Tentpole Events Are a Loyalty Opportunity, Not Just a Sales Driver

More than 10 years after Amazon.com launched Prime Day, tentpole deal days from Walmart, Target, Best Buy and others have become major events akin to the holiday months.

And while not on the level of the holiday shopping period that runs November through December — when retailers earn upwards of 30 percent of their revenue for the year — summer shopping events have become a consumer expectation. An XCCommerce shopper study found that one in four U.S. consumers consistently plan purchases around events like Prime Day. And the proof is in the results, with early returns estimating the latest Prime Day generated $26.4 billion in online spend, a 9.3 percent jump compared to 2025.

With this level of promotional engagement, both in the summer and the winter, loyalty is on the line. Organizations are tasked to deliver accurate, consistent and efficient promotions to power tentpole success.

Loyalty Looms Large

The shopper study from XCCommerce discovered that 83 percent of consumers believe that valuable savings or rewards keep them loyal to a retailer over time. This paints a reality for all retailers that tentpole events aren’t just revenue opportunities but loyalty inflection points.

Consider a grocery chain running a summer savings event timed during Prime Day: shoppers can receive half off on select pantry staples to spur summer entertaining. The deal works and web traffic spikes by 100 percent. However, the promotions engine can’t keep pace and offers miscalculate at checkout, carts get abandoned and loyalty takes a hit.

Before marketing and making a splash about any summer event, retailers must ensure their promotional strategy is in place and that they have omnichannel promotions and incentives unified and running in sync.

Accurate Promotions Make or Break Events

Today’s consumers are savvy at hunting deals, using deal-tracking apps and social media feeds to compare offers across retailers.

With this level of attention from consumers, retailers feel extra pressure to deliver accurate and relevant offers. A midsized U.S. home goods retailer, for example, might spend months curating a catalog of summer markdowns for patio furniture, bedding sets, small appliances and more. But all that work is for nothing if that retailer doesn’t have incentives and offers operating in sync.

Running online and in-store offers in silos can create havoc among how deals get executed during a short time frame. Tips to get streamlined include:

• Align e-commerce, in-store, marketing, supply chain and IT teams around one complete, strategic plan for deal days offers.
• Ensure omnichannel offers are visible and coordinated across channels.
• Set rules around offers so they don’t interfere with one another across banners and channels.

Personalization Improves Loyalty

Another factor beyond getting promotions right is making them personally relevant to consumers.

The XCCommerce shopper study found that three-quarters of consumers say personalized offers matter to them. Delivering on that desire requires a technology infrastructure that’s stable under pressure and flexible enough to support complex promotional logic at scale.

Summer events are a new type of competition in the U.S., and retailers need to set themselves apart by being able to control and target relevant offers to their customers.

At the same time, tentpole events can be a stress test on a retailer’s promotions engine, especially when targeting and personalizing offers, which can dramatically increase the number of offers for the engine to consider in its calculations.

Tentpole events aren’t just about moving product; they’re about proving, at scale, a retailer’s worth and loyalty to its consumer base. Retailers have a lot riding on these tentpole programs, and accurate execution will ensure that sales stay hot for the summer.

Dan Surtees serves as VP of strategy at XCCommerce, partnering with top retailers to design and execute promotions and loyalty initiatives that fuel sustainable growth and deepen customer engagement.