Post-Christmas deal seeking by price-sensitive shoppers saw a boost to web revenues during the week after Christmas, with Boxing Day delivering a significant uptick in ecommerce performance, the latest data from Wunderkind, the performance marketing solution that scales one-to-one messages for retailers, revealed.

Original data from Wunderkind’s Marketing Pulse, which analysed over 91.2million shopping journeys, revealed that digital sales rose +9.52% week-on-week (w/c 25 Dec 2023 vs w/c 18 Dec 2023), as shoppers held out for access to post-Christmas discounts. Boxing Day delivered a significant increase to web revenues, rising +51% on 26 Dec 2023 compared to the week prior.

Boxing Day ecommerce takings were also up +39% year-on-year, prompted by ongoing price- and promotions sensitivity among shoppers squeezed by cost-of-living pressures. UK consumers were tipped to spend £3.7billion on ‘deep discounts’ on Boxing Day, with fashion items proving the most popular category.

The higher levels of online purchasing may also have been further bolstered as many retailers, including M&S, John Lewis and Next, chose to keep retail stores closed on Boxing Day to give staff an extra day to spend with family.

Wulfric Light-Wilkinson, GM International at Wunderkind, commented:

“With consumers focused on making their budgets work as hard as possible this year, the data shows that many shoppers held off on Christmas spending in order to make the most of Boxing Day discounts. On the flip-side, retailers will have been managing a fine balancing act between meeting consumer demand for deals, driving stock sell-through, and maintaining margins.  

To ensure the value from this sales boost continues into 2024, it’s vital that retailers continue to engage these consumers through personalised messaging year-round. Re-engaging lapsed customers – including the ‘one hit wonders’ who purchase once, often during a sale period, and then vanish – is important, and, given rising new customer acquisition costs, may be a more efficient use of marketing spend.”

This year, Christmas Day also saw a significant rise in online shopping, with web revenues up +123% year-on-year, as consumers took advantage of early access Boxing Day sales, according to Wunderkind’s data. This follows a poll by Barclays which showed that 23% of UK consumers planned to start shopping the sales on Christmas Eve, and a further 17% intended to bargain hunt on Christmas Day.

Food and Health & Beauty are expected to be two of the best performing retail categories for 2024, along with ‘purpose’ driven retail offerings, which include circular retail and sustainable shopping formats, according to predictions from the KPMG/RetailNext Retail Think Tank (RTT), an independent board of retail experts.

Food retail to return to volume growth

In its latest 2024 Retail Outlook report, the RTT predicts a return to volume growth in Food retailing in 2024, after 2 years of falling volumes.  RTT member, Mike Watkins, who is Head of Retailer Insight at NIQ, predicts food retail will see headline value growth of +4-5% in 2024, with volumes up around +0.5-1% next year.

Off the back of record-breaking Christmas sales, which saw Lidl and Aldi post 12% and 8% sales rises respectively earlier this week and Lidl continuing its run as the fastest growing UK supermarket, Discounter performance is set to continue into 2024 as consumers switch supermarket allegiance and opt for more own branded goods, according to the RTT.

“Most of the growth in 2024 will again come from the Discount and Value retail channels, with Aldi and Lidl having crossed the threshold of a combined 20% market share after over 20 years in the UK,” according to Watkins.  Retail Consultant, Nick Bubb, added that “sales growth for the big supermarkets in 2024 is likely to be more subdued, with the boost from grocery price inflation dropping away”, as well as pointing to the ongoing pressure on consumer spending.

Retail consultant and former Globaldata Director, Maureen Hinton, suggests the “switch to own brands will continue in 2024 as consumers prioritise their needs and are more selective about where they shop and what they buy”.  A recent poll showed that more than half of UK consumers (54%) planning to buy cheaper or own-brand grocery items in 2024.

Lipstick effect puckers up Health & Beauty performance for 2024

The ‘lipstick effect’ – where consumers buy small ‘everyday’ treats rather than big-ticket items in economic downturns – prompted a +5.6% uptick in Pharmacy and Health & Beauty sales last year, according to Barclaycard’s annual spending survey.

With economic prospects muted for 2024, the lipstick effect is expected to continue to boost the performance of Health & Beauty as well as Wellness retailers, as consumers “favour the small luxuries in life and focus on wellness”, James Sawley, Head of Retail & Leisure at HSBC, suggests.  Co-Chair of the RTT, RetailNext’s Gary Whittemore added that “while economic growth remains slow for 2024, the outlook for retail is muted for most sectors outside Grocery and Beauty.”

