As we enter the second half of 2023, focus on the fourth quarter is beginning to intensify. 

The holiday season is coming quickly, and inadequate planning — or misplaced priorities — will cost sales.

However, don’t launch into seasonal planning mode without addressing the three most common challenges brands and retailers face in the run up to busy holiday season:

• Pricing and profitability
• Marketing and advertising
• Inventory management

Taking concentrated actions in these three areas now will yield results in the final weeks of the year. And we’re providing our recommendations, based on our decades of innovation in e-commerce, to help you get started. 

Pricing and Profitability

Preparing to meet the expectations of increasingly savvy and selective consumers is no small feat, especially this year when price sensitivity is likely to be high. Shoppers now regularly expect free shipping… and free returns. They want to feel as though they are getting a bargain, but also that they are purchasing a high quality product. Unsatisfied or frustrated consumers who return products and/or leave poor reviews can generate a ripple effect on profitability.  

Rising return rates coupled with cautious consumer spending habits have begun chipping away at gains in all corners of e-commerce. Marketplace sellers especially are feeling the pinch. 

How can you reduce returns and protect profit margins? Simply slashing prices may not drive up sales to desired levels and will affect profitability. Developing keen pricing strategies based on intelligent data points can provide necessary balance in meeting pricing and profitability goals.

First, we recommend ensuring all your product detail pages have as much information as possible, including: 

• Dimensions
• Color description
• Source materials 
• Typical and suggested uses for the product
• Clear images that present the product from all angles

Optimized content that consistently appears across all your selling channels builds confidence in your product before purchase and reduces the chances it’ll be sent back. In addition, setting up dynamic pricing strategies can maximize your profit margins while keeping you in compliance with any pricing agreements you have in place.

If you’re looking to drive growth through new channels, product or markets this holiday season striking the right balance in pricing and profitability is critical to success. How can you set a healthy pricing momentum when planning expansions? To preserve your efforts to maintain stable profit margins, we recommend that you:

• Identify and focus on marketplaces with lower return rates
• Consider a hybrid selling approach that includes both first party and third party
• Look at costs associated with each selling model, such as listing, returns, logisitics and storage fees — these can add up quickly and affect profitability 

Marketing and Advertising

Consumers are inundated with ads and promotions in the lead up to the holidays. Although advertising is essential at this time of year, it’s incredibly difficult to stand out from the crowd based on traditional tactics alone. 

The key lies in finding ready-to-buy shoppers who are already searching for and interested in your products. A centralized approach to digital marketing can yield cross-channel insights into finding those consumers through paid search and shopping. And retail media, when strategically implemented, can yield tremendous benefits in meeting ROAS goals and boosting visibility and sales. 

How can you efficiently use retail media to your greatest advantage? We recommend focusing on five elements in your campaigns: 

• Optimizing content
• Smart audience targeting
• Segmenting your catalogue
• Automating your campaign
• Testing (and more testing!)

We’ve found the most successful retail media endeavors harvest keywords to strengthen search results, employ brand protection tactics, acquire new customers and, ultimately, conquer the competition. And managing retail media campaigns from one centralized platform that is monitoring marketplace listings, inventory levels and other digital marketing campaigns can amplify efficiency (for example, you avoid wasting ad spend on products that have gone out of stock).  

Inventory Management

New challenges are appearing for brands and retailers in inventory management. Storage costs keep rising, ongoing economic uncertainties and inflation-related pressures on consumers’ wallets have led to inventory challenges for many sellers. 

Tackling the first two challenges (pricing/profitability and marketing/advertising) head-on can provide some relief in the struggle to move products. In addition, we recommend developing: 

• Techniques to avoid excess inventory (we have suggestions for brands and retailers)
• Strong product selection strategies that, among other goals, ensure poorly performing products are removed
• Automation and procedures that focus on synchronizing and maintaining inventory levels across channels
• Action plans to execute when excess inventory thresholds are crossed

If you’re looking for professional support to sharpen your strategies before the busy festive season arrives, the experts at Rithum would love to help! Our Managed Services team works with brands and retailers to plan for seasonal variations and challenges, expand into new channels, streamline operations and provide advice and guidance on ensuring profitability. Contact us to learn more. 

The post Navigate the Holiday Season with Confidence: Expert Tips to Drive Sales and Avoid Pitfalls appeared first on Rithum.

