How to prepare your business for the Christmas rush: lessons from retail
By Martin Newenham
| This is the first in our winter series on stability: the idea that a business grows more easily from a steady base than from one that lurches from one deadline to the next. Christmas is a good place to start, because it is the one peak every business can see coming. |
If you want to prepare your business for Christmas, plan backwards from your longest lead time. Start with the decision that takes longest to put in place, fix the dates that follow from it, and by October the plan should already be running, with only the final checks left. Then hold your nerve on price, and bring your team with you. That is what years in retail taught me, and it applies to any growing business, whether you sell products or services.
In the 1990s I worked for Superdrug. Every year the company ran a competition called Premier Crew to find the store best prepared for Christmas trading. A manager from head office was paired with an area manager, and together they visited every store in the area and picked a winner, who went through to a regional round and then the national final. I was involved in the early rounds, and it was hugely enjoyable. The effort every store put into being at its absolute best for Christmas was remarkable, and this was a time when store managers had a much freer rein over festive decorations than they do now. It wasn’t quite up there with Deck the Halls (the film, which is apparently now a Christmas classic), but some stores pushed it hard!
One image has stayed with me. It was a small store in a small town. We were welcomed with a warm mince pie, and the store was sparkling clean and beautifully decorated, with tinsel, a Santa and even a grotto. But the shelves were light, and for all its tidiness it didn’t look well stocked. I asked the manager whether deliveries were late. “Oh no,” he said, “it’s just really difficult getting the stock down. Our warehouse is on the first floor.” Was the lift broken? He pointed at the grotto. They had turned the stock lift into Santa’s grotto.
We changed that, and I still laugh about it. But it makes the point better than anything I could write: what wins at Christmas isn’t what customers see. It’s the planning behind it, right down to how the stock actually reaches the shelves.
When should you start preparing your business for Christmas?
Start with whatever takes longest. In retail, Christmas starts almost a year ahead. Buyers review last Christmas’s results in January, seasonal ranges are confirmed by spring, orders are placed by early summer and stock starts arriving in late summer. By October the big decisions are long made, the key dates are known, and the work left is crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s.
Every sector has its own longest lead time. For a retailer it is buying. In the hotels I have worked with, the rule of thumb was that Christmas planning was the first big task for the general manager on returning from the summer holiday. For a consultancy or agency it may be agreeing client deadlines before the break, or booking cover for the days you’ll be away. Find yours, and work back from it:
- List the decisions your Christmas depends on: stock, staff, cover, pricing, client deadlines, opening hours.
- Note how long each one takes to put in place, and the date it must be done by.
- Put those dates in the diary now, starting with the one that needs the longest run-up.
Leave it until December and you are reacting to the rush rather than running your business through it.
Christmas is also so much longer than one day. The run-in starts with Black Friday, which falls on 27 November this year, and many clients start winding down in mid-December. In 2026 Christmas Day is a Friday. Boxing Day falls on a Saturday, so the bank holiday moves to Monday 28 December, and New Year’s Day is Friday 1 January. That is a long stretch when people are away, before you allow for winter weather and the inevitable seasonal bugs.
How busy it gets depends on your sector. Retail rarely has a quiet day now. The Christmas sales used to start on Boxing Day, but hold your nerve as a shopper and you may find that retailers have lost theirs well before the 25th! And online Christmas Day itself has become a big trading day: in 2025, it saw some of the strongest single-day growth in UK online sales, with fashion and footwear revenue up 50% on the year as the sales started early. Hospitality is flat out until New Year. Agencies and professional services are often quieter, because their clients are on holiday, and that dip needs planning just as carefully as anyone else’s rush.
What should your Christmas plan cover?
So much of a good Christmas comes down to planning, and in a store that planning is very practical. When do the price changes go through, and when do the shelf-edge labels change with them? When do the promotions change over? Who works the deliveries and refills the shelves, and who covers the late-night shopping hours? The list is nearly endless.
Then there is the stock itself. In a Superdrug store, the busiest weeks before Christmas could bring in two to three times the sales of a quiet week. All the Christmas-only stock, the gift sets and seasonal lines, had been sent out to stores by November. So just as the peak arrived, the stockroom was full of Christmas stock, and the store was selling more of almost everything else too, which meant bigger and more frequent deliveries to unpack, store and get onto the shelves. Every inch of space, and every route from the stockroom to the shop floor, mattered. Which is exactly why turning the stock lift into a grotto was such a problem.
Thinking back more than thirty years, the Premier Crew judges looked at five areas. They are still a good Christmas checklist, and each one has an equivalent in any business.
| Area | What the judges looked for in a store | What it means for any growing business |
| Stock management | A tidy, organised stockroom; the right stock levels; fast sellers replenished during the day; a plan for where the extra stock is held before the peak | Capacity: enough people and hours for the work you have committed to, and a plan for where the extra work will go |
| Look and feel | Point-of-sale material in place, impactful windows, end displays properly filled, every light working, the right music, even the right smell; staff making eye contact, saying hello and being helpful | First impressions: website, email signature and out-of-office up to date; clients getting a quick, warm reply |
| Operations and checkout | Queues managed, all equipment working, till areas clean and impulse lines stocked, gift cards easy to buy, everyone clear on the returns policy, no stock cages in the aisles | Systems that work under pressure: bookings, invoicing and payments; everyone clear on cut-off dates, emergency contacts and policies |
| Staffing | Shifts well planned, extended opening hours covered, out-of-hours replenishment where needed, the team trained and motivated | A fair holiday rota agreed early, cover booked, and everyone knowing the plan |
| Marketing and communications | Promotions, opening hours and messages clear and consistent, in store and from head office | Opening hours, response times and any offers published early; social posts scheduled in advance |
Two more things are easy to miss. Set a cut-off date for new work before the break, and tell clients what it is. And send your invoices early, because January is when many businesses feel the pinch.
