With holiday shopping comes holiday returns. Due to a combination of more lenient return policies and the growth in ecommerce sales, return rates have climbed in recent years. In part because strong customer service encourages a no-questions asked simple return process, savvy retailers must leverage the post-holiday return season to drive website visits, in-store traffic and incremental sales while collecting data for future use.
The following five tips can help drive revenue during the post-holiday return season and throughout the year.
1. Be Transparent With Your Return And Exchange Policy
Return and exchange policies should be easy to understand and consistently reinforced with messaging across channels. During the holiday season, many retailers offer extended return periods, allowing gift givers to make holiday purchases throughout the fall. But often, some items, including electronics and games, have stricter return policies. Regardless of specifics, return and exchange policy transparency is essential.
2. Plan A Post-Holiday Sale With Promotions Shared Across Channels And Timed To Coincide With Post-Holiday Returns
Advertisers can encourage consumers to handle returns in the best way possible for their businesses by promoting “return” sales with terms that best meet post-holiday revenue needs. Sales and promotions can be promoted via all channels, but when targeting past customers, it makes sense to tap into owned channels, including email, social media and push notifications. In addition to highlighting return sale dates and highlights, advertising should drive consumers to landing pages that share full sale details.
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3. Retailers Can Empathize With & Learn From Customers — And Offer Solutions That Mitigate Future Returns
During the holiday return season, train your team to try to understand why each customer is making the decision to return an item, and to recognize the effort they made to bring it back. Customer service professionals can ask customers what they’d rather see in a product or what they’re looking for so the perfect solution can be provided later on. A follow-up email after a shopper has made a return can offer thanks for their business, a promotion for a future purchase or a short survey that asks how their experience could have been improved. This outreach offers an opportunity to gain data for retargeting in the future.
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4. Use Returns & Exchanges To Build An Email Database For Future Engagement
For every return and exchange, brands should make sure to capture an email address. Collecting phone numbers with consent to text can be on the list, too. Especially for in-person returns following in-person purchases, this information means a customer can be nurtured for months to come.
DMS can help you build a list of opted-in subscribers for email or push notification campaigns. Contact DMS to learn more.
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As the year comes to an end, are you thinking, “what can we do better?” Digital Media Solutions® is ready to help you find new digital performance advertising solutions to scale success. DMS creates people-based advertising campaigns, leveraging our first-party data asset to define and engage highly targeted audience profiles, attracting the consumers with the greatest likelihood to convert. Using choreographed messaging, DMS can build your campaign with your choice of channels. Contact DMS to learn more.