Your December calendar has a hole in it and you can’t see it
Your holiday calendar probably ends on December 17th.
That's the shipping cutoff. It's also where almost every brand stops emailing, which leaves the emptiest inbox of the quarter to whoever keeps going.
Four sends live in that gap, none of them needs a new discount, and the people still shopping that week are the least price sensitive customers you’ll see all year. 👇
The four holiday emails that land after everyone else has stopped sending
Almost every holiday calendar we see ends on the same day: the shipping cutoff. Last orders for Christmas delivery, a deadline in the subject line, and then nothing until January.
Which is strange, because the eight days between that cutoff and the end of the year are the emptiest inbox your customer will see all quarter. Everyone else has stopped. The people still shopping are the ones who left it late, and late shoppers aren’t price sensitive.
Here are the four sends that live in that window, with the dates that actually apply this year.
First, the dates you’re working against
Thanksgiving is Thursday November 26th this year, which puts Black Friday on the 27th, Small Business Saturday on the 28th and Cyber Monday on the 30th. Christmas Day is a Friday.
The carrier deadlines are the ones that set your calendar:
✓ FedEx Ground Economy: December 15th, the earliest cutoff of any service
✓ USPS Ground Advantage and First Class: December 17th
✓ USPS Priority Mail: December 18th. Priority Mail Express: December 19th
✓ FedEx two-day: December 22nd. Overnight: December 23rd
These are recommendations rather than guarantees, and UPS hadn’t published its service by service dates when we checked, so confirm yours before you print a date in a subject line. Your own warehouse cutoff is usually a day or two earlier than the carrier’s.
1. The cutoff email, sent twice
BEAMS, subject line: Holiday shipping cutoff
Most brands send this once, on the day. Send it twice: once three days out as a plan ahead, once on the morning of the cutoff as a last call. The second one does most of the work and almost nobody sends it.
What makes a good one is specificity. Not holiday shipping deadlines are approaching, but the date, the service, and what happens if they miss it. The reader is doing arithmetic about whether a present arrives in time. Do the arithmetic for them.
✓ Put the date in the subject line, not the body
✓ Name the service, because standard and express have different dates and your customer doesn’t know that
✓ Say what you offer after the deadline in the same email. That’s the bridge into the next three sends
2. The gift card email, the day the cutoff passes
Fracture, subject line: Need a last-minute gift card?
The moment physical shipping stops, you still have something to sell that arrives instantly. Most brands have a gift card and mention it once, in a footer, in November.
This is the single highest intent moment in the back half of December. Somebody has just been told they’re too late, and they still need a present. The brands that win it have the email already built and scheduled to fire the morning after their cutoff.
✓ Lead with delivery speed, not the product. Arrives in their inbox in seconds is the entire pitch
✓ Let them schedule the delivery date, and say so
✓ Offer a printable version for the person who wants something to hand over
✓ Segment out anyone who already bought in December, or you’re selling a backup plan to somebody who doesn’t need one
3. The last minute email, for whatever you can still deliver
Felix Gray, subject line: Last minute gifting?
Between the cutoff and Christmas there’s usually still something you can get there: local delivery, in-store pickup, express at a price, digital products, a subscription that starts in January.
The mistake is treating this as a sale email. It’s a logistics email. The offer is certainty, and the person reading it will pay more for certainty on December 22nd than they would have paid for a discount on December 2nd.
✓ Build the collection first, so every product in the email is genuinely deliverable
✓ Put the arrival date on the product, not in the small print
✓ Don’t discount here. You’re solving a problem, not competing on price
4. The December 26th email
Misc. Goods Co., subject line: Boxing Day, let’s end the year on a high note
December 26th is a Saturday this year, and it’s the most underrated send on the calendar. Your customer is at home, off work, holding a phone, and in many cases holding a gift card somebody just gave them.
Three different audiences are in your list that morning and they want different things:
✓ Gift card holders. They have money that can only be spent with you. Send them a what to spend it on email, not a sale
✓ People who bought for others. They spent all month buying for everyone else. This is the one week they’ll buy something for themselves
✓ People who got your product as a gift. They’re new customers who never gave you an email address. Put the registration or care instructions somewhere they’ll find them
What this looks like on a calendar
✓ Dec 14. Plan ahead, the cutoff is coming
✓ Dec 17. Last call, orders by midnight
✓ Dec 18. Gift cards, arriving instantly
✓ Dec 22. Still deliverable, with dates on the products
✓ Dec 26. Three segments, three different emails
Five sends, none of which needs a new discount, all of them landing in a quiet inbox.
Build these three segments before December 26
The article says three different people are on your list on December 26th. Agreeing with that takes a second. Building it takes a filter, so here are the filters.
Build these three 1. Gift card holders. Placed an order where product type is Gift Card, in the last 45 days, AND hasn’t placed an order since. These people are holding money that can only be spent with you. Send them what to spend it on, never a discount. 2. Bought for everyone but themselves. Placed 2 or more orders since November 1st, AND every order used gift wrap, a gift note, or shipped to an address other than the billing address. The whole quarter they’ve been buying for other people. 3. Received your product as a gift. You can’t segment these, because they’re not on your list. They’re holding your product with no idea who you are. Put a card in the box with a QR code to care instructions, a warranty registration, or a how to use it guide, and capture the address there. |
Number three is the one worth arguing about. Every gift you shipped in December is a new customer you’ve never met, and the only chance to reach them is something you put in the box five weeks before they open it.
