When are you finally shutting down for Christmas? With just 10 days to go, you’ve probably already decided when you’ll accept your last Christmas orders, and some major retailers are just days away from closing their books, many as early as the 16th of December.
If you’re still shopping for Christmas presents, ParcelHero have compiled an A-Z of major retailers Christmas deadlines and built a simple drop down tool so that you can check if they’ll still be able to deliver before Christmas. ParcelHero David Jinks tell us “Last year’s latest ordering deadline winners, Very, are still competitive with a 10pm cut-off on December 23, but Argos has taken the crown as it advises its same day service is still operating on the 24th”.
In fact Argos aren’t just shipping on Christmas Eve, you can order right up to 6pm when most of the other shops have closed and they still say that they’ll deliver that same evening. I’m not sure how many people will be brave enough to put it to the test, but if you suddenly realise you’ve forgotten a present you’ll be able to purchase from Argos after most of the high street shops are shut!
It’s always a balance between wanting to maximise on sales and not risk upsetting customers but even though retailers have cut off dates for guaranteed Christmas delivery, none of them will shut their websites down. Christmas Day has always been a great day for selling, and now with consumers access to smart phones it’s easier than ever to make online purchases.
If you’ve a new toy or gadget the temptation to buy new games or accessories is easier to fulfil than ever, so perhaps the question I should really ask is not what day you’re shutting down for Christmas, rather will you be shutting down at all?
10 Responses
I sell on Amazon; ergo, I’m not allowed to shut down for Xmas.
Shut down at Christmas, and you risk losing your Ebay fee discounts for the whole of the month. Ebay assess whether to allow these sometime between 23rd and 27th of each month. Since these discounts are likely to be the most valuable in December it makes sense to protect them. However, after the mail has gone on the 23rd, my understanding is that any mail collected on the 24th will simply sit in the depot until the Tuesday, so won’t be delivered until Wednesday 30th at the earliest. That being the case you can work on the 29th to clear your sales, but actually shut up shop, whilst leaving your listings on Ebay live, any time after the mail has gone on the 23rd. Anyone got other suggestions or views?
I’m switching everything off on the 18th of December and not even thinking about work until the 5th of January.
Shut off, good one! You guys always crack me up. We won’t close over xmas but will be saying we can’t guaranteed xmas delivery in a couple days.
we’ll be off Christmas proper,
then we’re usually off weekends anyway (officially off, but come into the office a half-day most sundays).
back to work right up til Hogmanay, off the 1st, weekend, back to work monday 4th (though the 4th is a public holiday here).
– I’m sure many here will claim to work 24/7/365, but sitting on the couch at home occasionally replying to email on the mobile isnt -really- working to me.
I’m working when i’m in the office, when i’m home i’m not.
We’ve closed eBay today and then Amazon and Etsy will be going off tomorrow not that it makes any difference as we will be at the mercy of the Amazon 24 hour response time and no doubt dealing with eBayers in the middle of our Xmas dinner!
I suppose that it depends on your own circumstances but we’re happy to ‘keep going’ all the way through until January 30th at which point everything gets turned off for a well deserved 3 week rest.
Cheap holidays in January too! 🙂
Shutting down listings tomorrow evening for two weeks 🙂
We have never closed our marketplaces down and have always been open for orders. What Martin said made a lot of sense. Does anyone know the disadvantages of closing marketplaces down for a period of time apart from the obvious ones? I am guessing Amazon and eBay would not like it at all, any penalties from them once you are up and running again?
Thanks
Nice if you can have the luxury of shutting for a couple of weeks. We’ll close at midday on 24th (last post collection) and come in on 29/30th for which is always our busiest time of the year. So many people don’t believe in a traditional Christmas, it’s just a few days off to buy some more stuff and we expect to be busier than ever. Personally I don’t mind coming in, I’d rather holiday in Summer than Winter.