Promotional Strategy

Retail sales during the second half of 2020 — including the pivotal back-to-school and holiday shopping periods — will be exponentially more important than ever before. Not only will retailers be forced to try to recoup as much of the losses from closures caused by COVID-19 as they possibly can, but they also will be…

The worldwide coronavirus pandemic has caused many retailers to close their physical stores, causing a sudden increase of excess inventory. Nike, for example, saw an inventory spike of 7 percent in its fiscal quarter ending Feb. 29. As a result of the current crisis, retailers are turning to different measures to keep their businesses afloat.…

Whether you’re a brand or a retailer, the internet is a crowded place to sell things. You're constantly fighting for coveted shopper attention in your emails, ads and paid Instagram posts. Once you have a visitor’s attention, it’s about nailing that conversion to a paid customer. Free shipping could be just the thing to bring…

The holidays are just around the corner. Is your company ready? A recent Periscope By McKinsey study of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers examined shopping attitudes and behaviors for this coming holiday season. Findings not only revealed consumers’ plans, but also emerging trends with big implications for retailers. Consumers Are Seeking Inspiration With almost half…

What is the greatest coffee secret at Starbucks you never knew? Simple answer: a cup of coffee from its Clover machine. I will get to the sales and marketing point of this blog post in a moment. But first let’s talk about a subject most of us love: coffee! If you've never had a "Clover," you're…

Now that summer is coming to a close, retailers’ thoughts are turning to planning and strategies for the all-important holiday season. The season spans Black Friday to Cyber Monday and through the varied landscape of early shoppers who plan ahead to last-minute shoppers who crowd stores and websites in the last days before Christmas. Retailers…

Amazon.com's Prime Day is proving to be a highly effective “flywheel” strategy that boosts Prime subscriber numbers and, in doing so, creates a captive membership community that’s willing and eager not only to participate in future Prime Day events, but also in year-round shopping. Prior to this year's Prime Day, Periscope By McKinsey conducted research…

To many, it may feel as though summer still has a ways to go. But like it or not, retailers must face the fact that Amazon.com's first-ever 48-hour Prime Day ushered in the unofficial start of the 2019 back-to-school (BTS) shopping season, along with some heated competition for consumer spend. BTS is the second-largest shopping…

In the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2018, U.S. consumers spent a record $850 billion. While Thanksgiving 2019 is still four months away, the competition for holiday dollars is already under way. Discerning retailers are looking to win back some of the holiday dollars going to Amazon.com every year. Amazon had more traffic on…

The retail promotional calendar is how almost every retailer has planned for, managed and executed its seasonal promotions and discount activities. There’s just one big problem with this approach: it doesn’t work. It isn’t well-suited for today’s retail industry, and hasn’t been for some time. The entire landscape is changing at a faster pace, and…