Important eCommerce Dates for 2023 + FREE Calendar Template

In an ideal world, your online store consistently increases its sales every week and every month of the year. But experienced marketers know that, in reality, this is never the case. Building your 2023 eCommerce marketing calendar is crucial to ensuring that you can keep all the important eCommerce dates for 2023 in mind and create campaigns around them accordingly.

At the same time, you also want (and need) to plan your promotions ahead of time. The better you plan ahead, the more of an edge you can gain against competitors who are just trying to meet deadlines every month.

That’s why we’ve put together a comprehensive list of the most important eCommerce dates for 2023. They include anything from the obvious (like Black Friday) to more unusual celebrations that might just be perfect for your niche. Along the way, we’ll share what makes each date so important and how to plan your campaigns to capitalize on the momentum surrounding these dates.

Of course, keep in mind that these 15 dates are only the beginning.

If you really want to prepare for the new year, download our FREE 2023 ecommerce marketing calendar today.

January 25: New Year’s Resolutions

We’ll start with an admission: this isn’t a specific day. Instead, a time frame for leveraging typical consumer behavior after every Christmas. The end of the year means setting resolutions for the new year. So, we see an uptick in eCommerce sales every year as people begin to enact those resolutions.

So why pick January 25 for our list of important eCommerce dates for 2023? Because it’s exactly one month after Christmas, which is when some stores’ holiday promotions and returns periods tend to expire. Your audience will likely use at least some gift cards or other promotions to buy. This is the time to really push them into it before the month is over and New Year’s Resolutions take a backseat once again.

To leverage this attention, build toward January 25 as an end date. Begin building your automations now, and leverage your email campaigns and website banners specifically to prompt urgent actions. The average American abandons their resolution after just one month, so fast action for some quick campaigns is crucial.

February 14: Valentine’s Day

Online sales for Valentine’s Day soar every year, making it one of the most expected entries in any list of the most important ecommerce dates for 2023. Millennials, especially, love spending on this day, making it an excellent opportunity to gain sales if your target audience is between 25 and 40 years old.

We know from experience that attention turns towards Valentine’s Day around the end of January. So that’s when your promotions and email automation should begin—as long as your shipping timelines allow for a quick enough turnaround before February 14.

In terms of promotions, the key for a holiday like Valentine’s Day is capturing the right mood for your audience. They’re in the mindset of gift-giving to the person they care about most. Through pop-ups and hero images, highlight products that match this theme. Also, consider changing some of your brand colors to the day’s traditional reds.

February 20: Love Your Pet Day

It might not be as wide-rangingly popular as Valentine’s Day. But for many of your customers, celebrating a beloved pet easily makes the list of important ecommerce dates for 2023. What better way to accomplish that than for a day specifically designed to celebrate their furry (or scaly) friends?

It’s an obvious pick if you sell pet-related products. But even if you don’t, there may be some eCommerce opportunities here. Consider, for example, celebrating the pet owner along with the pet or someone who matters deeply to the pet owner. This day might be a perfect opportunity for a pet owner to thank the person watching their cat during every vacation.

This holiday is less commonly known to many audience members, so your marketing will need to include some awareness education. Push less strongly on products and more strongly on simply celebrating pets. That might mean starting your promotions a bit earlier, like mid-January, to allow for additional time between awareness and purchase.

March 8: International Women’s Day

From the silly to the serious, International Women’s Day makes the list of the most important eCommerce dates for 2023 because of its cultural significance around the world. For more than 100 years, countries worldwide have celebrated women’s cultural and socioeconomic achievements.

Avoid exploiting the serious meaning behind this holiday too obviously. But there is still a revenue opportunity here if you can thread the needle. For example, it might be the perfect opportunity for a student or young professional to buy a gift to thank a female professor or professional mentor.

A more subtle approach likely means staying away from website heroes or pop-ups. But a well-placed, targeted email campaign around late February can prompt the right audience to take action in a tasteful and subtle way.

April 10: Siblings Day

The love-hate relationship most of us share with our siblings is unmatched in any other part of life. Believe it or not, that unique aspect also makes Siblings Day a perfect opportunity to enhance your 2023 eCommerce marketing calendar, no matter what online niche you inhabit.

Depending on the products you sell, you can take this in a serious direction, offering gift cards or meaningful gifts for your audience to share with their siblings. Or you can make it silly, with gag gifts designed to make people laugh. It’s a minor holiday, so focusing on your low-priced products will likely be the most successful.

Marketing ahead of this day can be relatively short-notice. As long as you have automations in place by the beginning of April, you’ll likely be in good shape—especially considering that many of the purchases will likely be gift cards or smaller items.

April 22: Earth Day

More than 1 billion people around the globe participate in Earth Day every year, making it the largest non-religious civic celebration in the world. It’s also synonymous with sustainability and going green, and that’s where the eCommerce opportunity comes in.

If you offer sustainable or sustainably sourced products, now is the time to highlight them. The same is true for sustainable shipping methods. Any efforts you’ve made to build a sustainable eCommerce strategy are worth highlighting here.

More good news: you don’t need to market ahead for Earth Day. It’s not an event where your audience buys gifts for each other. Instead, focus on spending the day itself highlighting as many of your sustainable efforts as possible, from adjusting your homepage to taking over your social media channels. The call to action on the day can still be to buy your sustainable products, of course.

May 14: Mother’s Day

No list of important eCommerce dates for 2023 would be complete without Mother’s Day. After all, it outpaces even Valentine’s Day in online shopping revenue. It’s when your audience buys gifts for their moms, wives, grandmothers, and other mothers in their lives.

Think about how your products relate to that audience. It can be obvious, like jewelry and floral-themed gifts, or more subtle, like coffee for mothers of teenagers. Those are the products you’ll want to highlight on all of your digital platforms.

