Did you know that retailers lose more than 70% of their holiday customers by February?

You spend months preparing for Black Friday. Your team crushes it. The sales roll in. You acquire hundreds (maybe thousands) of new customers. And then? By Valentine's Day, most of them are gone.

The problem isn't acquisition. It's what happens after the tinsel comes down and the New Year hits. While you're catching your breath in January, those hard-won holiday customers are moving on, forgetting about you, or worse: shopping with your competitors.

Here's what separates retailers who keep their holiday customers from those who watch them disappear: they don't wait until January to think about retention. They plan their follow-up strategy during Q4, so they're ready to execute the moment the calendar flips.

We saw this firsthand when we analyzed retail brands on Shopify who signed up for Endear during Q4 2024. They weren't scrambling for a quick holiday Band-Aid. They were strategically setting themselves up to win in the slow months. And the numbers tell the story:

• Q4 2024 (setup mode): Light activity as brands got onboarded, with an average of only 60 Endear messages sent per brand
• Q1 2025 (execution mode): 5x more messages sent, with attributed sales jumping 62%
• Q2 2025 (momentum builds): 6.5x more outreach than Q4, and sales climbing to 120% higher
  

The pattern was clear: Q4 wasn't just about the holiday push. It was about setting up their CRM so they could hit the ground running when it mattered most.

In other words, while some brands were busy selling stocking stuffers, these Shopify-using retailers (coincidentally, the vast majority of new signups during this period were on the Shopify ecommerce platform) were quietly setting themselves up to win in January, February, and beyond.

Think about it: the holiday season brings in a tidal wave of first-time shoppers, gift buyers, and deal-seekers. Too many retailers let those customers vanish into the void once the decorations come down. But Endear brands? They saw an opportunity.

By onboarding Endear in Q4, they ensured that:

1. Every holiday shopper was captured in their CRM. Not just the transaction, but the name, email, phone number, and preferences that could spark future outreach.
2. Their sales associates have a tool ready to go. Instead of cobbling together emails in January, they could immediately start sending personal follow-ups to those holiday customers.
3. They could turn one-off holiday sales into long-term relationships. Rather than treating December as the end of the story, they used it as the beginning of their clienteling relationship.
   

The result? The spike in messaging and attributed sales we saw in Q1 and Q2.

So, how exactly did these retailers pull it off? Here are a few playbooks straight out of Endear’s clienteling recipes:

If you’re running your brand on Shopify, onboarding Endear in Q4 is practically a no-brainer. Integration is seamless: we plug directly into Shopify POS and ecommerce so you don’t have to juggle spreadsheets or custom dev projects.

That means when your holiday shoppers pour in, every detail is automatically logged in Endear. Your associates can start personal outreach in January without missing a beat.

Here’s the takeaway: don’t treat the holiday season as the end of the year, but instead, treat it as the start of next year’s revenue.

If you onboard Endear in Q4, you’ll be ready to:

• Capture all those holiday shoppers in your CRM.
• Launch personalized outreach in Q1 when they’re most receptive.
• Turn one-off gift buyers into long-term brand enthusiasts.
  

The brands who joined Endear in Q4 2024 weren’t procrastinators. No, they were strategists. They knew the real value of the holiday season isn’t just December revenue, but the relationships you can spark that carry into the new year.

This holiday season, don’t just sell products. Build connections. Onboard Endear now, and let 2025 be the year your customers become your community.