How to plan your Christmas wholesale sales early
The calmest, most profitable Christmases are always the planned ones. Not the ones where you're refreshing your inbox in November hoping for one more order, but the ones where the work was quietly done months earlier, and September-December is just the part where it pays off.
The thing about festive wholesale is that almost all of it is decided before the season even feels real. Buyers order early, deadlines creep up, and the brands who mapped it out in advance are the ones calmly packing orders while everyone else panics. So let's build your Christmas wholesale plan now, while there's still time to do it properly. Here are the practical, ahead-of-time moves that make the whole season easier.
Start with your key dates and cutoffs
Before you plan any selling, plan your deadlines. Everything else hangs off these.
You need two clear cutoff dates. One for wholesale, the last date a stockist can order and still get their Christmas stock in good time. And one for retail, the last date your own customers can order for delivery before the big day. Work backwards from when things actually need to arrive, factor in your making and packing time, and be realistic rather than optimistic.
Then, and this is the bit people forget, communicate those dates early and often. A buyer who knows your wholesale cutoff is the 30th of October can and will plan around it. Your cutoffs aren't just admin, they're a gentle nudge that keeps orders landing on time.
Plan your wholesale newsletters now
Your stockists won't magically remember to reorder for Christmas. They're busy, they work with a lot of brands, and they need reminding.
That’s why I recommend a combination of personal outreach, nurturing and regular wholesale newsletters. Both need a strategy and a plan.
The summer is a perfect time to plan out all your wholesale newsletters until the rest of the year. Pick your cadence, whether it’s once a month, every other week, or once a week. Then pick a theme for each, and make sure you clearly communicate your order cut-offs and lead time.
Then create the emails and schedule them, this way, even if you get to busy with school plays, physical retail markets and fairs, and life in general, your stockists are still hearing from you at a regular interval.
Plan your retail newsletters too
If you also sell direct, your own customers deserve the same care. A festive product sales strategy works best when your wholesale and retail plans run alongside each other rather than competing.
Sketch out your retail Christmas emails in the same sitting. Your gift guides, your "order by this date for Christmas delivery" reminders, your stocking filler edits. Line them up so they don't clash with your wholesale pushes, and so you're never scrambling to write a newsletter the night before you want to send it.
Planning both together means you can re-use content and images. A little forward planning keeps both channels happy.
Encourage early ordering, not last-minute panic
Last-minute orders are stressful for everyone. They squeeze your making time, they risk missing the post, and they turn what should be a lovely season into a scramble. So build your whole plan around nudging people to order early.
Give buyers real reasons to commit sooner rather than later. A clear order deadline. A small early-bird incentive if it suits your margins. Honest lines like "our festive range tends to sell out, so ordering by October means you won't miss out." You're not being pushy, you're doing them a favour, because a stockist who orders early gets the full range and calm delivery instead of leftovers and stress.
The earlier your orders land, the more evenly you can spread the work, and the more you protect your own December from turning into chaos.
Prep your spring range before Christmas kicks off
Here's the move that separates the calm brands from the frazzled ones. While you're planning Christmas, get a head start on spring.
It sounds mad to think about spring in summer, but buyers place their new-year and spring orders in January, often the moment the decorations come down. If your spring range is still a vague idea at that point, you miss the window while you're catching your breath from Christmas. If it's ready to go, you walk into January with something fresh to pitch while everyone else is exhausted and empty-handed.
A little prep now saves you a very stressful January later.
Plan your whole wholesale year with me
Reading this is one thing. Actually sitting down and mapping your festive season, your dates, your emails, your outreach, is where it clicks into place. And it's a lot easier to do with someone who's planned hundreds of these.
That's exactly what we do inside Sales Growth Lab. I help my students plan for Christmas and map out the whole wholesale year, so you go into every season feeling prepared rather than panicked, with a clear plan to sell more to shops in the UK, Europe and the US. It's the difference between winging it and running your wholesale with a plan you can actually follow.
Find out more about Sales Growth Lab here and let's get your festive season, and your whole year, sorted.
Therese x
FAQ:
When should I start planning my Christmas wholesale?
Now, honestly. Buyers research and order festive stock from as early as January and place the bulk of their Christmas orders through late summer and autumn. Planning your dates, deadlines and outreach months ahead means you catch that demand instead of chasing it.
What should my Christmas wholesale plan include?
Your wholesale and retail order cutoff dates, planned wholesale newsletters, matching retail emails if you sell direct, and a way to encourage early ordering. It also helps to prep your spring range so January isn't a scramble.
When are wholesale order deadlines for Christmas?
Set your own wholesale cutoff by working backwards from when stock needs to arrive, then adding your making and packing time. Many small brands set a wholesale cutoff in October, but communicate whatever date you choose to your stockists early so they can plan around it.
How do I get stockists to order early rather than last minute?
Give them clear deadlines and a reason to act, like a sell-out warning or a small early-bird incentive. Remind them what sold well last year, and make the safe, proven choice the easy one. Early orders mean calmer delivery for both of you.
About the author
I’m Therese, and I’m a wholesale mentor for product-based businesses. I’ve spent the last 18 years in the home and gift industry, helping hundreds of founders move from "guessing" to getting their products onto the shelves of major retailers like Selfridges and Liberty. If you’ve just finished your mid-year review and realised there’s a gap between where your wholesale business is and where you want it to be, you don’t have to figure it out alone. Click here to see how I can help you build your wholesale strategy inside Sales Growth Lab.
