Marketing After COVID-19
The second quarter of the year was a major challenge for many stores and retail chains, which almost overnight lost their customers as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Now it’s time to rebuild your lost position, where data from receipts can help. Blovly, based on more than 10 million bills from various shops, cafes, chains and shopping malls across the country, explains what you can learn about customers from receipts j how this data is worth using.
Purchases other than before
In recent months, the shopping habits of Poles have been subject to dynamic changes, and juxtambling them with the same period last year we can observe some interesting phenomena.
As every year in early summer, we also bought more clothes this year, but as a result of the pandemic we reduced these purchases and the increase was only +8% compared to the same period in 2019 (+19%). Interestingly, we have not given up spending on new footwear – the growth in this sector is even greater than last year (+110% in 2020 vs. +83% in 2019). However, spending on hygiene and appearance has decreased by 17%, which is explained by the fact that we stay at home and meet less with others.
Other important changes concern a 19% decrease in spending on meat and cold cuts and a 9% increase in spending on vegetables as well as dairy products (by 23%). In the previous year, the situation with these product categories was very different, which could mean a clear shift in preferences towards cheaper food.We also spend significantly less on sweets (-22%), while last year the decrease was just -2%. At present, we also save on what is not a necessity and prefer cheaper food.
It is also worth noting the unusual decrease in spending on office supplies (-26%), while usually during this period of the year there is an increase (+35% in 2019). This change is likely due to the closure of schools and less use of such articles, and more frequent use of computers during remote learning.
Several important conclusions can also be drawn by analysing the changes in the prices of the product in the basket and the sum of the basket (real-time data available https://www.blovly.com/data). The Covid-19 lockdown caused a sudden drop in demand, followed by falling prices and deflation. Since then, we have seen a significant change in shopping habits – Poles buy less often, but more products. The tightening also saw a rise in prices and inflation, which only stalled at the beginning of June. This is partly due to the increase in production costs, imports, downtime, remote work in many sectors, but also to a sudden increase in demand – especially for goods that Poles could not buy when shopping malls and some shops were closed (e.g. shoes, clothes).
What else do receipts say?
Receipt data can be used to analyse current trends and track customers’ shopping carts, but their role doesn’t have to be limited to that. The accounts will also provide accurate information on very specific FMCG products.– This knowledge can be a powerful tool in the fight for the customer, enabling, for example, building cross-selling campaigns for products bought together. Aggregated data from store accounts will also allow you to identify specific physical stores that need more marketing support, e.g. through local online or outdoor campaigns. Thanks to information about what, when and where we buy it is also possible to carry out microsegmentation, allowing to know the reason for the purchase of the customer. This opens up huge opportunities for marketers, explains Krystian Dylewski, CEO of Blovly.
Customer information from store account data also enables you to build consumer engagement. In the current situation, when, despite the defatting economy, many brands have to fight again for the purchasing motivation of their customers, especially in the declining visitation of shopping malls, the use of the latest technologies and the implementation of innovative customer engagement solutions seems to be the right thing to do.– Large retailers can build their own customer engagement programmes, but the FMCG brands present in them do not have direct contact with consumers. For them, a receipt-based program is ideal because they do business independently of retailers. A similar situation occurs in shopping centres. We want to draw marketers’ attention to the invaluable value that data from receipts can bring in in building customer loyalty- adds Krystian Dylewski.Blovly is a loyalty program that is based on scanning receipts. The mechanism of action is simple – just install the brand at home on a website or landing page widget, which provides all the necessary functionalities. In addition, for convenience, the user can download the application and take a picture of his bill or invoice (e.g. from an online store), and after a while he will receive rewards from the brands whose products he has chosen. Thanks to the collected data from receipts, such as m.in. date and time of purchase, place, products and amounts, companies receive on the one hand – data for effective analysis and conduct of strategic activities, on the other – a solution for two-way, instant communication with the consumer without installing equipment, issuing cards and devoting time to service. Brands also gain an extensive reporting module, with access to all important information for them updated on an ongoing basis. On this basis, they can analyse consumer behaviour in detail and anticipate trends. Blovly’s loyalty program works well in FMCG, malls, online stores and HoReCa.
More information and analysis on https://www.blovly.com/data
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