Start your marketing for Mother’s Day early. Promotions can begin as early as a month before the date, reminding your audience that the day is coming up. Then, intensify your efforts through pop-ups and website heroes leading up to the week before the event to account for the last-minute shoppers among your audience.

June 18: Father’s Day

It doesn’t have quite the economic impact of Mother’s Day, but don’t leave Father’s Day off your list of important eCommerce dates for 2023. Its purpose is still very similar. If your store sells products or services that fathers can relate to, now is your time to promote them.

Your promotional efforts can also be similar to Mother’s Day. Start about a month early, then gradually ramp up until the week before June 18. Focus your messaging on celebrating that special dad in your audience’s life, with summery gifts (like barbeque tools) being especially popular.

July 7: World Chocolate Day

Yes, it’s a day all about chocolate. With chocolate being the most popular sweet treat in the world, it’s the perfect day for online stores selling anything related to cocoa beans.

Don’t limit yourself to food-related items, either. For coffee sellers, it’s your time to highlight those mocha mixes. Likewise, apparel brands could make hay from chocolate-related t-shirt slogans. As long as you can relate it back to the sweet treat, you’re in good shape.

Much like Earth Day, this promotion focuses largely on the event itself. Ramp up for a couple of days, then focus most of your emails, automations, and web updates on July 7. Leverage the attention chocolate will get for your store, like involving yourself in popular hashtag conversations on social media.

August 1: “Back to School” Starts

It’s a full month of eCommerce opportunities, but it all starts at the beginning of August. Online stores that sell products intended for either students or teachers will benefit from a concerted effort to highlight sales around back to school, with audiences ranging from elementary school markets all the way to college students.

That wide breadth of opportunity is what makes Back to School such an important eCommerce date for 2023. Anything from pencils to mini fridges in dorm rooms is on the table. You can even leverage unique traditions like the German “Schultüte” (school cone) to sell products not traditionally associated with Back to School.

Planning for Back to School needs to begin early. Educate yourself about the districts that matter to your target audience and when they typically start back-to-school shopping. Then, create unique sales (like percentages off for school-related products) that can run through August and early September on all of your promotional channels.

October 16: World Food Day

Despite being one of the most celebrated UN holidays in the world, World Food Day may not seem like a natural fit for online shopping. But, promoted the right way, it still has the potential to become one of your important eCommerce dates for 2023.

The key to promotion here is not, as the name suggests, promoting your food items. Instead, it’s an opportunity to highlight your philanthropy and social efforts. For example, you can run a promotion in which a percentage of all sales during October 16 gets donated to a charity designed to fight world hunger.

Promotional opportunities are limited to the date itself. Create a campaign around the day, but don’t start too early or too late. Otherwise, you risk running into more traditional commercial dates like Back to School or Halloween. Still, a website takeover and targeted email automation on October 16 can go a long way toward generating goodwill among your customers.

October 31: Halloween

Halloween is a commercial powerhouse in the United States and increasingly around the world. The best part: you can take advantage of it even if you don’t sell decorations or costumes.

Instead, think about the creative ways in which you can add Halloween to your 2023 eCommerce marketing calendar. That might include selling food products for Halloween parties or apparel for those who intentionally don’t want to dress up for the day.

Commercially, most of October has traditionally been dedicated to Halloween. The same should be true for your marketing efforts, with early promotions beginning at the start of the month and running through October. The spooky theme of this holiday also allows for some fun creative possibilities for your website design, social media posts, and email automations.

November 24: Black Friday

With Black Friday, we’re officially kicking off the holiday season—and, as a result, eCommerce’s biggest revenue opportunity. In fact, we could easily make the case that a list of important eCommerce dates for 2023 can be made up primarily of holiday season dates.

We’ve written plenty about Black Friday eCommerce planning in the past, and all those resources remain relevant today. Start your planning in September, including a determination of which products deserve to be your big sales items. Then, begin to promote those items about a week before November 24.

On the big day, make sure your website can support the influx of traffic from shoppers who prefer to shop online rather than go into the physical shopping madness. Then, make all of your communications to customers about Black Friday, as well as its famous follow-up three days later.

November 27: Cyber Monday

Unlike Black Friday, Cyber Monday doesn’t need to compare with physical store shopping. Everything is designed around the online experience, which generated more than $11 billion in sales in 2022 alone.

Your preparations for Cyber Monday can, in many ways, mirror Black Friday. In fact, it’s best to plan those two events in concert, given their proximity. Think about what items you want to promote, prominently highlight those promotions on all your channels, and be sure your store can support the influx in traffic. Then, watch the sales roll in.

December 15: Super Saturday

The last date of the shopping season is when things get interesting. Technically, Super Saturday (the last Saturday before Christmas) falls on December 23 this year. But in terms of online shopping, the last realistic date to order anything is likely the Saturday before that, making it our final entry in the list of most important eCommerce dates for 2023.

Last year, 158 million consumers planned to shop on Super Saturday, with 27% planning to shop online only. For those procrastinators in your audience, a strong promotional effort can give them that final push to buy last-minute gifts from you instead of your competition.

For these promotions, highlight your fastest shipping options. You might even run some free shipping options. Sales on your most popular seasonal items can also help. Start your communications with the beginning of December, always keeping this date top of mind and prominent in your communications as a deadline.

Building Your 2023 eCommerce Marketing Calendar

eCommerce marketing is largely calendar-based, and building that calendar early on can go a long way toward a more intentional, strategic effort to maximize your revenue. Of course, these dates are just the beginning of building that calendar. We’re here to help you maximize your efforts. Get your FREE marketing calendar for 2023 today to start planning and capitalizing on these revenue opportunities.