The holiday season has always been a time for retailers to roll-out eye-catching deals, but this year’s festive sales season is proving one of the longest and most competitive – placing greater pressure than ever on stores.   From November’s Black Friday through to the January sales, retailers are tempting value-driven shoppers with multiple promotions. Already this year we’ve seen
Black Friday push UK consumer spending to its fastest growth rates since 2010 (despite it being a relatively unknown phenomenon in Europe until this year) while
US sales rose 12.6% between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, including Black Friday.   Although these figures are good news on the surface, the growing number of holiday promotions is intensifying competition not only between retailers, but channels as well. Online retailers can respond with instantaneous pricing updates; the same cannot be said for stores.   No matter how often they’d like to update prices at the shelf edge, it takes retailers a considerable amount of time to roll out new paper labels across stores, which can lead to pricing differences offline and online.   This hasn’t gone unnoticed by consumers. Our latest report –
Getting the In-Store Price Right in a Digital Age– revealed that 46% of UK consumers and 42% of US consumers think retailers offer different prices online and offline, while half think the latest online promotions are not offered in-store.   It is critical for store retailers to dispel these myths, otherwise they risk losing business online. To do this, they must bring the responsiveness of ecommerce to bricks and mortar, using the latest digital display technology.  
Digital display solutions, including electronic shelf labels (ESLs), provide stores with the agility to create and execute new sales promotions and price changes in their store in a matter of seconds. This transparency, combined with the ability to see, touch and try products, gives consumers a compelling reason to make their purchase there and then.   It might be too late to implement new store solutions for this year’s festivities, but savvy retailers can revolutionise their 2015 pricing strategy by implementing ESLs.   Sarah Todd Marketing Manager Displaydata