In September, Coresight Research, Shopkick and Fashwire announced the launch of a new shopping festival called 10.10. The three groups created this event as a way to recognize and help both consumers and retailers affected by the disruption of COVID-19.
Let’s explore this new festival and what it means for you in the ecommerce segment of retail.
Tell me more about the 10.10 Festival and how it works
Coresight Research CEO Deborah Weinswig mentioned that “shopping festivals, like Alibaba’s Singles’ Day in China, are a huge trend that have since expanded globally.”
Weinsing mentioned that Coresight’s research shows consumers plan to holiday shop earlier than ever this year, so the 10.10 festival was created to recognize this need for both consumer and retailer. Particularly, the festival is meant to help retailers keep up with the demand on their supply chain now and through the rest of the holiday season.
The 10.10 festival isn’t just another shopping day. Here’s where Shopkick and Fashwire come in. Retailers can register for the festival through Shopkick in order to participate.
Shopkick will then match 5 percent of all “kicks” earned over the October 10-12 weekend and donate the monetary value to St. Jude Hospital. These kicks can be redeemed for gift cards at many major retailers. Fashwire will donate $0.50 for every download of their app.
What will the 10.10 Festival mean for Black Friday?
You may have seen the headlines on Google concerning Black Friday now beginning in October. Stores like Home Depot, Target and Walmart have already been pushing sales or plan to push sales starting in early October. Although not necessarily labeling the sales as Black Friday, these early sales have many wondering if Black Friday will be drastically different this year.
The early sales are a response once again to the changes in retail the pandemic has caused. It’s an effort to reduce the in-store and parking lots crowds.
While the 10.10. Festival may not be the event that kicks off Black Friday this year, retailers may see an uptick in sales from consumers beginning much earlier than the typical Black Friday rush of years past.
Black Friday will still be a sales event — it’s just started slightly earlier this year.
How will the festival affect my ecommerce store?
Even if you haven’t registered your store to participate, the festival, together with the sales responses of large retailers in regards to the pandemic, will affect how consumers shop.
Since consumers will be holiday shopping earlier than ever this year, it’s important to keep your store as prepared as possible for the uptick in demand you’ll see.
If you’re looking to stock up on packaging supplies for your ecommerce store, head over to our holiday resources page for order-by and ship-by dates. We’re aiming to take away just a bit of the stress for you this holiday season.