By Jenn Markey, 360pi
Today’s retailers and shoppers seem discount addicted – while the former serially presents new offers, the latter sits and waits for the best deal. Traditional shopping dates like Back-to-School and Thanksgiving are blurring together and falling victim to their own overuse.
Meanwhile, many retailers have countered with even more promotion-driven dates that follow a regular cadence tied to minor holidays, creating what we term the ‘micro-shopping event’. To qualify, these events are any well-acknowledged date on the calendar that can be manipulated into an excuse for shopping with additional discounting and holiday marketing. Some examples include Teacher Appreciation Week, Singles’ Day and even the Summer Solstice. These micro-shopping events present both commercial and competitive opportunities to savvy retailers.
Advertisement
Winning The Micro-Holiday Dollar
As we approach back-to-school, Labor Day and Halloween retailers should look back to those who successfully capitalized on over $20 billion dollars in consumer spending during the Mother’s Day (1) shopping period to learn how to effectively leverage the micro-shopping event phenomenon. Traditionally, retailers have launched promotions at the category-level. For example, you might see 15% off of all jewelry for Valentine’s Day. Nowadays, more savvy retailers are deploying event-specific pages on their website, creating pre-made shopping lists of specific items within a category for the ‘Father Who Golfs’ or ‘Master Chef Planning the Perfect July 4 BBQ’.
This more strategic approach achieves three primary retailing goals:
1. Promotes one-stop shopping
Dedicated event pages act as curated shopping lists (built by the retailer) featuring “hot buys” for a consumer’s entire shopping list. Why should a shopper need to click around three different sites, navigate multiple checkouts and receive (and hide) three different packages when they can scroll through a curated list of deals for everyone on their list in one place?
2. Limits direct price competition at item-level
Enticing shoppers to build an “impulse basket” geared around a particular event reduces shoppers’ competitive price comparison behaviors, allowing retailers to minimize head-to-head price comparisons.
3. Positions convenience over price
No one wants to give in on margins. Similarly, shoppers don’t like wasting time, one of their most precious commodities. When retailers have done the legwork to determine the most prudent and/or popular items for a particular holiday or event, shoppers no longer need to do the heavy lifting. They are less likely to be fussy about price when a retailer has made the experience so effortless.
Keeping Track of Competitive Micro-Shopping Event Promotions
Beyond leveraging curated shopping lists on micro-holidays to engage and convert target shoppers, the savviest retailers also recognize the competitive intelligence such lists contain. Micro-event holiday pages provide product-level data on your competitors’ seasonal or holiday events, promotions, clearance items, hot buys and best-seller lists.
With micro-shopping events accelerating in popularity, it’s critical for retailers to arm themselves with a promotions-based lens into the overall market, capturing insight into who is discounting what, for how much, and on which key micro-shopping dates. Investing in competitive analysis allows retailers to establish strategies that not only make the customer happy, but also position them appropriately in the market. Knowing when and where to be aggressive on price is critical at all times, and promotional seasons don’t change that reality.
As retailers gear up for holidays large and small, traditional and opportunistic, it is important to cater to the target customer as much as possible, balance price and experience and keep competitor activity in mind. Retailers that plan ahead for these promotion cycles will be a champion of the micro-shopping event, not a victim of its emergence.
(1)
Fundivo, Mother’s Day statistics and trends. (2015) https://www.fundivo.com/stats/mothers-day-statistics/
Jenn Markey is VP, Marketing at 360pi. She is a senior marketing executive with significant startup and small company experience gained in the telecommunications, software, and semiconductor industries. Jenn helps early stage companies build their market presence, customer footprint, and strategic business value. She brings more than two decades of strategic marketing, product management, and business development expertise to 360pi, with an MBA from York University. Prior to 360pi, Markey held senior technical and management posts with SkyWave Mobile, J2 Global, UBM TechInsights, CrossKeys, Bell Canada International, and IBM.
