5 Ideas For Brands To Win The 2022 Holiday Shopping Season
“Experience gifting” is expected to make a comeback this year. To win this holiday season, be in hospitality.
This holiday season is going to suck! For everybody. Salesforce Commerce Cloud experts have some dire predictions for brands and retailers. Consumers are going to have to pay more. And brands are going to make less.
Rob Garf says that “margin will be the grinch that steals Christmas”. The cost of goods is rising faster than what can be reasonably passed on to consumers.
Caila Schwartz, Director of Consumer Insights at Salesforce says,
“Rapidly rising supplier, labor, and energy costs are weighing on brands’ and retailers’ balance sheets in 2022. Many will feel the pinch this upcoming season as they try to balance margins while keeping price sensitive shoppers engaged and happy.”
Last year, several news outlets reported that people’s gutsy spend shifted to experiences rather than goods. If last year’s grinch was Supply Chain, this year it’s Inflation. Experiential giving may well be a trend that continues this year. This puts brands in a bind, given their sales numbers are predicated on selling goods.
But what if brands can do exactly that?
The food/retail service industry seems to have figured out ways to do this and perhaps retailers & brands should look to this industry for inspiration. In fact, perhaps this holiday season, retailers & brands should think of themselves as hospitality businesses instead of retail.
Some are already doing that. In Target’s Q2 Earning report that was released on August 17th, Brian Cornwell, Chairman and CEO, refers to shoppers as “guests” and store staff as “team”. This may just be language but we believe that consistent usage of this language indicates a distinctly different mind set. No wonder they are one of the few retailers posting continuous positive growth.
If experiences are going to be a big part of consumer spending this holiday season, brands and retailers should consider adding them to their catalog this season. According to Gartner CMO Spend Survey, Events, as a Marketing line item, are seeing a larger allocation of marketing funds this year. Perhaps this is an indicator that many brands are already thinking this way.
Here are 5 ideas you can steal:
1. 💡Host a ticketed event where shoppers get a white-glove personalized shopping experience. This would appeal to luxury brands and products that require high consideration. Imagine a shopper at mid-tier brand getting a high-end luxury shopping experience. You could also tie-in promotions with the event to encourage a bigger average order value, given the shopper’s intent is already qualified.
2. 🔥Host an online fireside chat with a person of interest or importance in your industry. Think of this as a late night talk show format where tickets are sold for live audiences, while the show is streamed online.
3. 💬Online 1:1 Consultation with micro-influencers. Think Cameo + TikTok — live. Obviously, this would implies that you have a community of micro-influencers willing and able.
All of these are ticketed events. Which means that the brand needs to know of ways to manage it. Event management companies can help with that but only if the expected demand makes the economics of hosting it, work. Looking at the Gartner report on Marketing spend in 2022, this seems to line up well with the way budgets line up.
4. 🏬Build exclusive in-store experiences as traffic builds for your physical store (if you are lcky enough to have one).
With 83% of shoppers planning on either maintaining or increasing their in-store shopping this holiday season, brick and mortar is a clear way to stand out from the competition. Attract and engage in-store shoppers with unique experiences like this perfume making class.
5. 🦧Experiment with digital goods and NFT’s
Retailers from Gap to Tiffany’s are wading into web3 with massive success. Whether sold with a physical good or as a way to unlock VIP experiences, NFT’s are a great way to engage younger shoppers looking to engage with the latest tech in retail. In the hospitality space, the exclusive resort Casa De Campo is allowing guests to reserve rooms using transferable “Room Night Tokens” (RNT).
