Emerging Brands Have Opportunities

The holiday season gives many emerging brands the chance to get discovered and hit revenue goals. And, while inflation is having an impact across the board, it’s opening up new opportunities for many emerging brands. The consumer shift toward belt-tightening means that emerging brands that offer a lower price point than established brands can take share. By identifying your target customers and understanding how they’re choosing to spend their dollars, you can align your messaging to match. Emerging brands are generally more agile and can shift focus more easily. So, they have the opportunity to ride the wave of consumer demand this holiday season to strong sales. 

Omnichannel Shopping Will Continue to Grow

Only 14% of consumers are still solely shopping for FMCG products in brick-and-mortar stores, so brands need to meet their customers where they shop. Beauty brands that embrace omnichannel this holiday season will outpace those that don’t. But, this doesn’t mean in-store sales are dead. You should be using every channel to drive sales and entice customers, but you should make sure you know what your customers want. An in-store display will garner little return if your customers want to shop online this season.

Product Attributes Will Resonate

One area where consumers haven’t slowed down is a focus on product attributes that align with their needs and values or goals. Brand resonance will allow you to build a stronger relationship with customers and use these product attributes to grow sales. Across 18 markets measured outside of the US, consumers are looking for a brand that provides them, personally, with environmental and social benefits. Additionally, consumers that embrace omni or online shopping are actively seeking out specific product attributes in their searches. If you optimize your online listings to highlight the attributes sought by your target customers, you’ll have a better chance of making online sales this holiday season. 

Private Label Products Will Sell

One of the ways consumers adjust their spending habits during inflationary times is you seek out cheaper alternatives to their preferred brands. Private-label brands are making the most out of this trend and taking market share at an alarming rate. Globally, private labels account for 19.4% of overall FMCG value sales.

The run up to Black Friday is critical

The countdown to Black Friday has already begun. The last two years have seen the importance of pre-Black Friday events grow steadily and this year is likely to continue that trend. A 0.4 percentage points rise in sales is predicted across the two weeks prior as well as the Black Friday week itself. Many retailers have begun to offer discounts and offers before the official Black Friday 2023 weekend arrives. This can be an effective strategy. Brands may wish to offer discounts early to stand out, or cement loyalty by offering exclusive deals to existing customers first.

Performance will vary across categories

While overall performance is expected to be slightly positive and will be able to uplift the demand within this year’s volume dynamics, some categories are likely to have more relative gains than others. Categories such as food preparation and vacuum cleaners are predicted to see a boost in sales. This fits with the common theme of consumers looking to make each purchase count and taking this opportunity to pick up some essential household items at a lower cost. There is also going to be some divergence when it comes to people’s willingness to go premium. In the first Prime day, we saw premiumization in online channels. Conversely, the second Prime day saw premium in one sector and affordable premium pricing in others – with a fall in major domestic appliances (MDA) premium sales not mirrored in sales of premium SDA products. This poses an interesting question for both brands and retailers about the role of private labels that offer affordable premium pricing.

How to stand out during seasonal campaigns

There is fierce competition during seasonal events so brands are challenged to stand out on both the physical and digital shelf. Marketing content that focuses on a specific event can attract new shoppers to your brand, increase engagement, and push them into your sales cycle. 

Retailers’ product pages are an important step in these seasonal marketing strategies. With the increase of e-commerce, shoppers have more and more choice when shopping online — the content on product pages can help them make up their minds. 

Brands can leverage seasonal product content — interactive content that boosts shopper engagement — on their product pages to stand out during and event and to increase their conversion rates. Seasonal product content is the extra mile brands can take on the digital shelf to implement high converting product pages during an event and transform their sales.  

One form of seasonal content could be interactive content — a GIF, video, recipe, etc. — designed for the seasonal event. Interactive content instantly gives your audience useful, relevant, and important product information in a way that is easy to consume. By making sure your product pages contain interactive content, you are co-creating a positive user experience with your shoppers, and creating a stronger relationship. 

95% of shoppers are more likely to purchase after watching video or interactive product tours on a product page. 

Traditional product pages do not allow for interactive product content or additional marketing images to be easily implemented, and it will be harder for brands using traditional product pages to show seasonal product content. 

However, brands who use enhanced content can see significantly higher shopper engagement. Product photos are critical for building confidence and giving the shopper a strong grasp of what it is they are buying; in fact, they are one of the most powerful components of your product page. UK supermarket chain Sainsbury reported a 47% increase in interaction on product pages when showing 5 additional images and videos. 

