Gone are the days when the retail season was actually seasonal. These days, you’ll find peak shopping moments happening almost every month in Australia and New Zealand, and this poses a challenge for brands and retailers.
With the race of Peak Season already started, for retailers, it’s no longer a sprint but a marathon. Across Australia and New Zealand, there are 16 peak shopping moments in the next six months, ranging from Click Frenzy to Black Friday – but it’s not enough to win those moments alone. Retailers need to be present and capture demand throughout the full season, from starting point to finish line.
Research shows that the holiday season is getting stretched out on both ends. It’s starting earlier, meaning retailers need to be present and capture demand throughout the full, elongated season– as more than half of Australian shoppers feel there are better deals to be had after Christmas.1 This means there are countless opportunities to connect with shoppers throughout the second half of the year, and shopping moments can be triggered at any point.
The multitude of sales events hasn’t created shopper fatigue. In fact, sales events grew in importance in Australia, with shoppers more aware and active on these days.2 In 2022, 60% of shoppers said Black Friday is an important sale day, compared to only 45% pre-pandemic.2 In the same time frame, 30% of shoppers rated Cyber Monday as important, up from 21% in 2019.2 But the success of these shopping moments presents a unique hurdle for brands and retailers like yourself: maintaining profitability amid shoppers’ expectations for continual discounts.
Instead of giving deeper discounts, brands can make use of tested behavioural science principles to drive confident purchase decisions and increase sales and long-term profits.
It might be intuitive to offer deeper discounts during these sales events to catch shoppers’ attention and drive purchases, but we’re finding that discounts alone are no longer enough to win satisfied customers and increase sales.
Though people will always love a discount – especially in times of increased financial pressure when 73% are feeling personally at risk of rising prices and inflation3 and 39% are comparing prices4 – consumers aren’t looking at price tags alone. Research shows that Australians are prioritising quality of service and reliability of products.5 And Google searches for “most popular” are higher than those for “most affordable”.6
The rise in research and comparison points to customers getting stuck in the “confidence gap” — that space between questioning and knowing, where one is unable to make confident purchase decisions.
61% of shoppers in Australia are confident that they can spot a good deal around the holidays when they see one, but 46% agree that finding deals then is time consuming.7 This time spent in the “confidence gap” costs brands and retailers like yourself, but you can help alleviate friction and build consumer confidence by applying behavioural science principles.
Australian consumers who are confident with their product choice before purchasing are 29% more satisfied with their product, and 32% more likely to repurchase that product again.8 So for you to not only defend but win market share during the multi-peak shopping season, and grow profits in the long-term, you’ll need to power a “confidence shift” among shoppers.
To be chosen means connecting with consumers beyond discounts and promotions, by differentiating your offering. Here are two ways you can shift shopping behaviours and get customers to make confident purchase decisions.
1. Drive confident purchase decisions with behavioural science
Our research shows that beyond discounts, there are five behavioural science principles that help move shoppers to make confident purchase decisions. Applying these principles can help increase a shopper’s confidence to purchase from you.
Most compelling is social proof, meaning shoppers trust other shoppers’ reviews and 5-star ratings for a product or retailer. That’s why search queries containing the keyword “review” spike during sales moments. Next is delivery friction, as 53% of Australians say that free shipping is important.9 Things like fast delivery, click-and-collect and free returns can alleviate shoppers’ anxiety about buying during a short sales window.
Activating the top two behavioural principles, social proof and delivery friction, increases share of consideration by between 1.7X to 2X.10 And when you apply all five principles in your offering – adding authority bias, category heuristics and power of free – it can be as impactful as a 15% discount.10
Each of these behavioural science principles is a message to your consumer about the different types of additional value you can offer them.
2. Apply shopping behavioural levers on relevant platforms
All those value messages influence consumer choice, so it’s essential your customers are receiving them loud and clear. That’s why where and how you activate the behavioural principles matter too, since more than 46% of shoppers in Australia agree that retailers can do a better job communicating their other perks or offers.11
To fully flex the behavioural science principles, it’s important to do so on platforms relevant to shoppers. This means, for example, showcasing social proof and authority bias by showing up with customer and expert reviews on the platforms that matter. During the 2022 holiday season, 86% of holiday shoppers in Australia said they used a Google/YouTube property to help with their shopping.12
India’s popular hypermarket chain Smart Bazaar, which is part of Reliance Retail, put these strategies into practice last year for its Diwali sale by partnering with influential YouTube creators to create an in-store game show streamed on YouTube Premieres.
Filmed at one of the hypermarket stores, the livestream activated behavioural science principles such as social proof, with the YouTube influencers giving their stamp of approval on the chain’s wide selection of deals for its Diwali "Bestival" Sale, the event name being a portmanteau of "best" and "festival."
The Chief Marketing Officer of Reliance Retail (Value Formats), Lalatendu Panda, says, “We innovated with content on YouTube to effectively engage our key audience — homemakers who use YouTube for their entertainment or discovery. We partnered with creators, who are household names, in a gamified format to create awareness of our top deals during the biggest sales event in India. This drove a remarkable 8.3 million unique interactions and 43,000 store visits.”
In Australia and New Zealand, where peak shopping moments can feel like a never-ending marathon for you as a brand or retailer, you’ll want to cash in on both immediate sales and driving sustainable profits. And two ways can get you past that finish line: engaging with shoppers on relevant platforms, and activating behavioural science to help them make confident purchase decisions repeatedly – all with clear value messages balancing out price. So, on your marks, get set, sell.
