In recent years the start of the Holiday season for retailers has unofficially begun the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday. This year more than two dozen national retailers are ready to make October 10th—full six weeks before Black Friday—the unofficial start of the Holiday retail season.
What is the 10/10 Retail Holiday?
In what could be a win-win for shoppers and retailers alike, participating retailers have agreed to hold large sales on the weekend of October 10th. Shoppers will be able to get a head start on their holiday shopping, retailers will be better able to manage shipping delays, product inventory. Retailers face Holiday challenges every any year, but this year these are amplified due to the logistical complications of COVID-19. With more people than ever expected to do their shopping online this year, spreading out Holiday sales may be helpful for many retailers.
Why 10/10?
Deborah Weinswig, retail consultant and CEO of Coresight Research, along wit Shopkick reward app and Fashwire, conceptualized the 10/10 retail holiday as a sibling to one of the largest shopping day in the world, 11/11. Never heard of 11/11? That’s because it’s held in China. Also called Singles’ Day, 11/11 started in the early 1990s as a day to recognize singles — the four 1s are said to represent four single people. Ironically, it soon evolved into popular day to celebrate relationships. Today, tens of billions of retail dollars are spent on 11/11 each year. It’s the single largest day of offline and online shopping on the planet.
While 10/10 may never reach the level of its 11/11 counterpart, it is hoped that a new tradition can be started this year. And with more and more retailers seeing the advantage of kicking off the holiday shopping season earlier, 10/10 may very well become part of the national shopping vocabulary in the not-too-distant future.
