How far in advance are your customers booking or buying for special events? 🎂

[tranguyen]

Hope everyone’s having a great week so far ✨!

I popped into my local florist yesterday for a little pick-me-up bouquet, and we got to chatting about Valentine’s Day. For many businesses, holidays like these can required months of prep, which got me wondering —

How far in advance are your customers booking or buying for special events?

There will always be those last-minute shoppers, but have you been seeing more of them lately, or are early planners becoming the new trend?

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts ‌💐‌! And don’t forget—when you share your insights on a Question of the Week this month, you’ll earn our brand-new Question of the Week badge! 🎉

[ellieboss123]

I have seen more of the last-minute bookings! I always try to accommodate, but unfortunately can't always happen 🙄

[Callee1945]

We (a cheese and charcuterie business) are really a mixed bag of advanced bookings and last-minute requests. Valentine's Day especially tends to attract last-minute shoppers. So we premake a ton of our Valentine's boxes (pic for fun!) for Grab & Go in addition to the pre-orders (like a florist).

In contrast, I just had a customer ask about a cheeseboard for August 1 (it's Feb. 12)! I do a lot of weddings and holiday parties and those tend to be months ahead.

Consumer holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, NYE, and Valentine's Day tend to be panicked 24-48 hours in advance. We try to accommodate as many last-minute requests as possible, but also send out texts and emails encouraging pre-orders weeks ahead of time. At Christmas time, we make a ton of gift baskets that people can grab last minute for whatever in-law they forgot to buy for :-). Those happen right up to Christmas Eve!

[Lovewell]

This is so good! 

We are noticing more of the last minute trend. Not a bad thing but it seems even if we announce something too early it just leaves peoples brains. 

We will have people come in day of for coffee service for parties. We have people coming Christmas Eve for all their gifts. 

Not a bad thing but just what we have noticed! 

[JTPets]

Many of our customers are regulars who like to have the same thing over and over, Most for monthly, some weekly, and I have 1 auto invoice for every 70 days, our biggest paint point is that subscriptions are still not available for delivery orders and they have to manually request to be signed up for recurring deliveries through our invoice system.

[JUYBoutique20]

My ladies were shopping right after New Years for Valentine's Day & BHM, but I placed my order for products back in Nov/Dec.  I think that's the usual business standard.  I'm actually shopping now for my spring/summer releases.

[BrianaJo]

We've tried offerings ahead of time like pre-ordering a gallon of coffee to-go for parties, or our merch tumblers, but for our area people didn't really jump on anything early. We're going to try some new strategies this year and see if it helps. I wonder just out of pure consistency if it'll pick up.

[SVLFever]

It honestly depends.  We set our reservation system to allow a reservation to be made up to 45 days in advance, however, about 80% of the reservations come in within about 48-72 hours of the event time.   We have enough historical data to get an idea on how to staff, but the weather can influence this as well.  (rain, extreme heat and cold is good for our business)

[doc_choc]

@tranguyen Depends on the event. We start layering in Christmas products really early, only since our one shop has a tourist demographic and not such a big repeat customer base, so if they like they buy there and then. Valentines is a whole different thing very last minute, especially for the chaps, the gals are generally far more organized and planned.

[Traderandco]

Last minuet bookers for sure!

I feel like people still haven't got back into the routine (or the confidence) yet of planning to far ahead since the world fell apart and everything got cancelled!

having said that, we are seeing a small trend of people testing the waters, booking like a week ahead, or maybe even 2!  :0

[willowsky]

At Willow Sky, our flagship product is unique, handcrafted oyster ornaments, which is why many of our customers place their orders up to 10 months in advance to ensure they receive these exclusive creations.

[bonny]

I do a lot of custom designs for production so timing is a critical thing.  I need a longer runway.  It seems no matter how much I stress the minimum turnaround time for production is eight weeks, businesses routinely push into that time frame to place their order.  I know they know I will literally bend over backwards to make it happen but sheesh!  I'm starting to think I need to say twelve weeks so when they place their orders at eight weeks, I'm not the one stressing out about on-time delivery and then I'll have some wiggle room left for inevitable snags along the way. 

I just talked myself into changing the stated timeline.  😁

Bonny Wagoner - Artist/Illustrator
bonnywagoner.com

[CareyJo]

As an event planner living in a rural area, I've seen more and more people planning ahead.  We're now getting people to understand that you need to book a year in advance for the big ticket items - your venue, your DJ, caterer, cake, etc.  We have so few places to do business with and our state is so spread out, that this is a necessity.  People are starting to learn that it isn't just weddings either - it's all events now.  Statistically, Valentine's Day isn't the biggest day for florists - Mother's Day is.  But you still want to plan really far in advance for both or be prepared to just buy what's available.  As a person who makes large arrangements, I can tell you that shopping at certain times is key and nothing replaces being prepared!

[MudFire_Dex]

4-6 weeks ahead for the one-time classes - but we do see last minute rescheduling and are able to capture a small part of the last-minute crowd. Our studio membership is on a waitlist of 12-14 months.