The Big Question: are you running a Christmas campaign?

THE BIG QUESTION

This month we’re asking retailers,

are you running a Christmas campaign?

Louis Kerry, Mattressman

As mattresses don’t always lend themselves well to Christmas shopping, we decided that instead of Christmas we’re doing a campaign focused around the world cup titled ‘3 Lie Ons’. We are offering tiered discounts on mattresses. The bigger the price tag, the bigger the discount, which will mean we can have some fun with our branding and marketing too.

George Sinclair, Nimbus Beds

We are indeed running a Christmas campaign. The focus this year is we are selling real quality Christmas trees. We are also running a Santas grotto in our new store. Although beds is our business, we thought to do something a little different this year.

Jan Morgan, Hafren Furnishers

We’ll be having a Winter Sale pre-Xmas across both stores – across all leading furniture brands.

Vic Smith, Vic Smith Beds

We are running a Christmas campaign via the usual social media, local radio (and waiting for TV to come back with a quote). This will be along the lines of if the pandemic has taught us anything, spending time with loved ones, families and friends should not be taken for granted or cut short. If they stay over, is your spare room and bed up to it? Or do you need to invest in a new bed for you and put your old bed into the spare room? Think about family, think about where they are sleeping on the run up to Christmas. Pre-Christmas delivery is also guaranteed with us.

Joseph Shenton, Joseph James Furniture Outlet

The short answer is no. Everything we sell is in stock, meaning there is no need to run a ‘guaranteed Christmas delivery’ promotion. Further, we don’t run any special discount for the period, except Boxing Day. We have avoided running any prolonged sales throughout the year for a couple reasons: 1) It is something I think customers associated with cliché sleazy part of furniture sales. 2) Our prices are already highly discounted so we feel that a further price reduction isn’t necessary. Despite this, December has always been a strong month for us as we find customers coming to us for that last minute instant delivery.

Dean Morley, Linthorpe Beds

Every year at Linthorpe Beds we like to do our part to offer a helping hand to our community and 2022 is no different. We understand that this year people are tightening their purse strings due to the current economic climate, the cost-of-living crisis and raising taxes. Yet, we know that people still want to play their part to help those less fortunate especially as we enter the period of giving and goodwill to all men. That’s why this year we wanted to think outside the box when it came to creating our charity drive and that idea was to put something inside the box!

I think many of us can relate when it comes to those pesky tins, cans, packets and cartons bulging out from the back of our pantry. We bought them in good faith to make that seemingly simple Nigella Lawson chicken dish yet had second thoughts when we trawled the supermarkets in vain looking for those allusive ground annatto seeds?! Or we won a tin here and there from the tombola table at our local school fate or decided against that fad diet after spending a small fortune on tinned Californian prunes. What I’m trying to say is, we all have those spare tins that could be given to someone in need. That’s why this month we are running our ‘Donate a Tin, Don’t Bin’ Campaign. We’re after your tins of beans, peas, sweetcorn, tuna etc. as well as dried foods such as pastas, rice, grains and pulses. All we ask is that they are in date and unopened. Each of our 3 stores located in Portrack Lane Stockton, Darlington and Bishop Auckland will have designated drop off points.

We will be donating all foods to local food banks and charities for them to distribute among their users. With the public’s input we can help make Christmas a little easier for those less fortunate, so this year why not donate tin instead of putting it in the bin?