Industry · Retail & Stores
Sales, back to school, Black Friday, Christmas: every key moment plays out in your catchment area, and the sale happens at the till.
Clothing, home, leisure: three kinds of shops as Eurostat measures them, then the month when customers search most for sales, an open shop or Black Friday on Google.
Retail sale of clothing in specialised stores
242,385 companies in the EU
Retail sale of other household equipment in specialised stores
321,571 companies in the EU
Retail sale of cultural and recreation goods in specialised stores
151,017 companies in the EU
Source: Eurostat, enterprises by NACE activity (dataset sbs_ovw_act), EU-27, NACE codes 47.71, 47.5 and 47.6, 2024 data updated on 30 September 2026. See the raw data. People per company: calculated from the number of people employed and the number of companies published by Eurostat.
Index 100 = the most searched month of each line. Searches in the United Kingdom, in English, from October 2025 to September 2026.
Most searched month: seasonal sales in December, open shops in August, black friday in November. Black Friday: November brings 200.9 times the searches of June.
Source: Google Ads Keyword Planner, monthly search volumes in the United Kingdom, in English, from October 2025 to September 2026, retrieved on 14 October 2026 from Théo Maupilé's Google Ads account. Searches measured: “january sales”, “boxing day sales”, “summer sales”, “clearance sale”, “shops open today”, “shops open on sunday”, “shops near me”, “stores near me”, “black friday”, “black friday deals” and “black friday sale”. Method: each line adds up its searches, then takes the value 100 in its highest month. Google rounds the volumes it returns: the line shows the rhythm of demand, not an exact volume.
| Month | Seasonal Sales | Open Shops | Black Friday |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 2025 | 1 | 67 | 16 |
| November 2025 | 1 | 67 | 100 |
| December 2025 | 100 | 68 | 4 |
| January 2026 | 7 | 55 | 1 |
| February 2026 | 1 | 54 | 1 |
| March 2026 | 1 | 67 | 1 |
| April 2026 | 1 | 83 | 1 |
| May 2026 | 2 | 82 | 1 |
| June 2026 | 4 | 82 | 0 |
| July 2026 | 4 | 100 | 1 |
| August 2026 | 5 | 100 | 2 |
| September 2026 | 5 | 82 | 3 |
I'm Théo, a freelance Paid Media specialist with 100+ clients on Google Ads & Meta Ads. For a shop, advertising is there to bring customers into the store, then to prove it. Google can show the stock of each store and count store visits once the account has access to them. Meta can receive the sales made in store. Same standard every time: campaigns ready before each key moment, and measurement that follows the customer to the store. I work directly with you.
Your customers come from your catchment area, and each store has its own, with its competitors and its opening hours. I set up campaigns store by store, so the budget goes where customers can actually come. On Meta, each store gets its own radius around its address, from 1 to 80 kilometres.
In France, every price reduction ad shows the previous price, the lowest one used in the last 30 days (Consumer Code, Article L112-1-1). In Spain, a reduced item shows its previous price next to the new one, with the same 30-day rule (Law 7/1996, Article 20).
Your customer sees the ad on their phone, then pays in the store. So measurement follows that path, from the click to the till: direction clicks, calls, store visits, and till sales when they can be sent back.
The area of each store, local competition, your sales calendar and key moments: what each store can attract.
Your products sent to Merchant Center with their availability and price store by store, for local inventory ads.
Google Search and Performance Max for people searching nearby, Meta to announce new arrivals and sales in your area, each key moment prepared a few weeks ahead.
Directions and calls first, then store visits and till sales once your account has access, with a per-store report so the budget follows the stores that sell.
Before the peak: the calendar above shows that in the UK, sales are searched most in December. In France, sales run in two periods a year, of three to six weeks each, on dates set by ministerial order (Commercial Code, Article L310-3). In Spain, each retailer chooses its sales periods and how long they last (Law 7/1996, Article 25). I recommend preparing the ads a few weeks ahead, so they are ready on the first day.
Step by step. Google Ads can count direction clicks and calls as conversions. Store visits come next, once your account has access to them. They are estimates based on aggregated, anonymous data, and they require locations verified in your Business Profile, active location assets in your campaigns, and enough clicks and foot traffic to pass Google's privacy thresholds. The more stores a chain has, the more likely its account is to get there. On Meta, the Conversions API accepts sales made in a physical store. I prefer to start from what you can already measure, then add one step at a time.
Yes, with local inventory ads in Merchant Center. Your Business Profile is linked to your Merchant Center account, then each product is sent with the store code, its availability, and its price when it changes from one store to another. If your website does not show your in-store stock, Google can show it on a page it hosts for your store. Someone looking for a product nearby then sees whether it is on your shelves.
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