Q5 Dropshipping: The Cheap-Ad Window After Christmas (2026-2027)
Every year, the ad auction catches its breath between Christmas and February. Snapchat's ad team calls this stretch "Q5", the fifth quarter. We define Q5 as the time between the last day you can get a product shipped in time for Christmas and the end of January. For most dropshipping stores, that means December 26 to January 31.
The Q5 period is interesting because two curves move in opposite directions. Ad costs tend to decline as large retail budgets pause after the holiday shopping peak. Buyers don't leave, though. They keep browsing and spending, thanks to gift cards, return credit, and New Year's resolutions. If you followed our four-week Black Friday and Cyber Monday plan, Q5 is the epilogue that can pay for your January.
This guide walks through why the window exists, who is buying within it, and what you should sell them. You'll get a three-phase calendar, the campaign mechanics, and the mistakes that waste the opportunity. For product picks with current numbers, check our list of the best January products to dropship in 2027.
Why ads get cheaper after Christmas
Ad prices come out of an auction, and an auction depends on who shows up. In Q4, big retail brands throw a huge amount of budget at platforms like Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat. Tracked Meta CPMs, for instance, ran about 138% above the annual average during Black Friday week 2024. After December 25, those budgets pause or reset. With fewer bidders for the same number of impressions, the clearing price drops.
The published numbers tell the same story. Snapchat's Q5 playbook puts CPMs in the window at about 40% below typical holiday-season levels, with app-install costs down more than 70% from their Black Friday peaks. One industry tracker measured Meta's average CPM falling from $13.42 in December 2023 to $10.33 in January 2024, a decline of about 23%. Actual CPMs vary by account and geography, but the general direction has held across platforms and years.
Attention moves in the opposite direction around December 25, the biggest device-activation day of the year. New phones mean fresh app installs and fresh feeds, and vacation weeks mean longer scrolling sessions. More ad inventory, fewer bidders. That's the whole trick.
Who keeps buying during Q5
Gift cards turn into prepaid balances waiting to be spent. Surveys around the National Retail Federation's holiday survey have repeatedly found that about 71% of US consumers planned to shop in the week after December 25. Someone spending gifted money decides fast and compares less than someone spending their own.
Returns and exchanges typically come back as store credit or replacement orders, so the post-holiday returns wave doubles as a sales wave. Self-gifting peaks too. After weeks of buying gifts for friends and family, people feel they've earned something for themselves, and the last days of December prove it.
Next come the resolution buyers, looking to improve themselves: fitness, organizing, planning, sleep, learning. Your messaging has to shift with it. Same store, different reason to buy.
What to sell when the wrapping paper is gone
Fitness and recovery products are some of the first to catch the resolution wave. Home-gym accessories, resistance gear, and recovery tools ship light, look great in a 15-second video, and match exactly what someone getting in shape in January would search for. Prices stay moderate, which keeps ad-driven checkout decisions quick.
Storage boxes, closet organizers, desk setups, planners, and journals all fit the “new year, new setup” mood, and they bundle naturally. Bundles lift the average order value while traffic is cheap, and cheap traffic is exactly when you want bigger carts.
Comfort and hobby products round things out: sleep aids, light-therapy lamps for dark northern evenings, and hobby kits for the “learn something new” crowd. For category-level numbers, look at our best dropshipping niches for 2027 breakdown and the January list above.
Three cautions. First, pull anything overtly Christmas-themed on December 26. Second, go easy on size-heavy fashion during the busiest returns season of the year. Finally, check supplier calendars: Chinese New Year falls on February 6 in 2027, production winds down about two weeks earlier, and stock confirmations belong in mid-January, not late January.
The Q5 calendar
One scheduling note before the table: December 26 falls on a Saturday in 2026, so the creative swap is a weekend task. Build the assets before the holiday, not during it.
| Phase | Dates | Buyer mindset | Your move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gift-card rush | December 26-31 | Fresh prepaid balances, no gift list | Swap holiday creatives on December 26 and hold budgets while ROAS stays at or above breakeven |
| Resolution peak | January 1-10 | Self-improvement intent | Shift to new-year angles, scale winning ad sets, refresh product pages |
| Normalization | January 11-31 | Back to routine | Trim losing ad sets as CPMs recover, and confirm supplier stock before the Chinese New Year slowdown |
How to run Q5 campaigns
Holiday creative expires at 00:01 on December 26. Brief your designer or editor in December with the January angles: self-improvement, new routines, fresh starts. Keep one generic product-demo set running as a bridge so nothing goes dark while the new creatives learn.
Thin auctions tend to reward broad targeting and automated campaign types, because cheap reach lets the algorithm discover gift-card buyers you would never have thought to target. Keep spending while CPMs stay low and ROAS holds at or above breakeven. Q5 is also the cheapest testing window of Q1. A product validated in January starts February with real data instead of guesses.
Gift-card buyers arrive as new customers at an unusually low cost, and a post-holiday welcome flow starts turning them into repeat buyers. The seven automated flows in our dropshipping email marketing guide cover exactly that sequence.
Operations need honesty during the window. Carriers run a backlog after the holidays, so set delivery promises on your product pages that you can actually keep. Returns peak in the same weeks, and our complaint-handling playbook keeps that wave from eating your reviews.
Mistakes that waste the window
Why do so many retailers go dark on December 26, potentially the costliest mistake of the season? You spent Q4 dollars building audiences and warming up traffic. By leaving on the exact day when costs per impression plummet, you’re handing off cheap impressions to your remaining competitors.
Second: leaving gift-wrap creative live into January. The message stops matching the moment, and the budget burns quietly. Stale holiday banners on your product pages erode trust with the exact buyers who showed up ready to spend.
Third: overpromising delivery dates during backlog weeks. That turns cheap traffic into refunds and disputes. An honest promise protects the margin you just bought cheaply.
Last: scaling flat through late January. CPMs recover as budgets return, and what worked at a 40% discount stops working at full price. Keep the winners, cut the rest, and bank the learnings for Q1. Q5 is a window, not a season.
FAQ: Q5 Dropshipping
What is Q5 in dropshipping?
Q5 is the stretch between the last pre-Christmas shipping day and the end of January, roughly December 26 to January 31. Ad auctions thin out while buyers keep spending gift cards and resolution money, so traffic often costs less than at any point in Q4.
When is Q5 the cheapest?
The deepest discounts usually land between December 26 and January 10, when big retail budgets are still paused and gift-card spending peaks. Prices start recovering in the second half of January as budgets return.
Do I need new products for Q5?
No. The catalog can stay. The angle changes. You sell the same products as self-improvement purchases instead of gifts, and you can check our January product picks if you want data-backed candidates.
How much should I spend on ads during Q5?
Hold your normal budget while CPMs stay low and ROAS stays at or above breakeven, then scale the winners. Q5 is also the cheapest product-testing window of Q1, so reserve a small share for experiments.
What about shipping delays after Christmas?
Carriers run a backlog in the first weeks of January, so keep delivery promises conservative. Confirm supplier stock and lead times by mid-January, because Chinese New Year (February 6 in 2027) slows factories down.
Final Thoughts
Plan well for Q5 and it will reward you handsomely. Build all January creatives in December. Switch to ‘resolutions not gifts’ message on Dec 26. And then ease off as prices revert to normal in late January.
If you want a head start, our January product list is built from current numbers. The window opens the day after Christmas. Be ready before it does.
