter is just about to come by. For Christians, Easter is a religious event where they commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus. Meanwhile, in the perspective of other people, Easter is just a Spring holiday with chocolate, eggs and bunnies. Either way, we have so many ways to celebrate Easter, like exchanging presents, serving meals, decorating eggs and taking part in a lot of Easter activities.

Together with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Easter is an important shopping event of the year. It gives shop owners a chance to add creativity to their sales and marketing activities with Easter promotions, gearing themselves up for more sales during this special occasion.

This article gives you some key notes about this special event, including the main target customers, the products they purchase the most and some statistics about Easter sales.

Who is going to join the Easter campaign?

Different generations have different answers for their plans on taking part in the Easter promotion. In the UK, Millennials are going to spend the most, with the average spend of £31, while baby boomers plan to spend the least, with only £20 on average, according to Finder.com. Millennials are also the age group with the largest proportion that spend on Easter sales with 81%, while that proportion of baby boomers only accounts for 68%, which is the least.

The average spending of other generations are £29.98 (Gen Z), £20.98 (Gen X), and £20.41 (Silent Generation).

Percentage of population spending on Easter sales and average spending of generations in the UK (Source: Finder.com)

There is also a difference between genders. Women are more likely to spend on Easter shopping, accounting for 65%, compared to only 59% of men. However, the average Easter spending of men (£29.83) is slightly higher than that of women (£25.77).

This scenario also happens in the US. 82% of women say they will plan on Easter spending while only 76% of men do so. However, men will rack up an average spend of $165.78 over Easter, while that figure of women is $137.45.

What products do customers buy the most on Easter?

Regarding the product purchasing trend over Easter, consumers spent $6.32 billion on food, $3.74 billion on gifts, $3.61 billion on clothing, $3.04 billion on candy, $1.5 billion on flowers, $1.4 billion on decorations and $0.91 billion on greeting cards, according to NRF’s 2021 survey.

Customer spending on different types of products for Easter from 2009 to 2021 (Source: NRF)

Of course, the traditional items, like eggs and candy, have the highest demands. As eggs are seen as the symbol of rebirth and used for famous Easter traditional activities like painting and hunting, 180 million eggs are purchased.

Consumers are also interested in buying candy. Statistics show that $2.49 billion worth of candy is sold. Jelly beans and chocolate bunnies stand at the top of the bestseller list, with 16 million and 90 million sold in the US, respectively.

Additionally, $1.4 billion is spent on party supplies and decorations, of which stuffed bunnies, wall crosses and wreaths are in high demand. Greeting cards are an indispensable part of the holiday as it is a perfect way to show your love to other people. However, the sales of greeting cards is on the decline, due to changing trends.

Besides the aforementioned items, there are also non-traditional categories of products that are purchased during this season, for example, fashion (in fact, consumer spending on clothing even accounts for a high proportion of all!). Consumers also show special interest in handmade items compared to mass-produced products, and are willing to pay a 17% premium for them.

Why are Easter sales important?

If you do not have plans to do something special for this holiday campaign, some statistics below may make you reconsider it.

In 2021, the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Prosper Insights & Analytics surveyed 8,111 U.S. adults 18 and older about how they plan to celebrate Easter. 79% of the surveyed consumers celebrated Easter with the total expected spending of $21.6 billion and average expected spending of each person at $179.7. Since 2018, the total expected spending for Easter has always remained above $18 billion.

Total expected spending for Easter from 2009 to 2021, the 2020 survey was fielded before the COVID-19 pandemic (Source: NRF)

What about the remaining 21% of the surveyed customers; did they not plan to celebrate Easter? 52% of them still planned to shop for Easter-related items, with spending of $21 on average.

Overall, over the past 14 years, about 80% of consumers celebrate this holiday on average.

Easter vs. Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM)

A TalkingRetail.com researchrevealed that the estimated spending for Easter in the UK reached £1.1 billion in 2019, increasing by 0.5% from the previous year. Meanwhile, the total Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending of UK customers reached £5.6 billion in 2019, with an average spending of £251.20, according to a Finder.com survey. Last year, due to the widespread COVID-19 pandemic, British consumers spent only £902m on Easter in 2020 with an average spending of £27.66. Meanwhile, although the percentage of British adults taking part in BFCM in 2020 went down (from 42% in 2019 to 39% in 2020), the total spending grew to reach nearly £6 billion (£295.67 on average).

UK spending for Easter and BFCM in 2019 - 2020 (Unit: billion £) (Source: TalkingRetail.com)

This year, 32.6 million British consumers (62%) plan to spend money over Easter weekend. They are set to spend £810 million for this event, decreasing by 10% and 26% compared to 2020 and 2019, respectively. The lockdown has forced many families to hesitate when it comes to shopping and therefore cut back on their Easter spending.

From the statistics, BFCM is a much busier shopping event than Easter. However, customers still have reasons to celebrate this holiday and spend a considerable budget on shopping. And of course, there will be a surge in demands for seasonal products.

Final thoughts

Holidays are special occasions that light up the shopping spirit. There are millions of ways to have a successful Easter sales campaign to increase your brand awareness, further reach your customers and boost sales. Showing that you care for customers’ needs during the holiday will help you close a sales deal. You may want to see how large e-commerce brands carry out Easter campaigns so that you can learn lessons for yourself.

Happy holidays!

Ellie Bradford

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In-Product Marketing Lead

March 16, 2021

•

6 min read

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