Promotional Strategy

There’s no question that the upcoming holiday shopping season, and Black Friday in particular, promises to be the strongest on record. With major retailers such as Walmart planning to remain closed on Thanksgiving — the modern start of the holiday shopping season — both brick-and-mortar and online retailers alike are gearing up to maximize their…

As the holidays quickly approach, many early-bird consumers have already begun rounding up items on their holiday lists, eager to beat the holiday rush. But as any retailer knows, there will inevitably be plenty of shoppers who need a little — or perhaps a lot — of help making that final dash to get their holiday shopping wrapped…

Several major retailers have signaled that they're using Amazon Prime Day 2020, which runs today and tomorrow, as the starting point to begin their holiday sales — even though they're not mentioning Amazon.com directly. On Monday, for example, J.C. Penney launched an event that runs through Wednesday that allows "shoppers to get a jump start on…

Amazon Prime Day won't be the only big sales event in October. Walmart and Target have both announced plans to host their own online sales events that just happen to coincide with Amazon's annual shopping fest. On Monday, Walmart said it will be holding a "Big Save" online event that runs Oct. 11 through Oct. 15. Walmart will offer Black…

Christmas in July? Not quite, but since a sizable portion of shoppers plan far ahead for the holidays, now is the time to begin engaging them. We’ve identified four main types of holiday shoppers, based on data from Google and Cardlytics around timing and mind-set — two of which are historically on the lookout for holiday shopping…

The all-important holiday season is always a time of intense focus for retailers, but this year it should command more strategic attention than ever. With the added chaos created by the pandemic, all kinds of unprecedented uncertainties loom over the 2020 holidays. Now is the time for retailers to take a fresh and strategic look…

As the calendar turns toward September, shorts, shirts and swimsuits must make way for sweaters and slacks in retail stockrooms. But with consumers everywhere staying home, some retailers’ inventories may be bursting at the seams with backlogged products. Whether they’ve slowed their buying to keep balance sheets in check or are simply reaching the end…

Typically, the arrival of the back-to-school season is a time for retailers to rejoice and shoppers to revel in the comfort of a familiar ritual. This year, of course, that’s all gone out the window. We’re in uncharted territory, and tentative consumer behavior is driving a high degree of anxiety among retailers. Uncertainty around both…

Gift cards, both physical and digital, have often been viewed (mistakenly) by retailers as strictly a transactional product — in most cases to be rolled out during the Q4 holiday shopping season. However, gift cards hold a lot more value to a retail organization than simply as a product that's purchased in-store or on an…

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…