Seemingly out of nowhere, the holidays are upon us yet again, marking the arrival of sweater season, PSLs (love ‘em or hate ‘em), and all things cozy. But just when many are feeling the urge to go into hibernation mode, the biggest e-commerce sales weekend all year is just around the corner. The 2021 U.S. holiday shopping season saw the strongest retail growth in 20+ years, bringing in over $1.2 trillion with the lion’s share coming in over Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and Thanksgiving. 2022 is expected to be another strong holiday season for spending – especially for e-commerce, which is forecasted to climb 15.5% over last year. 

While creators tend to approach the holiday sales season differently than big box retailers and brands, orienting around content creation and community engagement, they’re no exception to seasonal trends: In Q4 2021, Fourthwall creators sold almost 2x as much as they did in Q3 2021, with over half of all sales taking place in the month of November. 

Preparing for Holiday Madness 🗓️

With so much to do, where to begin? First, take a deep breath 🧘Then, start by asking yourself these questions:

1. How much time do I have?
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   Regardless of where you’re starting and how much time you can invest, there are plenty of ways you can prepare for the holidays. Try committing to at least one hour per week that you can spend on your shop strategy, and go from there.
2. What are my goals?
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   What are the most important things you’d like to accomplish before the end of 2022 when it comes to your shop? Do you have a number of sales in mind? An earnings milestone? Just want to create something that your most loyal community members love? Pick 1-2 goals to help you focus your time and energy. Remember that time moves quickly this time of year, and you won’t be able to do everything you’d like, so strike a balance between setting goals that are both ambitious and realistic.‍
3. What will my community be excited about?
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   You know your supporters better than anyone. Are there specific products they’ve been requesting? Do you need to add new products or just refresh designs? Or, can you repurpose existing designs on new products? If you’re not sure – check in! Your community will love being included in your process. You may also want to look to creators you admire for inspiration.

Get organized

Staying organized and working backwards from key dates and deadlines is more important than ever this time of year. Make a calendar and set reminders to help yourself stay on track. If you have the time, getting an early head start on tasks (i.e. drafting social media posts so you can copy and paste when the time comes to publish, setting up promo codes, etc) can help keep stress levels in check.

Keep these dates in mind when putting together your game plan:

Crafting Your Holiday Shop Strategy 🤔

Now that you have clarity on your bandwidth, goals, and timeline, it’s time to decide what holiday strategy is right for you and your shop.

Use this checklist to help guide you:

☐ Add new products or designs to your shop

☐ Choose your store type (evergreen, drop, or hybrid)

☐ Decide what promotions you want to offer (and when)

Let’s take a deeper look at each of these elements:

Add new products or designs to your shop

Whether you’re just starting out or you already have a shop, offering new products is a great way to build hype around the holidays. The Fourthwall Catalog makes it easy to keep things fresh by applying your existing designs to new items. Is your launch coming together last minute? Select instantly available products to get your shop ready for showtime in minutes.

We recommend focusing your shop’s offerings for optimal results – 4-8 products is ideal. Some of the top selling items this time of year include beanies, socks, long-sleeve shirts, hoodies, sweatpants, leggings, mugs, stickers, blankets, and pillows.

Choose your store type

There are two kinds of stores: evergreen and drop-style. The right choice depends on your unique brand, community, and goals.

The evergreen or “always on” approach makes the most sense if you’re selling on-demand products – supporters can purchase at any time and receive their orders quickly without much risk of selling out. Evergreen shops are a great choice for creators selling merchandise for the first time because they’re simple to manage, can bring in consistent revenue throughout the holidays and beyond, and don’t require a ton of time and effort to launch. With a steady drumbeat of promotion and regular refreshes, your shop can generate solid demand and community love!

Drop-style shops are available for a limited time or until a certain amount of inventory is sold. Items are “dropped” at a certain date and time for maximum hype. Because they’re timed releases, drops are great if you want to generate a lot of hype around your products while limiting the promotion you’ll have to do to a specific window.

