How are you preparing your pricing & promotions for the festive period?

Takings at the tills during the run up until Christmas rise year on year, as shoppers worldwide rush to buy before and during the festive period. Grocers experience both the most intense and cut-throat trading period of the retail calendar over Christmas, and decisions on emerging trends, items to stock, margins and price points should have already been taken months ago.

So, what can you do as a supplier to ensure you have taken the right decisions regarding pricing and promotions this year?

Harness data from previous years

Harnessing data is the first step in planning for successful seasonal activity – keep this readily available and you’re already one step ahead of most FMCG revenue management teams.

Focus on insight

Despite it’s importance, many retailers drown in the abundance of data without focusing on the insight. The impact of incorrect insights can be worse than the effects of poor discounts or promotions. If you take robust insights to your customer, then you will establish yourself as s trusted partner. For many brands, getting it right over the Christmas period is crucial for annual results. Robust insights are crucial to avoid giving away too much in value or too little and risk losing customers to the competition.

Keep your promotional strategy clear

The results of the ARMA assessment 2018 indicated that 45% of revenue management teams thought that their promotional strategy was not well defined. For effective holiday campaigns, clarity across teams is paramount.

Respond to what is happening in the retail market

It’s necessary to stay agile in response to trends of the retail market. The difficulty is maintaining the balance between basing your plans on insight from prior year performance and responding to external factors such as competition. Keep both internal and external factors in mind to successfully plan for the festive period.

Make sure you’ve prepared in plenty of time

Generating a pricing and promotional plan for the holidays has to be done well in advance. Stay agile and react to early sales results whenever you can, but most of all learn from the numbers and ensure these learnings are carried forward next year.

Want to discuss this article further and plan for the next seasonal events? Speak to one of our consultants: info@acumenci.com.