Luxury Retailer

Boosting Performance via Digital Shelf Analytics

Quick take

Customers engage with brands across various digital touchpoints such as email, websites, social pages, and so much more. Global brands need to provide consistency and quality across all channels in order to provide an enhanced experience. Tracking diverse metrics is essential for delivering such customer experiences.

Merkle’s Digital Shelf Analytics solution is an AI-powered tool that enables brands to uncover gaps in customer experience and understand their position relative to competition. It is a robust and intuitive solution with pre-built dashboards that offer flexibility and customization.

  • +$5M

    Revenue in year 1 from improved retailer negotiations

  • #1

    Position in cyber week exposures, maximizing brand visibility

  • +10%

    Sales estimated from resolving pricing and inventory issues

  • +2

    Rank in market share per NPD data

The challenge

A luxury global conglomerate faced challenges in monitoring performance across markets and languages. They needed the right technology and analytics at scale to track their digital KPIs in order to provide seamless customer experiences across all touchpoints.

Key challenges included:

  • Low share of shelf compared to top competitors.
  • Suboptimal keyword positions for perfume-related searches.
  • Limited exposure through banners compared to leading competitors.
  • High non-compliance rates among e-retailers.
  • Overuse of heavy discounts leading to issues such as overstocking and poor sales.
  • Potential negative impact on brand sales due to competitive promotions.

 

The approach

We helped monitor a million data points daily across 20 countries, 57 retailers, 12 languages, and 312 brands to guide informed decisions.

Key actions taken include:

  • Negotiating increased exposure through paid placements and sponsored listings
  • Ensuring compliance with pricing and promotions across variants, new launches, and promotional events
  • Analyzing sales and inventory data to identify underlying issues and refine marketing strategies
  • Collaborating with retailers to optimize co-promotions

 

The outcome

We established mutually profitable outcomes for the brand and retail partners:

  • The brand secured the #1 position in cyber week exposures, maximizing its visibility
  • It achieved $5 million in incremental revenue within the first year through improved negotiation of digital exposure with a specific retailer
  • It moved up two ranks in market share, as per NPD data
  • The enhanced price and promotional compliance safeguarded brand equity across retailers
  • Finally, there is an estimated potential 10% increase in sales and a 5% increase in gross profit (net of trade spend) by addressing pricing and inventory issues