06/25/15
When a retailer marketer thinks about Father’s Day, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Fashion? Sports? Summer is coming? For me, it’s got to be…novelty neck ties. However, just like those neck ties, Spring season sales are long forgotten by the time the Winter holidays roll through at the end of the year. Even with second billing, Spring is an important season for any marketer selling online, due to holidays including Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, prom season, graduations, and yes, Father’s Day.
A closer look at Criteo’s daily sales data shows that the week before Father’s Day indexed significantly higher than the first week of June. Sales picked up at the end of the week: total sales peaked at 15.2 points higher on Thursday than the average of the first week.
Fashion & Luxury performed best late in the week – driven by sales of the notorious novelty neck tie
When we break this index out across the top five performing verticals ranked by sales, we see that Sporting Goods peaked on Wednesday while Fashion & Luxury, the largest category by far, drove Thursday’s peak with a 20 point increase. The Mass Merchant category, which benefitted from last minute sales that can be picked up in-store, maintained strong sales throughout the weekend and even on the actual day.
When breaking out sales in the Fashion & Luxury and Mass Merchant categories by device, mobile clearly became the go-to device for last minute purchases. Compared to desktops, mobile devices still indexed higher going into the Saturday before and even the Sunday of Father’s Day. When you have a mobile device capable of finding the perfect tie for dad to wear to his favorite restaurant, even if you have to pick it up on the way, the possibilities are endless!
To recap: online sales really ramped up the week before Father’s Day; Sporting Goods performed well early in the week, followed by Fashion & Luxury and Mass Merchants later in the week; and mobile devices became the go-to device for last-minute purchases. Marketers gave it their best shot – and walked off with a significant number of sales worthy of top of rotation status in any stats-driven wardrobe.
This blog post was written by Michael Froggatt, US Senior Research Manager.
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