But enhanced content can also be an opportunity to implement recipes, videos, or sponsored content, linked to the event directly on retailers’ product pages. A good example of seasonal product content might be a chocolate bar brand showing a recipe for chocolate Easter cupcakes utilizing their products. This would increase shoppers’ engagement — and increase the number of the brand’s chocolate products that are added to baskets. 

Updating the enhanced content to match the current season is a great way to keep shoppers engaged with product pages and implement seasonal product content easily. The key is regularly adapting and updating your product pages to keep shoppers engaged and excited. 

Anatomy of a product page 

Understanding the power of seasonal events is key but leveraging your product pages is just as important to drive sales across all channels. 

Mastering personalization and retail media during holiday season

The festive season brings a whirlwind of shopping. Retailers everywhere hustle to stand out amidst the noise of discounts, promotions, and festive sales. In such a scenario, the key differentiators become an effective combination of personalized offers and ads.   

As the importance of an omnichannel approach grows, ensuring personalized experiences across various channels becomes paramount in order to secure customer loyalty.   

The Importance of Omnichannel Personalization and Retail Media Strategy  

Today’s intricate retail landscape demands a multifaceted approach where consumers, engaging through varied channels—from brick-and-mortar stores to digital platforms—experience seamless and consistent interactions with brands. The holiday season intensifies the need for such cohesive experiences, requiring brands to delve deeper into nuanced personalization strategies, adapting to the transient shifts in consumer preferences and behaviors prevalent during this period.  

This is not just about identifying specific products a consumer might want, but more about aligning with the categories or experiences they are likely to prefer during the festive season. Thus, a well-rounded omnichannel strategy is pivotal; one that not only delivers personalized content harmoniously across all consumer touchpoints but also enhances the overall brand perception and fosters loyalty by adding value to the consumer experience.  

Integrating retail media into the omnichannel strategy enables brands to employ tailored ads, optimizing consumer interactions and reinforcing brand messaging effectively. This meticulous integration serves as a key element for deepening consumer engagements and lays down the foundation for enduring loyalty, crucial for sustaining brand momentum beyond the festive timeline. Brand and retail collaboration is the key for retail media success. Sharing key insights about customer behavior, loyalty, and preferences between brands and retailers is essential for them to discover retail media growth potential even more so when it comes to the holiday period   

Boosting Online Shopping Experience to Increase Basket Size  

By utilizing data analytics, retailers can provide online shoppers with recommended shopping lists that are tailored to individual user preferences and previous shopping habits, thereby enhancing the user’s online shopping experience and effectively making shopping easier for the customer. For example, someone who has shown a preference for vegan food could receive a recommendation for vegan holiday treats, enabling a more targeted and personalized shopping journey.   

Another pivotal strategy to amplify basket size is through intelligent cross-selling and upselling. For instance, if a customer is buying a Christmas tree, suggesting complementary products like ornaments, lights, or even a holiday-themed table runner can not only increase sales but also enrich the customer’s shopping experience by providing them with relevant and convenient options.  

Driving Loyalty and Attracting New Shoppers with Retail Media  

Retail media, particularly personalized ads, are transformative tools for customer retention and acquisition. By leveraging past shopping data, retailers can create ads that are meticulously tailored for individual customers, ensuring higher impact and relevance. For instance, if a customer usually buys organic products, an ad about organic holiday treats can be more effective and engaging.   

The holiday season also presents an opportune moment to introduce customers to new categories. By employing personalized retail media, retailers can navigate customers toward unexplored categories, thereby not only elevating sales but also significantly enhancing the shopping experience by offering diverse and personalized choices.   

Understanding different lifestyle segments, such as animal owners, those who opt for dog food, or those who prefer snacks for their cat, is also pivotal. Tailoring offers to these specific segments ensures relevancy and can substantially amplify sales.  

Embracing Innovation for a Successful Holiday Retail Strategy  

While the holiday season may not perfectly align with traditional personalization strategies, it offers a golden opportunity for brands to innovate and explore new avenues in personalization and retail media. By integrating both elements cohesively, retailers can forge a strategy that not only drives sales but also enriches customer experience and fosters loyalty. 

The power of personalization 

In today's competitive market, understanding your customer and effectively implementing personalized experiences to targeted audience can make all the difference in driving customer engagement, loyalty, and ultimately, sales growth. Unlock the full potential of personalization and segmentation.