Christmas POS Planning Across a Multi-Site Estate

Christmas POS for one store is a print job. Christmas POS for a few hundred stores is a logistics project with a fixed deadline. The date the material has to be up in store does not move, so every other step is planned backwards from it, and on a multi-site estate each step takes longer than it would for a single shop.

The dates to plan around

These are the fixed points for Christmas 2026 and the turn of the year:

• Black Friday: Friday 27 November 2026. It follows US Thanksgiving, which the US Office of Personnel Management lists as Thursday 26 November. Awareness Days gives Cyber Monday as 30 November.
• Christmas Day: Friday 25 December 2026, a bank holiday in England, Wales and Scotland according to GOV.UK. In England and Wales, the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004 says a large shop "must not be open on Christmas Day for the serving of retail customers", and Scottish law makes a similar rule for large shops in Scotland.
• Boxing Day bank holiday: Monday 28 December 2026, a substitute day because 26 December falls on a Saturday.
• New Year's Day: Friday 1 January 2027.
• Scotland only: Monday 4 January 2027, the substitute day for 2 January.
• Easter 2027: Good Friday is 26 March, and Easter Monday is 29 March (a bank holiday in England and Wales, not in Scotland).

How far ahead the big grocers plan

The Grocer's 2024 feature on Christmas planning shows how long the cycle is. Waitrose said that "from beginning to end, it tends to be around two years in advance". At Sainsbury's, planning "begins about 18 months in advance", and the team is "tasting mince pies as early as July the previous year". Tesco's Jasmin Moore put it simply: "Christmas never stops – we roll from one year to another."

The same feature gives the in-store sequence. "At Tesco and Waitrose, the first festive products hit the shelves in September." At Sainsbury's, longer-life and ambient products such as mince pies follow in October, and party food arrives in November. Biscuit maker Fox's Burton's Companies (FBC) "reports on festive performance to customers in early February" and then starts "laying plans with them to help get the right stock for their shoppers next Christmas".

Trade press is much clearer about ranges than about POS. The Grocer piece gives no dates for POS or displays. An Inside Retail Australia article from April 2025 goes further: for an October launch, "buyers would already be booking product orders from February to April", "photography production should be taking place in May/June", and "print production and delivery of POS displays should be all mapped out in the overall Christmas plan". It is an Australian source, but the sequence is a useful guide for UK retailers too.

Plan for a season, not a single day

IGD's outlook for Christmas 2026, published in July, found that "78% say they will plan ahead and stick to essentials in Christmas 2026, up from 75% in 2025", and described Christmas as "less about a single peak moment and more about a longer, more considered season". For POS, that means phases rather than one drop: early ranges, gifting, Black Friday, the final fortnight and the January changeover. Each phase has its own in-store date and its own deadline chain.

Working back from the in-store date

For each phase, the chain runs in this order. The time each step takes depends on your suppliers and the complexity of the material, so get a dated commitment for every step rather than relying on a rule of thumb.

1. Fix the in-store date and the removal date for the phase.
2. Confirm the store list and store data: which stores take the campaign, their formats, and the fixtures each one has. Out-of-date fixture data is where wasted print starts.
3. Brief and create, alongside the range and photography timetable.
4. Build the allocation: which items and versions go to which store, in what quantities.
5. Artwork, proofs and checks, including pricing and placement rules (below).
6. Print and make. Bespoke structures such as FSDUs need time for a sample before the full run.
7. Pick and pack per store, with a contents list that matches the store's fixtures.
8. Deliver ahead of the install window, and away from the store's busiest delivery days if you can.
9. Brief the stores and collect a photo of the finished display from each one.
10. Plan the changeover. If your stores are large shops that are closed on Christmas Day, that date shapes the window for the switch to January material.

After the season, review what went up and what didn't, and do it early: FBC's February review shows how soon the next cycle starts.

Two rules to check this year

Scotland's HFSS placement rules. The Food (Promotion and Placement) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 came into force on 1 October 2026, so this is the first Christmas under them. They restrict where in-scope foods can be placed, including store entrances, aisle ends and the areas around checkouts, in stores of 185.8 square metres or more run by businesses with 50 or more employees. The Scottish Government's guidance says "failure to comply with the regulations will amount to an offence". Gondola-end and front-of-store plans for seasonal food lines need checking for Scottish stores.

Loyalty prices on POS. IGD noted loyalty-led mechanics in Christmas 2025, such as Morrisons' "daily points boosts and app-exclusive festive deals through December". Since 6 April 2026, the Price Marking Order guidance says that where a loyalty price applies, "both the 'normal' and 'loyalty' selling price and unit price must be displayed together". Any Christmas POS carrying member prices needs room for both.

Talking to us

If you are mapping out Christmas or the January changeover across your stores, we would be glad to talk through your dates and your store list.

Sources

1. Federal holidays: 2026 holiday schedule, U.S. Office of Personnel Management (accessed 27 October 2026)
2. Black Friday 2026, Awareness Days (accessed 27 October 2026)
3. UK bank holidays, GOV.UK (accessed 27 October 2026)
4. Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004, section 1, legislation.gov.uk (accessed 27 October 2026)
5. Christmas Day and New Year's Day Trading (Scotland) Act 2007, section 1, legislation.gov.uk (accessed 27 October 2026)
6. How food and drink prepares for Christmas trends year-round (14 May 2024), The Grocer (accessed 27 October 2026)
7. It may be Easter, but here's why you're already late planning for Christmas (17 April 2025), Inside Retail Australia (accessed 27 October 2026)
8. What to expect in Christmas 2026 by looking back at 2025 (9 July 2026), IGD (accessed 27 October 2026)
9. The Food (Promotion and Placement) (Scotland) Regulations 2025, regulation 1, legislation.gov.uk (accessed 27 October 2026)
10. Food (Promotion and Placement) (Scotland) Regulations 2025: implementation guidance, section 6: location promotions, Scottish Government (accessed 27 October 2026)
11. Food (Promotion and Placement) (Scotland) Regulations 2025: implementation guidance, Scottish Government (accessed 27 October 2026)
12. Price Marking Order 2004: government guidance, GOV.UK (accessed 27 October 2026)