11 Labor Day Marketing Tips for eCommerce Brands

Labor Day, celebrated on the first Monday of September in the United States (and Canada), is a federal holiday dedicated to honoring the American labor movement and workers' contributions to the country's strength, prosperity, and well-being. This long weekend marks the unofficial end of summer and is often associated with gatherings for backyard barbecues, end-of-season getaways, and, for the retail-minded, Labor Day sales.

Labor Day is a prime opportunity for eCommerce brands to ramp up their sales and engage with customers. Here are 10 effective Labor Day marketing tips and best practices to help your eCommerce brand stand out and drive sales.

1. Tease offers and create FOMO

Begin teasing your Labor Day promotions a couple of weeks in advance to build anticipation and create a buzz around your upcoming sales. Offer early access and additional discounts to potential customers who join your SMS or email marketing lists in the lead-up to the holiday weekend. Then, send targeted text and email campaigns to highlight limited-time offers and personalized product recommendations. This not only keeps your brand at the top of your mind but also helps build excitement and creates a sense of urgency.

2. Optimize for search before Labor Day weekend

Improving your SEO ensures your promotions are visible to shoppers searching for Labor Day deals, driving organic traffic to your site. Create or update a landing page with "Labor Day" in the url and page title. Optimize your content for Labor Day-related keywords to capture organic search traffic. Publish blog posts with tips, guides, or gift ideas related to Labor Day.

3. Treat your loyal customers like Labor Day VIPs

Let your existing customers know how much you appreciate them with exclusive Labor Day discounts, points, or perks for rewards program members or list subscribers. This will help boost trust and loyalty and give them a reason to choose you over a competitor. Encourage referrals with additional points or discounts throughout the sale to help with customer acquisition.

4. Embrace seasonal themes

Feature products that are perfect for Labor Day activities, such as outdoor gear, BBQ supplies, or back-to-school items. Update your website and social media with Labor Day-themed pop-ups, banners, and graphics to create a festive shopping environment. If your products aren't a perfect fit for the season, don't worry — shoppers still associate the Labor Day weekend with sales due to annual markdowns on big-ticket items like mattresses, furniture, and appliances.

5. Create bundle offers

Do you sell multiple on-theme items for Labor Day? Consider offering a bundle to provide customers with better value and encourage larger purchases, and use “Buy More, Save More” messaging to sell it to your shoppers. If you don't want to bundle but offer subscription products, a great strategy to tap into that recurring revenue would be to offer limited-time discounts to upgrade to a subscription order.

6. Promote free shipping

Even if you don't normally offer free shipping, implementing it for the Labor Day weekend can help to incentivize purchases. You can also implement threshold discounts, providing free shipping on orders over a certain amount. Free shipping is a strong motivator for online shoppers and can significantly increase conversion rates. If store-wide free shipping isn't feasible, consider offering it to your loyalty program members or your email or SMS subscribers only.

Consumers don't want to hear what brands say about a product — they want to know what friends, family members, and trusted influencers think. Partner with influencers on TikTok and Instagram to reach a broader audience and gain credibility. Influencers can create engaging social proof that showcases your products in use, attracting their followers to your store. If you don't already, consider selling through social commerce platforms as well — especially if your audience includes Gen Z.

Engaging social media content keeps your audience entertained and interested in your brand. Share engaging content related to Labor Day, such as DIY tips, recipes, or travel ideas. Encourage followers to share images and videos of them using your products with a holiday-themed hashtag and repost the content on your own channels. Or, run a Labor Day giveaway for your social followers.

9. Set realistic expectations and follow through

Whether customers are buying something they'll need for a Labor Day event or just taking advantage of a sale, they want to know when it will arrive. Offer estimated delivery dates on your product pages and at checkout and ensure that they update in real-time due to changing conditions. Also, make sure that customers have a variety of ways to accurately track their orders — such as an on-brand tracking page, through Apple Wallet, or through SMS and email notifications.

10. Offer flexibility

If you sell your products both online and in a physical retail environment, you have a unique opportunity to offer convenience and flexibility to your customers. Give shoppers the flexibility to buy online and pick up in-store (BOPIS) or buy online and ship to store (BOSS) to provide the opportunity for receiving their items faster and at a time and place that works for them. To ensure that you have full visibility into BOPIS and BOSS orders and provide accurate order status information to customers, you'll need to have your back-end operations fully integrated.

11. Keep the conversation going after Labor Day

Post-sale engagement fosters a positive relationship with your customers, brand loyalty, and repeat business. While you may bring in a new customer because of a sale, you'll retain them by providing a top-notch experience and maintaining ongoing communication. Invite new customers to follow you on social, subscribe to your newsletter, and join your loyalty program — and then provide them with personalized, relevant communication to keep them interested in your brand and products.

Implementing these strategies in your Labor Day campaigns can help you boost your sales and engage with customers during the long weekend, and set you up for re-engagement opportunities during BFCM and the holiday shopping season. So can having the right technology. See how AfterShip's solutions for personalization, tracking, and social commerce can help your brand win the holiday — and beyond.