How to Use Christmas Displays to Boost Holiday Sales

If you’re an independent retail business owner, the holiday season is your time to shine—literally and figuratively! A thoughtfully curated Christmas display can set your store apart, attract foot traffic, and create a festive atmosphere that keeps customers coming back. Yet, many stores skip this opportunity due to cost concerns or time constraints. But fear not—I’m here to share some practical, budget-friendly tips to help you create magical displays that wow your customers without overwhelming your budget or schedule.

Why Christmas Displays Are Worth the Effort

As a former retail store owner with 17 years of experience creating Christmas displays, I can assure you that a festive window or in-store setup does more than just look pretty. It signals to customers that your store is the place to shop for gifts and spreads holiday cheer, putting shoppers in a positive mood. In fact, a beautiful Christmas display can tip the scales when customers are deciding which store to enter.

Imagine two gift shops side by side. One has fairy lights, sparkling decorations, and a festive atmosphere, while the other looks the same as it does every other day of the year. Which one would you choose? Thought so!

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

I'm often surprised by how few stores actually go to the effort at Christmas time to create a festive display. Therefore, if you do make an effort, you're going to stand out to both existing and potential customers. Having spent the last 17 years helping customers create Christmas displays for their homes and businesses, I've got a few favourite tips to help you create a beautiful display without costing the earth.

So let me share these with you. Hi, I'm Nicole Keleher and welcome to the Retail Success Series, the podcast for retail owners who want to build businesses they truly love. I'm excited to share what I've learned with both in-store and e-commerce owners like you, helping you create a business that's fulfilling both financially and personally.

So get comfy, grab your favorite drink and get ready to be inspired as we dive into the world of retail success. Hello friends, thanks so much for joining me. Just a little bit of housekeeping, it's pouring here at the moment so I do apologize if there's extra noise from the sounds on the roof that come through the recording.

For those who don't know, earlier this year I sold my business My Christmas and I had been at that business, my retail store, for 17 years. So pretty much covered in glitter for a 17-year period and I thought it was appropriate timing for you guys to think about what you might like to do in your stores this year from a Christmas display perspective. I know I think part of the reason people don't do anything is one, it's expensive potentially to put up a display.

I'm going to show you a few ideas that are not and two, so much overwhelm. You're getting really busy with all of the products and so forth coming in at that time of year in sort of late October into November that you just don't have time to think about what you want to do for Christmas as far as display. So a lot of people don't do anything.

I do think though it's really important to think about it and I believe that the retailers who do go to effort with their displays really do give themselves a bit of an advantage over everyone else. So if you are a consumer and you're walking past two gift stores as an example and one of them's got a beautiful display in the window with fairy lights and lots of Christmas cheer and the other one just looks like it does every single day of the year then I know myself I'm going to go into the store that has the Christmas display because I figure that they've probably got some good gift ideas as well which is what I'm probably looking for at that time of year. So I do think if you can find ways to add some festivities festive look into your store then it's well worth considering.

I also just think it makes people feel good when they come into the store. Obviously some people don't care too much but there's a big percentage when I had the retail store I always said you sort of had people who didn't care at all and those who were absolutely obsessed and loved Christmas and you know and Christmas decorating and it was almost a 50-50 split which seems really high but a lot of people love it and they does it does put them in a good mood when they see the festivities and the decorations in a store so I think that's another reason to try and think of ways you can add it to your display. The other thing that a lot of retailers consider is well I don't have floor space my floor space is crucial for my products which is absolutely correct so therefore the assumption is there's nothing else they can do because they don't have a space for a Christmas tree.

So we're going to talk about a few different ideas that we can use for considering the floor space as well as other factors that you might have in your store. So let's get into some decorating tips and just as another side note I've also created a YouTube video on this topic with visuals I know some people for a topic like this might find visuals helpful so stick around listen to the episode but if you think there's some ideas that are worth considering then you can pop on to the YouTube channel I'll have the link in the show notes and that way you can also have a look at a few of the ideas that I discuss in this podcast. All right so first of all I think one of the cheapest and easiest way to get impact is hanging groups of products in from the ceiling.

