> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://conversion.club/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How Do You Win Back Your Holiday Shoppers? - URL: https://conversion.club/playbook/how-do-you-win-back-your-holiday-shoppers/ - Published: 2026-10-01T21:18:25.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T20:25:40.000Z - Description: Start by sorting them. Shoppers who bought a gift, bought for themselves, or bought for a discount each expect a different follow-up. One January message speaks to none of them. - Author: Jeremie Werner - Tags: Keep the commercial calendar, #playbook, Email & CRM Start by sorting them. Shoppers who bought [a gift, something for themselves, or because of a discount](https://conversion.club/what-your-email-strategy-says-about-you-with-hugo-nicole/) each expect a different follow-up. One January message speaks to none of them. --- ## The benchmark [Isolate the group of new customers](https://conversion.club/playbook/how-do-i-calculate-my-repurchase-rate/) from November and December, their cohort, and track its [second-order rate](https://conversion.club/how-to-optimize-post-purchase-in-e-commerce-the-complete-audit/) separately, at 90 days and then at one year. [Time your follow-ups to your actual delay](https://conversion.club/playbook/when-and-how-to-trigger-the-second-purchase/) rather than a default setting. At a denim brand the authors work with, with a few tens of thousands of customers, the median time between first and second order is 139 days. A quarter of second orders arrive within a month, four in ten within 90 days, and the average, pulled up by latecomers, exceeds 280 days and is useless. The first follow-up email goes out at D+100, after the spontaneous wave of the first month, which no promotion speeds up. --- ## The rule You don't follow up with a gift buyer the way you do with a customer. The founder of a jewelry house explained it to us in a workshop: > "When someone buys the product they love, that's about my own taste. If I want to give a gift, I'm more interested in the brand than the product." The next useful occasion for this person is the next gift: Valentine's Day on February 14, Mother's Day on May 30, 2027. ## The steps 1. Spot the gift orders. A different shipping address, a message, gift wrapping, or a [gift card](https://conversion.club/playbook/what-christmas-order-deadline-should-you-display/) gives them away. 2. The gift buyers' calendar. They get a reminder before Valentine's Day, then before Mother's Day, with the brand front and center. 3. The message sequence for people who bought for themselves. Send the usage messages first, then the follow-up, timed to your median. 4. How to handle shoppers who came for the discount. Show them something other than prices, such as [early access](https://conversion.club/fomo-and-drop-strategies-four-schools-of-scarcity/) or a new release. Otherwise you only give them one reason to come back: the next discount. 5. January exchanges. Treat them like a first visit, with [an exchange or store credit offered before a refund](https://conversion.club/fashion-e-commerce-return-rate-how-to-cut-it-without-killing-your-sales/). A sentence to say to your leadership on January 2, in your own words: > "Whoever buys a gift is recommending us, and leaves us an address. We talk to them about the next gift, and we talk to the person who received the package as a customer in their own right." --- ## The trap The trap is forgetting that the January exchange is a second visit, one the law doesn't require you to offer. The fourteen-day right of withdrawal belongs to the person who paid, not the person who received the gift. Everything you grant the recipient, whether an exchange, store credit, or a return window extended to mid-January, is a goodwill gesture whose rules you set. And this is their first visit to your site, with a product that doesn't suit them. A simple exchange wins you a customer you didn't have to recruit. If it's a hassle, you also lose the person who gave the gift. The stakes are measurable: at a premium women's fashion brand the authors audited, January is the strongest month of the year, at 12% of annual revenue, driven by full-price sales, new releases, and post-Christmas exchanges. #### Sources - [Article L221-18 of the Consumer Code (Légifrance)](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article%5Flc/LEGIARTI000032226842?ref=conversion.club) - [Christmas gifts: handling Santa's mistakes (Institut national de la consommation, December 2025)](https://www.inc-conso.fr/content/cadeaux-de-noel-gerer-les-erreurs-du-pere-noel?ref=conversion.club) - [Fnac, Darty and Amazon extend return windows to the end of January 2026 (MacGeneration, November 2025)](https://www.macg.co/ailleurs/2025/11/la-fnac-darty-et-amazon-etendent-les-delais-de-retour-jusqua-fin-janvier-2026-vous-pouvez-prevoir-les-cadeaux-304821?ref=conversion.club)