Don't Bank On Holiday Sales To Save Your Bottom Line — Here's How To Engage The Discount-driven Customer Year-round

The vacation shopping frenzy — Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and each "deal day" successful betwixt — has spell a staple of retail. In 2024, Black Friday unsocial saw a grounds $10.8 cardinal successful U.S. online sales, pinch discounts driving nan motivation.

But while this play of discounts whitethorn thrust awesome short-term gains, relying solely connected picnic income is simply a consequence that portion brands can't walk to take.

More than ever, consumers are savvy astir trading tactics, seeking worthy year-round alternatively of waiting for seasonal deals. A caller study recovered that 62% of shoppers are consenting to move brands if their preferred 1 is excessively expensive, and astir half strategy to shop astatine overmuch affordable retailers. This displacement should awesome an opportunity for brands to rethink their customer retention and worthy creation approach.

Here are 3 strategies to prosecute discount-driven customers year-round, ensuring your marque stays apical of mind moreover aft nan picnic decorations are boxed away.

Related: Boost Your Ecommerce Sales — 8 Proven Strategies for nan Holiday Season

1. Build authentic connections that past beyond nan sale

The modern personification isn't conscionable looking for discounts — they're looking for meaning. Retailers petition to align pinch values that resonate pinch their audience. For nan iconic sport-inspired U.S. Polo Assn. brand, authenticity has been our cornerstone. Our products are authentically connected to a athletics pinch a rich | | history truthful customers are getting overmuch than conscionable a logo — location is simply a existent communicative down it.

Now that we personification collaborated pinch ESPN to broadcast our apical tournaments and U.S. Polo Assn. marque and mode content, we are tin to scope millions overmuch sports and marque fans wherever they are than ever before. So, it's overmuch important than ever that we enactment existent to who we are because we personification specified a unsocial opportunity to show our story.

Brands that attraction connected storytelling and authenticity tin foster a consciousness of belonging that extends acold beyond worth tags. For instance, our world trading efforts point polo's excitement, believe and community, creating a narration that drives loyalty. Whether done societal media campaigns, iconic world events aliases in-store experiences, nan cardinal is to punctual customers why they emotion your marque successful nan first place.

2. Offer worthy done consistency, not conscionable discounts

While doorbuster deals mightiness propulsion one-off purchases, consistency successful worthy builds semipermanent relationships. This doesn't mean slashing prices year-round; it intends delivering a price-to-quality proposition that keeps customers returning. Staples for illustration Levi's 501 jeans aliases Nike Air Force 1s fortify because they're reliable and iconic.

Our halfway products — for illustration nan polo garment and denim — are evergreen pieces that equilibrium affordability pinch quality. These aren't conscionable items; they're basal wardrobe staples that our customers spot on. Retailers should spot their "core" and put successful making those products synonymous pinch their brand.

Consistency too extends to customer experience. Whether online, in-store aliases done omnichannel touchpoints, customers should consciousness weighted astatine each interaction. For us, loyalty programs adhd different furnishings of engagement by offering perks that spell beyond discounts. It's astir creating a relationship, not conscionable a transaction.

3. Create "moments" year-round to reignite interest

The occurrence of events for illustration Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day highlights nan powerfulness of creating excitement astir shopping. Why limit that to 1 season? Brands should waste and acquisition their ain "shopping holidays" aliases moments passim nan twelvemonth to support customers engaged.

For example, successful Turkey — wherever U.S. Polo Assn. has a very ample marketplace but Black Friday isn't wide recognized — we launched "USPA Week," offering exclusive promotions and engaging conception audiences. The tally resonated truthful bully that different brands followed suit. These tailored moments fto retailers to seizure attraction while staying aligned pinch their marque identity.

We are ever looking astatine what different best-in-class companies are doing, we devour accusation and study from others. Even nan apical brands successful nan world tin study from what others are doing successful their abstraction and beyond.

Additionally, expanding your storytelling to spot lifestyle-focused contented tin deepen engagement. For example, we launched "Field & Fashion," nan charismatic integer mag of U.S. Polo Assn., showcasing nan apical sporting events of nan year, our iconic world events and our seasonal products successful aspirational settings, tying them each backmost to our communicative of polo. Instead of focusing solely connected sales, we banal an breathtaking mode that fans and customers want to participate in.

Related: How to Beat nan Post-Holiday Sales Slump and Crush Your Q1 Goals

Planning for 2025 and beyond

As we onslaught 2025, nan trends of value-driven shopping and year-round deal-seeking aren't going anywhere. For brands, nan business is to accommodate without losing show of their identity. For us, we're looking up to nan 135th time of nan athletics of polo and building believe campaigns to point immoderate nan athletics and nan brand, while elevating nan customer experience.

My champion connection for retailers is to deliberation beyond nan adjacent discarded cycle. Success lies successful blending invention pinch tradition, offering worthy without compromising authenticity, and connecting pinch customers successful ways that make them consciousness for illustration information of nan recreation — not conscionable information of nan revenue.

By focusing connected these principles, your marque tin thrive during nan holidays and each twelvemonth long. After all, nan astir meaningful measurement to summation loyalty comes from delivering worthy that goes beyond price.