So if you have like the corporate ceiling tiles makes it very easy to slip clips in under the tile edges to create some hanging spaces. If you don't have those ceiling tiles you might have already created some sort of grid ceiling grid area that you can change displays or you might even have a few um hooks that you've added for signage in your store and maybe you can use some of those for your Christmas display. So first of all if you think about what you've got from a hanging perspective then you can think about cheap and easy ways of grouping products together.

I definitely think it is better for Christmas displays to have a few more heavily decorated spaces in the store rather than a little bit here and there it gives far more impact if you've got one or two or three main displays in the store. So with the ceiling grid one of the cheapest I think biggest impact is the paper honeycomb lanterns and balls that you can get. I know that there's a number of those around this year from wholesalers as well if you're in Australia and you're looking for any Christmas decor and to sell in the store and for your display Theatre Imports I know has these lanterns and they actually have larger size sort of like hanging ornaments in a very big size which make a lot of impact in a window at quite an inexpensive cost.

It also means if you're careful when you put them up each year you can also take them down and fold them up and they don't take a whole lot of room when you are storing them. As well as the honeycomb lanterns and balls there's also paper snowflakes to create the same impact so bunches of the big paper snowflakes that fold flat and then are unwound to hang from the ceiling also has really great effect. The other thing is fairy lights, fairy lights, fairy lights, fairy lights.

I would always say that if there's any way you can add more fairy lights you're going to add more wow factor for your store and of course for home as well. So a few ways you can use fairy lights in the store first of all curtain lights. Curtain lights is where you've got kind of one string across the top and multiple strings hanging off that and so that gives you a really nice window effect.

Also icicle lights they're shorter than curtain lights but if you could hang them around the top of your window display you know they're quite light you could use the small 3m hooks for something like that and maybe hang them around your front window and that means even though during the day they're not going to be super bright at night anyone goes past will see them and also they still are visible during the day. I never turned my lights off in the store or at home day and night because they still gave a lovely a little glow even in the heat of the Australian summer. You could also do something like just fairy lights a little micro lights or fairy lights have got clear cords and lay them on display tables with just a little bit of foliage sitting with them a few baubles or sit some baubles in a bowl and have your fairy lights either in the bowl with them as well or just laid on the table around.

A great way to add that little bit of festivity to a corner or to a display top. I also use fairy lights heavily when adding to wreaths and garlands. I'm going to talk about them separately in a second so just lighting the wreaths and garlands with what we call a garland light or a cluster light.

These are lights that are very close together so then each light is normally only about two centimeters or one inch apart and that means you don't have a whole lot of cord you're hiding you get lots of brightness in the lights without having cord to get in your way. For Australian retailers like Sealighting have a great range of lights if you decide that you want to add quite a display of lights you might find that you get to your to the minimum order value with them or you might decide to sell some as well as soon as you show them in your store people will ask what are they and it'd be great to have some that you can actually sell. A Christmas tree of course you can't go past a Christmas tree but as I've mentioned already a lot of retailers think no it's too big and therefore it takes up too much prime space in the store so it's no and I totally get that so let's think about ways you could look at a Christmas tree or consider a Christmas tree within your store without having it take up key retailing space.

So first of all your window display obviously if you can fit a tree you know I don't know if you know you can get slim Christmas trees you can also get half trees so that means that they're only they're flat on the back so if you have a wall or you have a the back of your window display you can sit the tree against that wall and that means it takes up half the space that you would otherwise need. Again show notes I'll put the Australian supplier of those trees for anyone who's interested. The slim trees now there's great range of those in really slim trees through to sort of a medium thickness or width of tree so it gives you lots of flexibility if you can add something to your store.

