Q4 2025 Product Revenue
£1009k
excl. 11.2% auto-rebills
Starter Pack Family
40%
of Q4 revenue: THE push product
Best Acquisition Window
1-19 Nov
1.13x LTV, fastest 2nd order
Wake Segment
7,084
bought Q4 2025, silent since
The Thesis: A Three-Act Quarter
ACT 1: SEP - 19 NOVFull-price demand building. Acquisition quality at or above baseline, peaking in the 1-19 Nov window, the best of the year. Commit the spend here.
ACT 2: BFCM - 24 DECHarvest with the owned list and warm audiences. Customers first acquired here are worth 12-38% less at a true 12-month runway. Cap cold, capture gift buyers.
ACT 3: 26 DEC - 15 JANBoxing Day is an acquisition event, not just clearance: baseline-quality customers with the highest subscription attach of any window.
Cohort Autopsy: What a Customer Acquired in Each Window Is Worth
Every customer with a full 12 months of history (2020-2025, n=19,338). Repeat excludes subscription auto-rebills. The green rows are where acquisition money earns a premium; the grey rows are where it leaks.
| Acquired | n | First AOV | 12mo Repeat | 12mo LTV vs baseline | Sub Attach | Verdict |
|---|
Rest of Year (baseline)
|
7,869 |
£57 |
38.5% |
|
8.4% |
BASELINE |
Early Q4
1 Sep - 31 Oct |
2,642 |
£65 |
35.9% |
|
7.4% |
INVEST |
Early Nov
1 - 19 Nov |
1,627 |
£73 |
36.7% |
|
9.1% |
INVEST: BEST WINDOW |
BFCM
20 Nov - 2 Dec |
2,362 |
£63 |
30.1% |
|
6.9% |
BREAKEVEN ONLY (COLD) |
Dec Gifting
3 - 24 Dec |
3,206 |
£62 |
26.3% |
|
6.2% |
CAPTURE-GATED |
Boxing Day / Clearance
25 Dec - 15 Jan |
1,632 |
£58 |
39.8% |
|
9.7% |
INVEST (UNDERRATED) |
The prior board thesis (Sep-Oct worth 1.53x Nov-Dec) was measured on cohorts of unequal age. At a true 12-month runway the gap is ~1.24x, and the real prize moves to 1-19 Nov. Boxing Day buyers hit 14.2% sub attach in 2024, the highest of any window.
Data source: autopsy-2026-07-07.json over cached all-time Shopify pull (79,981 clean orders, 29,586 customers, through 27 May 2026)
The Product Engine: What Actually Sold in Q4 2025
Revenue by category
One product family carries the quarter: Starter Packs = 40% of product revenue, Refills another 36%. The core Starter Pack alone is 24% as a single product. Q4 content, offers and spend should push the starter-to-refill machine, with seasonal scents (cyan bars) as the freshness layer, each individually small.
Top 10 products (share of product revenue)
Free Standard Christmas Refill Standard Christmas Refill Set Grand Christmas Starter Pack
Cyan = Christmas/seasonal SKUs. Top 10 products = 45.7% of revenue; the tail is 230 SKUs.
What pulls NEW customers in, by window (share of first orders containing each category)
| Window | New customers | Starter Packs | Refills | Gift Sets | Candles |
|---|
| Early Q4 | 1,840 | 56% | 33% | 3% | 27% |
| Early Nov | 1,009 | 61% | 36% | 12% | 23% |
| BFCM | 1,639 | 60% | 40% | 10% | 20% |
| Dec Gifting | 1,411 | 57% | 62% | 31% | 23% |
| Boxing Day / Clearance | 410 | 38% | 55% | 1% | 27% |
Starter Packs are the acquisition product in every window until December, when gift sets (31%) and refills take over. The acquisition creative should sell the Starter Pack until ~2 Dec, then rotate to gift-set and gift-guide angles.
Data source: products-q4-2026-07-07.json: line-item revenue net of discounts, Q4 2025 season (1 Sep 2025 - 5 Jan 2026), subscription rebills excluded
The Drop Calendar: When Each Pot Lands
Sequencing for the 2026 pot drops. The rule: drops live in the full-price window, spaced ~3 weeks apart so each gets its moment, and nothing new lands after ~17 Nov.
Rust pot
w/c 1 Sep
The fall statement. Opens the full-price window with Shoot A assets behind it.
Black pot
1 Oct
Fall keeps its voice through October while Christmas soft-lists. Halloween-adjacent, wears into Nov.
