If you’re a Windsor business owner reading this at the end of September and thinking you’ve got plenty of time before the holidays — you don’t. More than half of consumers have already started their holiday shopping. The businesses capturing those customers right now started planning weeks ago.
Here’s what the 2026 data actually says about holiday shopping behaviour, and what you can realistically still do in the window that’s left.
Your Customers Started Shopping Before You Started Planning
- More than 50% of consumers begin holiday shopping between September and early November
- Nearly 50% take part in mid-year promotions like “Christmas in July” — shopping for the holidays months ahead
- 69% shop during Thanksgiving week, and 67% shop in the first half of December
That spread matters more than the individual numbers. Holiday shopping isn’t one big weekend in late November anymore — it’s a rolling season that’s already underway and runs right through December. A business that only starts posting holiday content in mid-November has already missed the first half of its own selling season.
The Honest Timeline: You’re Late, But Not Too Late
The standard advice is that businesses should have holiday marketing planned by August at the latest. If you’re reading this in late September, you’re behind that curve — but you’re nowhere near out of the game, because the two biggest shopping waves (Thanksgiving week and early December) are still ahead of you.
What you can’t afford is another month of waiting. Content takes time to produce, ads take time to optimize, and your Google Business Profile needs time to reflect holiday hours and offers before people start searching.
Social Media Is Where Holiday Discovery Actually Happens
This is where the opportunity is clearest for a local business with a modest budget:
- Facebook: 65% of shoppers cite it as a source of gift inspiration
- YouTube: 54% discover gift ideas there
- TikTok: 50% use it for shopping ideas
- Instagram: 47% find inspiration through it
- Social media generates 44% of all recalled holiday advertising
Nearly half of the holiday advertising people actually remember came from social feeds — not TV, not billboards. For a Windsor small business, that’s a genuinely level playing field against much bigger competitors, as long as you have content worth showing.
Local Businesses Have a Real Advantage Right Now
- 64% of shoppers deliberately choose local businesses when looking for unique gifts
- 62% say they want to support their own communities
People genuinely want to shop local during the holidays. The gap isn’t desire — it’s visibility. If a Windsor shopper can’t easily find you, see what you offer, and confirm you’re open, that goodwill goes to whichever local business showed up in their feed or search results instead.
What to Do in the Next Two Weeks
- Shoot your holiday content now — product photography, gift-guide images, and short video clips you can post repeatedly through November and December
- Update your Google Business Profile with holiday hours, seasonal photos, and any special offers before the search traffic arrives
- Plan your posting calendar through December so you’re not scrambling for content during your busiest weeks
- Start your paid campaigns early — Google and Meta ads need runway to optimize, and ad costs climb sharply closer to Black Friday
- Ask for reviews now, while things are calm, so your rating looks strong when holiday shoppers are comparing options
The single highest-leverage move is batching your content production into one session now. One good photo and video shoot can carry your entire social presence from October through the new year — which matters enormously when December gets busy and content creation is the first thing to fall off the list.
Let Click N Cuts Handle It For You
At Click N Cuts, we help Windsor businesses get holiday-ready fast — a single photography and videography session that produces a full season of content, plus the social posting, Google Business Profile updates, and ad management to put it in front of local shoppers while they’re still deciding.
Want to be visible before the holiday rush instead of after it? Contact Click N Cuts today — the sooner we start, the more of the season you capture.
Want to see the kind of work we do? Check out our Google Business Profile and see what our clients are saying.