A tree is obviously going to be the more expensive option when you're looking at decorating but it also can have the the most wow factor if you look at an investment over a longer term. You also do need to consider with a Christmas tree it normally will take more space to store so that's something else you could consider you need to take into account do you have the room to store it during the off season. And just on that a side note another Christmas tree option which is great which doesn't take as much room is the little twig trees.

When I say little some of these can go up to two meters tall and so they're just basically twigs with little lights on them. A fabulous way to get a wall of color onto a tabletop or into your front window and when they pack they pack quite flat when they're finished so they take up very little room in the off season as well. The other thing you can do is use a Christmas tree on a table so if your ceilings are tall enough to put the tree on the table then you can merchandise under the tree.

You need to choose a tree that has a slightly higher sort of trunk the space between the stand and where the foliage starts or we used to sell extension poles which allowed us to lift the foliage up a little bit more they were 15 centimeters or half foot and that meant that you had that extra little bit of space under the tree to merchandise. So that's another way you can have a tree it also means you don't have to buy as big a tree because you're getting the impact of it looking like it's you know two and a half meters or eight foot tall but it's only actually a tree that's about 1.5 or five foot tall once you take it off the table. So that that's another option and as i say merchandise underneath the tree.

I think if you can fit a tree and be able to light it then it really does have an amazing impact in your in your store. The other thing though we used to do quite often for stores that didn't have a lot of room was to create beautiful big wreaths. So we would start normally with just a plain green or flocked wreath that was sort of 90 to 120 centimetres so three to four foot in width and then heavily light it first of all and then decorate it heavily decorated as well.

If you have a counter display you have a wall behind that you might sometimes have a piece of art up in that space if you simply have your wreath go up in the in the Christmas season then you will find it has it is quite a stunning display and very eye-catching. If you decide that you know buying the wreath and decorating it and lighting it is all a bit too expensive then the other way you could do it is to just light the wreath or you could even decide the first year to light it and then decide next year you might decide to add to the investment for your day Christmas decor and add decorations for the wreath then. Always think if you are going to be decorating with with items that you're buying from you know potential suppliers you might buy a few extra because as soon as you put them up on your in your store and people see them people are always going to go oh where did you get that and want to buy it so if you've got some stock there to sell as well then that's an added bonus.

The other thing I've got for you is so my other channel so going back to my Christmas days I've kept my youtube channel The Christmas Coach and there's videos that I have in there showing you how you can add lights to garlands and to wreaths it's really easy it's simple it's almost maths like you're just basic basically breaking the lights down into quarters and and connecting them through to your wreath or garland so again in the show notes I'm going to add the links for you you may find those videos are quite helpful there's loads of other videos as well in there on how to to create pieces so you might decide that you want to make a little tabletop display and that might be your you know you just sit on the counter and that's all you have in the in the store for Christmas and there's lots of videos in there that could be quite useful to to you. As I mentioned wreaths and the other piece is garlands that I loved using all the time at home and in my store and I would always recommend to my retail clients when they came into the store. Laying garlands around the base of your windows is a simple option so if you don't want to be hanging anything you can light the garland and then just lay it across the window pane if you have a window of that style.