Retail Media. The topic that appears to be at the center of every digital marketing conversation in the e-commerce world. And with annual ad spend predicted to reach $121 billion in 2023 alone, the opportunity to reach new audiences with a well-crafted retail media strategy is significant. However, knowing the best way to get started and which retailers to leverage can be challenging. To help provide more clarity in this ever-growing space, we teamed up with some of the biggest names in the industry at our 2023 Retail Media Summit. We heard from Boston Consulting Group, Amazon and our very own VP of Digital Marketing Strategy as they discussed the rapidly evolving retail media landscape and shared insights for brands and retailers looking to optimize their programs and ad spend. 

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Retail Media continues driving conversions 

Insights showed the significant impact of retail media on conversions throughout the entire buying journey. With research showing that product searches often start on retail sites such as Amazon rather than search engines, retail media allows advertisers to not only reach shoppers even closer to their purchase but to also help drive brand awareness earlier on in their journey. Using precise targeting and contextual relevance, a strong retail media strategy can help to engage customers at every stage of the purchase funnel, helping to create measurable impact. 

Measure, measure, measure

The speakers discussed the factors causing the rapid growth in retail media and one of the key drivers identified was the focus on measurable ROI for marketing budgets. Retail media fits the bill perfectly. With GDPR regulations and tightening rules around user tracking and 3rd party cookie usage, understanding how well ad campaigns are performing is becoming harder. First-party data is quickly becoming the new gold. And retailers are sitting on a huge pot of it. 

Brands were encouraged to pay attention to Closed Loop Measurement (CLM) as part of a winning strategy. Establishing direct links between marketing activities and in-store or online sales enables brands to gain deeper insights into the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and consumer purchase behavior, in turn supporting strong ROI whilst also helping to drive increased investment.

AI is transforming the retail media landscape

AI-powered solutions are reshaping how brands and retailers approach advertising and creating more opportunities to connect with consumers throughout their journey. AI has allowed brands and retailers to enhance their customer targeting, creating detailed customer profiles and helping to deliver more personalized experiences. And the capabilities don’t end there. AI is also helping to optimize the way retailers interact with brands, allowing them to own and tailor the purchase funnel for each consumer. By harnessing the power of AI, brands and retailers can optimize their display ad campaigns on retail media platforms enabling better targeting, enhanced ROI and ROAS, and more efficient allocation of advertising spend. 

Selecting the right Retail Media Networks is crucial

Amazon led the way in monetizing advertising opportunities for sellers on their sites and it’s no surprise that retailers are now seeing the huge potential in creating their own offerings, capitalizing on lucrative ad revenue, and allowing sellers to benefit from their valuable first-party data.  As the retail media options increase, brands need to carefully consider where to focus ad spend.  At the summit, the experts advised brands to first look at offerings from retailers they already have relationships with to assess the advertising options that will maximize return on ad spend and ultimately profitability.  

Beyond these existing relationships, brands need to select retail media networks that align closely with their audience, offering them reach and engagement with new customers.

Automation will help you scale faster

Automated processes play a pivotal role in most successful ad strategies. With potentially thousands of products in inventory and many moving parts when managing ads, staying on top of multiple campaigns and ensuring ad spend is going to the right products can be challenging and time-consuming. Automated ad management can help brands to minimize manual tasks, make data-driven decisions, and quickly adapt to campaigns and ad spend to changing market conditions and inventory levels. By using a centralized e-commerce platform to manage both inventory and advertising, brands and retailers can harness data to make informed and guided advertising decisions, and improve business performance. 

Let’s not forget about product content!

Let’s face it, competition is fierce out there and setting yourself apart amongst thousands of other listings can be challenging. Clicking on a sponsored ad is just the first part of the journey, seeing those clicks turn into conversions is another matter. Link Walls, VP of Digital Marketing Strategy, discussed the importance of regularly reviewing product content and optimizing details as part of a winning retail media strategy. Well-crafted and informative product descriptions, high-quality images, and accurate specifications not only help customers make informed purchasing decisions but also contribute to a positive user experience allowing you to stand out in a crowded market and ensure you’re getting the most out of your ad spend. 

Rithum can help automate your retail media campaign, provide management and tracking support and deliver sales growth and a higher return on your ad spend. Click here to find out more about the retail media services we offer. Looking to understand more about creating a successful retail media strategy? Download our free eBook here.

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