From small to large fashion and clothing retailers there is one thing in common – the outdated collection in stock is “hazardous waste”. But there is an opportunity to increase profit by smartly promoting the “expiring soon” products instead of bombarding everyone with discounts.
The left over stock actually defines your potential profit. Think of it like this:
- ...selling 60 out of 100 items will cover buy-in costs
- ...selling 80 out of 100 will also cover marketing and sales costs
- ...selling the last 20 items and make some profit
Of course, it is not that simple but you get the point, right? Selling the “soon to be expired items” is much more profitable than relocating items from the store to the warehouse. You actually turn your stock costs into profit.
We collected three data-driven marketing tips from our customers on how to activate the old stock. Let’s make some room for the upcoming products.
1. Attract bargain hunters with the right price and message
There’s always a group of customers who are looking for discounts. With the help of your customer data platform, you can efficiently target only those instead of disturbing your whole audience. You should also pick the right channels to contact them. If you have a marketing permission for emails and SMSes, perfect! If the bargain hunters are not generally opening emails, you can target them personalised ads on Google and Youtube.
Feed the flames of a discount hunter for instance by targeting a personalised message to the customers who have bought discounted products in a certain category and promote the old stock with a discount. This is a good start, but there’s much more you can do:
- Promote the old stock from product categories your customer is interested in according to clicks and abandoned browses
- Let them know the real price and gained discount
- Collect customer insights by showing the outlet selection in a mass email and follow the clicks
- Create easy to follow routines
- Low stock and last copies
- Highlight product flow from just arrived to a stock clearance
- Use relevant copy texts
2. Use customer data details for creating a service-like message
Personalised targeted marketing in 2022 is way more than your name at the beginning of an email. A smart retailer creates service-like messages about the old stock when there are rare items left. Take full advantage of customer data and utilise customer insights like a rare size, unique colour preference or a specialised segment for a particular kind of product or service for targeting.
Do…
- Create easy to repeat messages for different special products from the old stock and send it to the right audiences
- Don’t waste the customer's attention span with an old stock message if you don’t have anything to offer her
- Use SMS campaign if the speciality is really niche - “This gem you might be interested in is available at your closest store.”
3. Delight you “Royal” customers
This is extremely crucial: Do not promote the old stock with a discounted price to a customer who is keen on buying the latest items from you for the full price. You lose better potential margins but most importantly, you may damage your brand perception and remove the customer’s incentive to buy full price.
You might have to work hard to convince a customer to splurge on an expensive brand product. That hard work might be rewarded in the future as a follow-up purchase but the work can easily be ruined with an 80% discount badge on a product moments after the customer just purchased it with a full price.
Do...
- Create a suitable audience based on purchase and browsing behaviour and use it for targeting with a relevant message
- Exclude customers who recently purchased the products you’re about to promote
- Tell VIP customers about the latest arrivals or even reward them with the privilege to purchase new products before others
Check how our client Scandinavian Outdoor is targeting personalised content to their customers on Google Ads and Youtube.
Interested to learn more?
If you are interested to see how data-driven marketing works in reality for fashion retailers, book a free, 20-30 minute private online customer data and marketing consultation and we'll help you.