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Oct 1, 2024 | 4 minute read
written by Bryan House
The 2024 election cycle, paired with pressures for earlier and earlier promotions from Amazon in both July and October, are pushing many retailers to extend their holiday shopping discount season. At the same time, shoppers may be getting to their lists earlier, since there are five fewer days between Black Friday and Christmas this year. The result is that 48% of holiday shoppers plan to begin shopping before November.
So, how can retailers stand out and keep the momentum going as more competitors offer earlier and more frequent discounts? With a flexible composable commerce system, it’s possible to experiment with unique loyalty programs and promotions — without custom development work. Here are five things you can try to make the most of an extended holiday retail season.
Traditional loyalty programs can do a number on your margins, but many retailers are experimenting with new types of activations that drive loyalty among younger generations of shoppers. For example, members-only or early product access, exclusive product drops, and brand collaborations are three ways to engage these buyers.
Product drops in particular are proven loyalty drivers for younger customers — 72 percent of Gen Z and bridge millennial consumers who participated in product drops felt greater affinity for the brand with which they shopped, compared to 67% of customers overall. Flash sales and private sales also significantly drove brand affinity, for 57% and 63% of customers, respectively.
Nearly 90% of free gift receivers said they were “somewhat likely” to buy more frequently from an online retailer after receiving a gift. Retailers like Sephora have taken advantage of this strategy by providing branded gifts to customers who buy at a certain threshold. This promotion does double duty of increasing customer loyalty, while driving awareness for their own branded line of products.
There is a significant amount of commerce revenue that comes from upselling and cross-selling via product bundles. Instead of static, preconfigured bundles, offer your customers choices over which items they prefer to bundle. Elastic Path simplifies dynamic bundling — you can select a component or category of products from which your customers can choose. From there, you simply choose how many items you’d require as a minimum (having a 0 minimum means customers can bundle any items with their purchase) and set the pricing and imagery for your bundle.
Buy X, Get Y commerce promotions encourage your customers to get more than they would originally intended, causing you to increase your average order value. You can also offer types of conditional promotions, such as:
Almost 90% of shopping carts are abandoned; however, offering a cart-level discount to these customers often entices them to convert. With a flexible, composable commerce system, it’s much easier to offer either single-item discounts or discounts that apply to the entire cart.
Many retailers are optimistic about this year’s online holiday shopping projections. More than half of respondents to a Digital Commerce 360 survey expect growth up to 24% (about 54%). Under 8% expect sales to decrease year over year, while just over 15% project their online holiday sales to be flat.
With a Elastic Path Composable Commerce’s Promotions Builder, you can experiment with all types of customized promotions like the ones detailed above. That way, your merchandisers can set the conditions for their promotions, or apply pre-existing actions to their promotions (e.g. discounting certain items, gifting free items, or offering free shipping).
Want to learn more about applying promotions with Elastic Path? Try out Promotions Builder specifically, and Elastic Path Composable Commerce more broadly, by signing up for a free trial here.
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