But drops come with some risk, too. They tend to rely heavily on minimum order quantity (MOQ) products and have upfront costs. Enter the hybrid drop strategy – the best of both worlds and perfect for the holiday season. Hybrid shops let you dial up a sense of urgency, exclusivity, and FOMO while ensuring an adequate and continuous stock of in-demand items. What’s more, the demand created around drops is a high tide that can lift all boats: the lift generated from a single drop can increase sales of always-on products by 20 percent 🤯

This could be the perfect time to add one or two limited-edition items to your shop to offer your community something special to close out the year. What a great segway to the next section…

Decide what holiday promotions you want to offer

Once you’ve landed on what products you plan to offer and how you’ll approach your launch, it’s time to decide how you want to reward and incentivize your supporters. Data show that deep discounts are key to holiday sales – people expect incredible, limited-time only deals, so the offer needs to be compelling.

Here are our tips for creating promotions that strike a balance between smart and hype:

• Go big, but limit your risk
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  Offer supporters compelling and rare discounts (30-50%, BOGO, free shipping) paired with constraints (limited time, minimum order value required, category- or item-specific)
• Incentivize early birds
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  Getting a head start on holiday shopping is good for everyone – reward supporters for ordering before a certain date by throwing in a smaller discount like free shipping or 10% off
• Reward your most loyal community members
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  Try offering a special promo to your subs or past supporters to make them feel special and reward them for their continued support (i.e. exclusive early access or a VIP promo code)

The final piece to the holiday promotion puzzle is deciding which holidays you want to focus on. Are you going to run a big sale or unveil a mystery item on Black Friday, or is Small Business Saturday more your vibe? Maybe you want to opt for a Cyber Monday-only deal. Whatever you choose, make sure your supporters know when to expect it so they can show up and show love!

It’s hype-building time 🙌

You’ve put in the work to make your shop dope, now it’s time to share it with the world! Here are our top tips for promoting your shop in the run up to the holiday weekend:

• Start early and build anticipation
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  If possible, you should have your holiday strategy locked in by early November so you have plenty of time to promote the goodness you have planned for your community across all of your social media and content channels. Try a countdown timer set to when your big sale drops, or ramp up by releasing one surprise per week.
• Get in the holiday spirit with
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  Twitch Gifting
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  Use Fourthwall’s Twitch Gifting feature to get your community hyped – consider gifting one item for every X purchases to thank your supporters and spread the love!
• Don’t forget email
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  Socials are great, but email is a powerful tool for engaging community members. Promote your plans as part of your regular newsletter if you have one, or send out a one-off email to past supporters with a special promo code inside.
• Model your merch
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  Rocking your own products is a great way to boost awareness and demand – even better, send free samples to a few creator friends and see if they’re willing to help get the word out.
• Make it personal
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  The most successful campaigns are the ones that feel authentic and uniquely ✨you✨Have fun, get creative, and connect with your community by bringing them into your process.

Finally, beware of burnout! Your health and happiness comes first, always. So be sure to check in with yourself and see if you need to slow down, switch gears, or take a break.

We’re here to help 💙

Check out all the ways you can connect with us and our creator community this season

Fourthwall Battlepass

Ready for a challenge? Join other creators on a quest to unlock massive rewards this November. Whether you’re still deciding if we’re the right fit for you, or you’re a Fourthwall pro, you can jump in and join the fun.

Join our Discord community

Share your progress in #fourthwall-battlepass, or just come to connect with our team and fellow creators on everything from design help to pet pics 🐶

Weekly Office Hours

Tune in to twitch.tv/fourthwallhq on Monday, November 7 at 5pm PT for the first edition of our brand new Office Hours series. Fourthwall team members and partners will explore what’s possible on the platform, answer questions, share ideas, and hang with chat.

Check out help.fourthwall.com for resources, how-to guides, and troubleshooting tips anytime.