Retail Sales and ecommerce: How to Clear ALL of your Old Stock

The end-of-year sales are a critical period in any (e)retailer’s calendar and the financial stakes couldn’t be higher. The challenge for (e)retailers is to clear all items that didn’t sell during the season, wiping the slate clean for the incoming new collection. But how do you promote products that you wish to push forward without irritating your customers? And how do you stand out above the many other brands competing for your customers attention? Easy answer: by using communication strategies based on predictive targeting. Read on to find out more.

Sales: sky-high customer expectations

The sales, starting at the end of the holiday season and lasting for a period of about six weeks, count for a large chunk of revenue for retailers, especially e-retailers. In 2016, according to an Ifop-Spartoo survey, nearly 50% of French people aged 25 to 34 said they thought the best deals were online. Just like offers on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, the sales are unmissable for consumers on the lookout for a good deal.

The challenge for (e)retailers is two-fold:

• selling end-of-line stock
• not disappointing customers by promoting products that immediately go out of stock

So it’s a tricky task. In the past, marketers have always sent out mass emails showcasing a set number of well-stocked products. But sending out too many overly repetitive, non-specific emails risks generating fatigue. To clear all unsold products, including poorly stocked items, you have to up your game.

Using predictive marketing during sales to clear your unsold stock

Predictive marketing solutions, like those developed by Splio, can help clear all of your sale stock by correctly targeting your offers. This is done by:

• Using AI algorithms to identify the contacts in your database most likely to buy a particular product.
• Based on statistics from your purchasing funnels, especially your conversion rate. You can then work out the optimum volume of emails to send depending on stock availability.
• Sending targeted, creative emails which promote particular products to a small section of your database.
• Reduce your production time by preparing a generic email template which showcases six to eight items. Use product photos and a format that mirrors your web site. This enables you to easily and quickly launch dozens of small targeted campaigns.
• Any uncleared stock can then be pushed to targets that didn’t receive your first campaign, those that the algorithms identified as a slightly weaker hit.

A predictive marketing solution, like Splio, can therefore help you promote the right product to the right customer, and avoid overwhelming them with irrelevant offers during the sales.

Since predictive targeting suggests the customers who are most likely to buy each product in your catalogue, you can run more varied email campaigns that are evenly distributed to your database. This means that you can control the pressure and markedly improve your customer engagement.

Three tips for successful sales

To sum up, make the most of the sales period by including the following three key steps in your communication strategy:

1. Send out a full base email on the day the sales begin.
2. Throughout the sales, send out:
   • mass newsletters to achieve your branding objectives and to promote well-stocked recommendations,
   • targeted emails to the specific customers who are most likely to snap up deals on your poorly stocked products
3. Tweak your targeted campaigns in real time using Splio and alter them depending on how stock levels change for each product.

Find out more about how to boost your email strategy here and if you want Splio to work its magic for you during the sales, get in touch!