Why You Need to Host a Live Boxing Day Shopping Event

While you might think the shopping season starts to wind down after Christmas, the day after Christmas is one of the biggest sales events in many parts of the world. 

Boxing Day is a chance for consumers to make significant purchases, and for businesses, it’s an opportunity to increase their year-end sales. Celebrated in the United Kingdom, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and some other Commonwealth nations, Boxing Day has become a weeklong event in most countries, often called Boxing Week.

Whether your business is located in one of these countries or your customers are from a region that celebrates Boxing Day, this holiday is the perfect time to host a live shopping event for your customers. 

Why host a Boxing Day live event?

Boxing Day has shifted from waiting in the early morning—often freezing!—lineups to shop in-person to shopping from the comfort of your home over the week. And while Black Friday and Cyber Monday are usually about buying for others, Boxing Week is when people make purchases for themselves.

When you go live and dig into the benefits of your products, you give your customers a chance to have an in-person experience without forcing them out of their homes after a busy holiday season. They can see your products in action, ask questions, and grab a deal all from the comfort of their couch!

Boxing Week is an excellent opportunity to make room for your new inventory—out with the old and in with the new! Also, if you stock holiday-themed merchandise, Boxing Week is a great opportunity to reduce prices and clear out your inventory.  

Also, the limited-time offer of Boxing Week, coupled with the timeliness of a live event, can make your sale more exciting and enticing.

Four tips to make your Boxing Week live shopping event a success

1. Promote early and often

Now that we are in December, the time to start promoting your Boxing Week event is now! Whether you are sharing through your social media channels, email, paid ads, or some combination, it’s essential to get on people’s radars—and in their calendars—early.

If you run paid ads, the earlier you run them, the better. Digital ads get increasingly more expensive leading to the holidays, so start running your paid campaigns as soon as possible. 

The holiday season is busy, and it is easy for people to get distracted and forget about a fantastic sale they heard about. Be sure to send reminders, share on your social media often leading up to the event, and add automatic calendar reminders to your RSVP page when possible. Remember, you can start promoting your event 1-2 weeks in advance, but you should be reminding all your followers and subscribers daily for the 2-3 days leading up to the event.

2. Sweeten the deal for your live shoppers

Use your live shopping event to offer your customers something extra. For example, if you run a 25% sale on your e-commerce store, add free shipping or an additional 10% off for any purchases made during the live event. 

Your live event should up the ante of the e-commerce sale you are running on your website. This is the lead that will help to bring in new and returning customers to your live stream.

If you’re not sure what kind of offer works best for your business, consider some of the most popular offers used by brands:

• BOGO (Buy one get one): involves giving away a product by purchasing one or more items.
• Bundles: bundling items gives customers discounts when certain products are purchased together.
• Discount: the tried and true sale that we are all familiar with. You decide what products will be discounted and by how much.
• Free shipping: if you don’t already offer free shipping, this is a great offer to draw in customers.
• Gift with purchase: encourage customers to spend more by offering specific gifts on orders above-set thresholds.
• Volume: buy more, save more promotions that offer customers larger discounts when they spend above-set thresholds.

You can use just one of these techniques or a combination, but make sure your offer is easy to understand. If it becomes too complicated, customers may skip the event altogether. 

3. Put your best foot forward with a stellar host

The great thing about live shopping events is that your brand can make a lasting impression on your customers. It’s a one-to-one conversation—they can ask questions about your products, and you can answer them in real time. But you need to find the right person to host your event.

A host can make or break a live event. The great news is you have a host that knows your products inside and out, understands your business goals, and even has a deep insight into your ideal clients—your team! 

Look around your team and see who might be up for the challenge.

And if you have brand reps or influencers you already work with, you can also reach out to them and see if they would be available to host. The benefit of this is you can tap into their following to bring in a new audience to your brand. 

These are both great options for an event host—you could even have a combination of the two work as co-hosts! Just remember to have someone who lives and breathes your brand and products so they can knowably respond to comments and interact with your customers.

4. Make the event easy and fun for your customers

Finding the right platform to go live and sell is essential to running an event that is fun for your customers and successful for your business.

That’s where Stage TEN comes in. With our platform, you can create a live stream, bring in audience interactions, and monetize your event seamlessly in one place. Livestream e-commerce with Stage TEN gives you the power to interact with your customers using live polling, voting, and pulling comments directly onto your stream. Your customers will feel like they’re interacting with you—because they are! 

You can keep the experience seamless by using your owned and operated sites to stream from. There is no need to send people anywhere but your own site!

Best of all, your customers can purchase directly from the video player—no need to open new tabs, leave the livestream, or miss out on any interactive fun. 

Stage TEN partners have seen the power of using our Interactive Player. With integrated in-show shopping, brands have doubled their sales from the previous day, boosted their engagement rates by 70%+, and experienced conversion rates of at least 7%.

Now it’s time to plan!

When deciding when to host your event, look at your historical sales data and see if you can pinpoint the day you have the best sales or most engagement during the week after December 25th. 

While Boxing Day is traditionally celebrated on December 26th, sales and shopping events now occur for up to a week after—hence Boxing Week. Find the date that works best for your brand, or go all in and host a series of events with different offers for each day of Boxing Week.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to live shopping events!

Ready to jump into the world of live shopping and experience how it can transform your business? Then you’re ready for Stage TEN!

Contact us today to explore how your brand can partner with us. Or get started on your own—create your free account and go live.