CSA Q&A: How to have a digital, extended and disruption-free holiday
The 2020 holiday season will require retailers to prepare for early surges in omnichannel shopping and demand spikes.
Chain Store Age recently spoke with Rich Minns, North America commerce leader at Capgemini, about how retailers can leverage technology to overcome the unique challenges posed by the current holiday season. Minns also discussed how many of the changes occurring this year will likely last beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
How should retailers prepare for a significant year-over-year shift in traffic and sales volume from brick-and-mortar to digital?
“Retailers should have already tested their systems, fulfillment and customer service capacities and kicked off their action plan for a longer and higher volume digital holiday season. Retailers should already have implemented buy online pick-up in-store (BOPIS), ship from store, curbside pick-up, and store-specific inventory built-in to their digital systems.
“Most retailers are already seeing a massive increase in holiday demand and some retailers are even promoting Black Friday deals. The late Prime Day in 2020 might have triggered other retailers to start discounting for the holidays earlier, but we see discounts really pop across many product categories right after Halloween.”
Do you think the traditional Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales weekend will have a diminished impact this year?
“Yes, as most retailers are already promoting ‘Black Friday’ deals and consumers are already purchasing. The Black Friday peak will be spread out which will be good for logistics and systems. Other retailers especially in electronics are teasing Black Friday adds to help maintain engagement, but are anticipating a higher demand (than last year) the week of Black Friday.”
How can retailers protect their supply chains against potential outside disruptions, such as demand spikes or product shortages caused by COVID-19?
“Retailers should be transparent about shipping delays and stock issues when placing deals on these high-demand items or items in shortage. The ‘one item available’ message doesn’t always help the consumer.
“Depending on how inventory and a retailer’s product inventory works, a retailer may allow for advanced purchasing or reserving inventory. If a retailer is not set up for this option, retailers might want to get creative with some type of advanced purchase option on these high-demand items which allow the consumer to purchase the item at the sale price, but the credit is in a gift card option or other promised credit.
“It also gets more concerning as manufacturers are reducing the number of SKUs and options within a product to help speed up production. Some items that are currently on back order with retailers may be discontinued and there will need to be customer service intervention.
Are the trends retailers are seeing for the 2020 holiday season likely to continue into 2021?
“Hard to tell, but the new holiday sales peak seems to be trending to become post Halloween to pre-Christmas. Since Prime Day and other retailers only have had a few weeks into this cycle, it looks like consumers are responding in a positive way, but the full numbers haven’t been made available.
“However, if this does become a trend (or even if it does not), retailers need to start thinking differently and earlier for 2021 and there’s some new realities for the upcoming year: Amazon will attempt to influence the entire retail market by setting its Prime Day date. Retailers might want to start thinking about selling their own store brands earlier in the holiday sales cycle. Retailers have seen success by creating secret landing pages, leaking secret sales ads, and giving special access to influencers for future upcoming sales. No matter what, retailers need to plan further in advance for the 2021 holiday cycle.