Paytrail

Busiest sales days and times of the year for Finnish ecommerce

Laura Saari Written by Laura Saari - May 12, 2016

Have you felt like your online store’s sales have fizzled since the busy Christmas season and January discount sales? When can you expect the next more active sales period? During the year, when are the best sales days and times for online stores selling to Finnish consumers?

I checked out the statistics on the payment traffic we processed in 2015. Increased payment traffic during a day, naturally means more sales online.

Generally speaking, orders are made online every day of the year and at every hour of the day. However, on particular days and at particular times the amount of orders is significantly greater than at others. 

Sales clearly increase towards the end of the year

When looking at all of last year, one can clearly see that it's more hectic in the Fall and the latter part of the year. From a merchant’s perspective, it’s a better time of the year than Spring and the start of the year.

The Christmas season is definitely the year’s best sales period for online stores. This is also evident in that six out of the year’s ten busiest sales days are during the Christmas season.

At this time of the year, it can be disheartening to think that sales will only pick up again around Fall. Fortunately, there’s no need to sink into despair because based on last year stats there was a boost in online sales at the beginning of summer. Graduations and the summer wedding season get consumers in the mood to shop. 

Most sales happen on Monday evenings 

One of the most interesting pieces of info is that throughout the entire year, Mondays were among the busiest sales days for stores selling to Finnish consumers – Saturdays, on the other hand, were among the quietest.

As can be seen from last year’s statistics, as many as five out of the ten busiest sales days happened to be on a Monday.

Daily it’s clear to see that sales increase as evening approaches with the largest peak in payment traffic around 9 p.m. Finnish consumers are also active shoppers on Sunday evenings.

We can conclude that the best online sales occur on Monday evenings. Have you considered this in your own store?

2015 busiest sales day - The Monday after tax refunds

What were the highlights of last year? What day had the most online sales to Finnish consumers?

Based on our statistics, the payment traffic in 2015 was highest on the Monday after tax refunds. On that date, the sales volume was close to double the average of the whole year. The second busiest day was the tax refund day itself.

Cyber Monday generated the third largest amount of payment traffic. Cyber Monday is a discount sales day for online stores like Black Friday is for physical stores.

Marketing for Black Friday was very prominent last year, but it didn’t rank as one of the ten busiest sales days, at least for online stores. With the growth over the last three years, Black Friday has a good chance of rising to the ranks of the year’s busiest sales days this year – particularly if the marketing continues as enthusiastically.

Christmas Eve, predictably, was the quietest day of 2015 in terms of payment traffic.

Top-10-sales-2015.png


The above statistics show that the majority of the best sales days fell in the latter part of the year, particularly in December. To get a better understanding of the busiest sales days throughout the entire year, we removed December sales. It’s clear to see in the below statistics that second busiest day was at end of summer. In both graphs, sales at the beginning of the year are absent from the statistics. Mondays, on the other hand, are prominent.

Paytrail-Top-10-sales-2015-without-December.png

Tips for the future

  1. Consider investing in January sales marketing or plan a few discount campaigns for the beginning of the year and early Spring.
  2. Schedule larger development projects for your online store during periods when sales are slower –the beginning part of the year when planning yearly and on Saturdays when weekly.
  3. Consumers are in a shopping mood on Mondays and weekday evenings. Sunday evenings are also an active purchase period. Take this into account in your marketing.
  4. Use slower times for content marketing e.g. updating your blog or creating how-to videos for your YouTube channel. These actions provide long term value and will produce continuous results.
  5. Stock up on the most popular products, update your site – add product reviews, feature popular products, cross-link products etc., and schedule your marketing campaign. Hire additional manpower for the busiest times of the year if needed, to ensure you get the most out of the year’s best sales days and seasons.

Please note that the information presented in this article is an overview of a large quantity of online stores.

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