Christmas pots
~14 Oct SOFT
Site, gift guide and a list-first email only. Paid and homepage stay fall. The list-first look doubles as an EA-list moment.
CHANNEL FLIP
NOT A DROP
Christmas full-steam
1 Nov
Homepage flips, paid rotates to gifting. The range enters the best window with two weeks of sales, reviews and indexing already banked.
Gold + white pot
3-5 Nov
Hero drop of the best acquisition window (1-19 Nov: 1.13x LTV, highest first AOV). Reads gifting and luxury. Last drop, 3+ weeks before BF.
Why mid-Oct Christmas does not cut fall short: 2025 weekly product revenue
Fall / evergreen Christmas SKUs
Christmas launched w/c 13 Oct 2025 and did £22.4k in launch week (43% of product revenue) while fall/evergreen held flat: £31.8k the week before, £29.6k launch week, £30.6k after, £43.6k the week after that. Christmas grew the pie; it did not eat fall's slice. October Christmas demand was ~£61k in 2025 (and 2024 launched even earlier, w/c 6 Oct at 55% share). Waiting until 1 Nov forgoes demand that provably exists, and burns the first week of the best acquisition window on launch mechanics instead of a warm flip.
Data source: cached all-time Shopify pull, weekly line revenue net of discounts, rebills excluded, Christmas-named SKUs vs all else, 2025 season
Returner Economics: Who Buys in Q4 From the Existing Base
54%
of existing customers who bought in Q4 2025 were originally acquired in a PRIOR Q4. Q4 buyers rebuy in Q4.
49.9%
of subscription-first customers later buy in a Q4 window (2x any other first product), £208 12mo LTV. Every sub acquired before Sep is pre-booked Q4 revenue.
7,084
bought Q4 2025, no order since. Wake them in early October with value-first content, then the EA invite. ~£50k at a 10% reactivation (assumption).
Data source: autopsy returner trace: 2,097 existing-customer Q4 2025 buyers, rebills excluded; first-category propensity over 19,338 full-runway customers
Spend Plan: Commit Early, Flex Late
September
£80k COMMIT
Full-price demand building. Cheapest auctions of the quarter. Under-committing here is the unrecoverable mistake.
October
£132k COMMIT
Christmas line launches mid-Oct. EA list opens ~20 Oct. Gifting content library live.
November
£150k FLEX
Split the month: full appetite to 19 Nov (best cohort of the year). Cold prospecting inside BFCM capped at ~£25-30k.
December
£112k FLEX
Shift £10-15k from Dec-gifting cold (worst cohort) to Boxing Day acquisition (baseline LTV, top sub attach).
Total £474k recommended vs £284k dashboard plan: the £190k gap is decision #1. Marginal cut line: cold spend must clear marginal MER of 1/contribution-margin (margin: ask Casey). Flex triggers written in advance: EA list size at 1 Nov, branded search trend, marginal MER at current step.
Data source: Q4 planning board thesis-weighted plan (2 Jul 2026); composition re-cut per cohort autopsy verdicts
The Calendar: Five Lanes
Data source: board cadence (2025 proven) + autopsy adjustments: early-Nov creative round, wake campaign, recipient capture, Boxing Day acquisition
Decisions Needed
| Decision | By | Recommendation |
|---|
| Fund the £190k gap vs re-cut Nov/Dec targets | ASAP | Fund the 1-19 Nov and Boxing Day increments first: best cohort math in the quarter |
| Drop calendar sign-off: rust 1 Sep, black 1 Oct, Christmas soft ~14 Oct, full-steam 1 Nov, gold + white 3-5 Nov | by 1 Aug (shoot bookings depend on it) | Dates as proposed in the Drop Calendar section |
| BF offer mechanic | 1 Oct | offer-builder run; contain core-product discount to the 4-day window |
| Nov cold caps: 1-19 vs 20-30 | with budget sign-off | Full appetite to 19 Nov; ~£25-30k cold inside BFCM |
| Boxing Day: clearance only vs acquisition event | 1 Nov | Acquisition event with subscription-forward angle |
| Dec gifting cold: capture gate or cut | 1 Nov | Run only with gift-recipient capture attached |
| Wake campaign for the 7,084 | build by 1 Oct | Send early Oct, value-first, before EA opens |
| EA mechanic + list-size trigger for Nov flex | 20 Oct | Set the 1 Nov target number |
| Contribution margin for the marginal cut line | now | Needed before any in-flight spend call |
