How bank holidays affected retailers in 2024

Traditionally, the bank holiday weekend has been an opportunity for retailers to tweak stock to reflect a balmy three days spent in the sun cooking al fresco with a cold beer. But have factors like the cost of living, unreliable weather and even the power of social media rendered the occasion less significant, or does it still pack a punch?

Booze boosts

Jai Singh, who runs MJ’s Local in Sheffield, says he definitely sees a rise in sales of certain lines in the run up to a bank holiday. “We sell more alcohol and more ice cream and barbecue lines are weather dependent, of course. But if the weather’s looking good, then we’ve already got the barbecues out in store - we’ve had them out all summer.”

In terms of timings, Jai says he will tend to wait until the week of the bank holiday itself before making any firm decisions, and that as the years have passed his approach has softened. “There’s no point thinking about bank holidays earlier than that because it also depends on things like promotional activity, what’s coming on offer and what we’ve currently got on offer. Then you can decide what to do. As time has gone on, we didn’t really feel the need to push it as much, if that makes sense, because our standard offer was enough.”

Jai says he’s learnt that maintaining a dialogue with his customers is in fact more important to understanding what they might want from a bank holiday weekend. “We used to highlight the bank holidays and earmark them for promotional activity. Whereas now it’s more about us being in the customer’s mind and working on whatever they decide they want to do on bank holiday.”

“Instead of using social media, we’ll actually ask customers in store if they have anything planned for the weekend. We’ll just try to get an idea of what people are doing, because sometimes you’ll find they’re going away for the weekend because they’ve got the extra day. They might take the kids. We’ve also found a lot of people are going away locally now as opposed to abroad, purely because things are a bit tighter financially.”

Payday payouts

Meanwhile Rav Garcha, who runs stores in the Midlands area, says that often, a bank holiday comes in tandem with other factors that would affect his trading anyway. “We’re usually carrying more stock because it’s the end of the month when people get paid,” he says.

There are still a few things Rav will stock up on though, with a view to customers relaxing over the long weekends. “We’ll probably have more sausages, fresh burgers, baps and rolls and stuff for breakfast. I also take more bacon - so really just more breakfast, and there’s alcohol as well,” he says.

But it’s more unexpected lines that can bring results for Rav’s stores, he says. “I’ll go to a discount wholesaler and pick up items for jobs that people might be doing on a bank holiday - which would be things like paint, rollers and mini rollers and brushes. We don’t get loads, maybe a box of twelve sets which might have ten or 15 pieces in a box. You get a big paint tray, a small paint tray, a small roller, big roller, couple of paintbrushes.

“I just thought, it’s a bank holiday. So let’s try that. We’ve also tried fence paint, and then the fence paintbrushes. Just quirky stuff, really. It’s things people might be looking to do because it’s the last chance before the kids go back to school. We just put everything in dump bins and make them easy to see”

Rav also notes that the fact it’s a bank holiday weekend doesn’t change the regular shopper patterns his stores see over a typical week. “One of our stores is in an area where Sunday is the busiest day of our week. So the bank holiday weekend isn’t necessarily busy because people are doing the things that they’ve been preparing to do at home. While the Monday itself will be good, it’s really just slightly better than a normal Monday.”

Forewarned is forearmed

Preparation, it seems, is the key, for both shoppers and stores. “Because you’re busy doing all these DIY projects and going on a trip or whatever, and you’ve prepared for that on the weekend, you’re only going to get those last-minute things while you’re doing those jobs. You’re not going to buy bacon and sausages on the Monday morning you when you want them. You want to buy that on the weekend. So if we’re having deliveries on the Monday for that stuff, it’s too late,” Rav adds.

Yet not all retailers are as excited about the approach of a long weekend – at least as far as their stores are concerned. Dee Sedani, who runs Londis and One Stop stores in Derbyshire, says that in contrast to some, for his stores, bank holidays aren’t big events at all. “It isn’t really much of a difference to any other weekend for us. We don’t tend to see any spikes or anything like that, but we let the managers of the stores decide [if they want to do anything special].”