How do you hold your nerve on pricing and discounts?
Every retailer faces the same question in December: how long do you hold full price before you start marking down to clear before Christmas? Move too early and you give away margin you didn’t need to. Leave it too late and you are left with stock you can’t sell.
Black Friday made this much harder. I was working in ecommerce when it arrived in the UK, and the early years were scary. Argos, Boots, John Lewis and Currys PC World all had major website outages, never mind the scenes in their stores.
The bigger damage was quieter, and it was to margin.
| What happened | What it did to margin |
| December sales pulled forward | Instead of creating extra sales, Black Friday largely moved full-price December sales into discounted November ones. Customers got a discount on things they would happily have paid full price for a few weeks later. |
| The volume trap | Take 20% off an item with a 60% gross margin and the profit on each sale falls by a third. To make the same return you need 50% more sales, which strained websites, warehouses and delivery networks. |
| Returns | Impulse buying pushed return rates up, especially in fashion and tech. Processing returns and writing off opened stock ate into whatever profit was left. |
Some retailers came close to marking down seasonal stock they needed to sell at full price in December. The lesson was to buy stock specially for Black Friday, so the promotion didn’t wreck their Christmas margins.
The principle for any business is to decide your trigger points in October, not in a panic on 18 December. For a service business, holding your nerve means not discounting to fill a quiet week, and not taking on work you can’t deliver well before the break. Decisions made calmly in advance are better than decisions made under pressure, and they are much easier to make from a stable base.
How do you get your team behind the Christmas plan?
The run-up to Christmas asks a lot of people, so they need to understand the plan and be bought into it. Share it early, and explain why, not just what.
The rota matters more than most people think. Whether in a store or a head office support team, somebody has to be available in Christmas week and the week after, and that takes organising rather than assuming. If Christmas leave doesn’t look fair, it can demotivate a team quickly, so agree it early and make the reasoning clear. And say thank you: a busy December is a team effort.
What if there’s no team to cover you over Christmas?
For many growing businesses, cover is the real problem. If you work alone, or your small team all want the same days off, start by telling your clients your plan: when you are available, when you are not, and what to do if there is an emergency. Most clients are happy with clear expectations. It is surprises that cause problems.
This is also where flexible support helps. A Virtual Expert can answer your phones and manage your inbox, keep client admin and invoicing moving, or schedule your social media in advance. Book early, though: their diaries fill up before Christmas too.
Your Christmas preparation checklist
- As early as your longest lead time needs: make the big decisions (stock or capacity, pricing and promotions, client cut-off dates, cover) and put the key dates in the diary.
- October: final checks. Confirm the rota, the cover and the dates. The plan should already be running.
- November: schedule social posts, publish your opening hours and response times, and send invoices early.
- December: run the plan, protect your key people and keep a short daily check-in.
- January: review what worked and what didn’t while it is fresh, and write it down as the starting point for next year’s plan.
That last step is the one most businesses miss. The best input to next Christmas’s plan is what you learned this time.
From a stable Christmas to a strong January
The businesses that plan Christmas start January in control, not recovering. A busy season handled calmly is what stability looks like in practice, and it is where our winter series, Stability: A Place to Stand, begins. Over the coming weeks we will look at the other things that can knock owner-led businesses off balance, starting on 24 November with what happens when everything rests on one person.
| If you would like cover in place before the rush, talk to your local Regional Director now! |
Frequently asked questions
Work back from your longest lead time. Retailers start buying for Christmas almost a year ahead; for a service business the longest lead time might be agreeing client deadlines or booking cover. Either way, by October the plan should already be running, with only final checks left.
Tell clients when you are available and what to do in an emergency, set a cut-off date for new work, and arrange cover for phones, the inbox or urgent admin. A Virtual Expert can provide that cover, but book early.
Only if you decided to in advance, and know what it costs. A 20% discount on a product with a 60% margin cuts the profit on each sale by a third, so you need 50% more sales to stand still. Set your trigger points in October, and if you sell products, consider stock bought specially for promotions such as Black Friday to protect the margin on seasonal lines.
When you close and reopen, how quickly you will respond in between, the last date for new work, and who to contact in an emergency. Publish it in November and repeat it in your email signature and out-of-office message.
Agree the rota early, make sure every working day is covered, and explain the reasoning so it feels fair. Rotating the busiest days from year to year helps.
Review the year, and capture what you learned about Christmas while it is fresh. It is the best input to next year’s plan.
About the author
Martin Newenham is a Director at Get Ahead, where he focuses on franchisee success and process improvement, alongside an active consulting practice spanning retail, technology, hospitality and client services. With over 30 years of experience, Martin has built a reputation for quickly identifying the issues inhibiting growth and working collaboratively with teams to resolve them. His career includes senior roles in Technology, Consulting and Retail, and a broad portfolio of consulting engagements covering acquisition integration, digital strategy, client experience and operational transformation. An experienced business coach and mentor, Martin’s areas of expertise include business strategy, customer experience, organisational change and coaching.