If you do have an option to hang the garlands around the windows that's also stunning. Inside most people will put it inside the store unfortunately outside we have had clients put them outside and you know unfortunately you certainly wouldn't don't want to put decorations on because there can be theft and that's what happened when this client created a stunning piece for outside but you can still put the greenery up or put it above your window and light it and you'll find that if it's high like that and there's no hanging ornaments that there's no worry about it safety wise and it also looks stunning. So garlands can be just plain lit I always recommend starting with a nice strong garland a you know thick garland again in the show notes I'm going to share the supplier we always got them from they are lovely just just every year they look great they're not thin if you buy a cheap garland you're always going to struggle to make it look good so you're much better off investing in less displays with good materials so they look good year after year rather than buying more displays with cheaper materials and it's always going to look like you've bought it from you know sort of a I don't know a lower end location and it's just never going to look as full or as luscious so I highly recommend that you go less and quality when you're looking at things like wreaths garlands and Christmas tree as well and then I'm going to just quickly divert back to the Christmas tree if you're doing a Christmas tree take the time to actually fluff the branches out you must push fluff up all the branches so the tree looks full again investing in a good tree is a great place to start and tomorrow who bought my business my Christmas has got some beautiful trees this year some of your suppliers may have trees that you can also purchase so they're also options for you but they won't look good if you get them out of the box and just stick them into a into their stand and on the table without fluffing the branches and I see this so often in retail I'm actually quite horrified uh how often I see it in shopping centers um and oh I just want to get out there and fluff the branches anyway I go to this I get a bit uh get a bit frustrated by that so take the time to fluff them out well um another really easy idea is vases with artificial Christmas flowers so um for example red poinsettias you can simply have a vase that you've jam-packed full with beautiful poinsettias and sit a couple of them around the store makes it easy each year to put them up and put them away if you wanted to have real plants you could go with poinsettia plants bunch them together put them into a nice pot holder and have them displayed in the store I think a window with real poinsettias along the window front of the windowsill would look amazing with some fairy lights sort of just laying amongst it as well you could also use the green garlands to hide your pots if you're going with smaller pots on something like that as a way of not having to invest in uh different um in better quality pots that the poinsettias sit in um alternatively your you could add big bows around the pots so buy just a cheap plain pot and put a nice big red bow or whatever color you've got in your store around that um around the pot and then you've got the poinsettias and that's going to look you know really stunning and just on the bows they are again a great way some lovely Christmas ribbons added to a few sort of display points just you know just simple bows added into your display counters can also look really sweet as a Christmas way of adding sort of a bit of Christmas touch to your displays.

I know also some people have um also got very small display areas so like jewelry stores as an example so if you've got small counters low counters you can do things like have little bowls with mini glass or glittered baubles in them that would be one great option for you and again just very simple add a few sprigs of artificial foliage around the the base of the the bowl and then if you wanted to finish it off add a string of the micro lights fed through the display micro lights will come on a battery pack so you do need to feed the battery pack outside or under your your bowl somewhere you can access it but i know a lot of jewelry counters sort of slide out you may be able to quite easily blue tack that battery pack onto the or even velcro the battery pack onto the back of the display stand and the drawer that it's that you're using and that will make it easy for you to change the lights turn them on and off as you need to and and then position them in your display counter. So that's a few of the ideas they were kind of my favorite ideas that i would always start with when i had retail customers coming into my store looking for displays they don't have to be expensive something you use every year so you can build it up a little bit year upon year if you want to or from a financial perspective that's also makes it a lot easier i think if you are a tree you can start by going with a tree and just lighting it the first year again and get decorations the next year as i mentioned lots of videos on our youtube channel the christmas coach which i will share or if you're into christmas and you want to check it out we've also got an instagram page with sort of daily tips that have lots of ideas that you'll be able to use in your store as well so you've probably got two to two and a half months before you'll be putting your display up so it gives you an amount a nice amount of time to think about what you want to do and plan find your pieces to keep your costing down you might need to make some of those items yourself you might decide to wrap the lights through the garlands prep it beforehand and then take it into the store when you display so some of those jobs you can do yourself as i say great tutorials to follow if you have got the time otherwise you can go to some of the christmas stores and check out their pre-made or they can make custom made pieces for you as well and you will find that anywhere in the world doesn't matter where you're listening to this obviously not just in australia so i hope this has been useful each week i'll have two podcasts for you one a little snippet and one slightly longer like today's and we'll always try and keep it practical and something that you can very easily implement in your store i'm nicole kellerher thanks again for joining me have a sensational day and i'll see you too soon bye need help with your retail marketing check out our website theretailmarketers.com for information on our marketing audit consulting services and course information you'll also find information on business tools i use and have used in my retail store and free downloadable content that's theretailmarketers.com