Circular retail comes of age

With 46% of retailers already offering resale or preloved collections in 2023, and 82% of those offering resale or rental offerings saying it had resulted in a revenue boost, purposeful brands and those with strong sustainability heritage will enjoy good growth in 2024, albeit from a low base, Sawley also suggests.  Retail consultant, Natalie Berg, expects circular retail will see even more success in the year ahead, with “the pre-loved movement continuing to gain momentum, fuelled by the desire or need for value.”  She also predicts this will drive “greater demand for durability, traceability and more transparency in retailers’ circularity efforts.”

Fashion has been one of the early adopters of circular retail models, with the global apparel resale market expected to grow 127% by 2026 – three times quicker than the wider clothing industry as a whole.  Original research of over 1,000 UK shoppers by True Fit revealed that now consumers make twice as many fashion purchases on pre-loved platforms (20%) than on Facebook (10%) and almost double compared to Instagram (11%).

Hitting home: a challenging 2024 ahead for Home retailers

Barclaycard data suggests Home Improvement & DIY retail spend fell -4.7% year-on-year in 2023, while Furniture stores also experienced a -5.2% downturn in takings last year, as consumers move away from big-ticket purchases.

The RTT’s 2024 Outlook report expects Home retail to continue to face a challenging 2024, with Hinton suggesting “a slow housing market, and the pandemic boom for home-related big-ticket items and technology delaying the replacement cycle” making it more competitive for home-related sectors.  Meanwhile, Bubb pointed to the ongoing “hurt of big rises in interest rates” on the performance of the big DIY and “big ticket” retailers, with much depending on when the Bank of England feels able to start to lower interest rates, to relieve the pressure on “big ticket” spending, which he suggests is “unlikely to be before the second half of the year.”

Fashion sector’s ‘polarisation’ set to continue

McKinsey’s State of Fashion 2024 report forecasts that global apparel will post top-line growth of between 2-4% this year, with the luxury segment expected to generate the biggest share of economic profit.  However, Sawley points out that we can expect to see the continued polarisation of retail in 2024, with the pivot towards ultra-value or ultra-luxury continuing:  “The most successful retail companies in 2024 will… be pivoting towards either end of the value spectrum.  The emergence of Shein and now Temu, both rapidly growing in the UK, is a reminder of just how value conscious the consumer is right now, while only the ultra-luxury players are still performing well against softer consumer demand.”

While the RTT’s outlook for fashion in 2024 is one of muted growth, Hinton adds that “as ever, success in Clothing and Footwear depends on those retailers and brands who understand and inspire their customers.”

Data from Sensormatic Solutions, the leading global retail solutions portfolio of Johnson Controls, has revealed that total UK retail footfall on Super Saturday jumped by 35.4% year-on-year, as last minute Christmas shoppers swarmed into store on the penultimate day – and the last full shopping day – before Christmas.

Data from the Sensormatic IQ platform, which captures 40billion shopper visits globally each year, showed that shopper traffic for total retail on ‘Frenzied Friday’ (22 Dec 2023) saw total retail shopper visits rising +43% week-on-week.

With UK shoppers expected to spend £4.89billion on the four days between 21 – 24 Dec, Super Saturday also up experienced a +0.1% week-on-week uplift compared to the Saturday prior (16 Dec 2023), with Retail Parks seeing the biggest uptick in visitor numbers, up +9.3% week-on-week.

“With Christmas falling on a Monday and stores closing earlier for Sunday trading, Super Saturday was the last full day of shopping before Christmas,” Andy Sumpter, Sensormatic Solutions’ EMEA Retail Consultant, commented.  “Retailers experienced a significant year-on-year jump in footfall this year, as last year Super Saturday fell Christmas Eve, when stores ran restricted festive trading hours.”

“We always expect Super Saturday to be a busy in-store shopping day.  However, because of ongoing spending caution and the high levels of price-sensitivity shoppers are exhibiting, the last minute rush into store has been even more marked this year.  Consumers have shopped around to get the best deals on gifts, with many holding out until the last moment to make purchases, while others held off, in a Christmas game of cat and mouse, in the hope that retailers would release early Boxing Day discounts to drive up demand,” he continued.

When it comes to making every customer experience count, purposeful personalisation is a prerequisite for performance, Avon’s CRM & Personalisation Lead, Gianfranco Cuzziol, told the audience at MoEngage’s #GROWTH Summit in London.  

Unless it’s solving a problem or meeting a desire, generic personalisation leaves shoppers feeling misunderstood by the brands that seek to engage them.  Instead, retailers should be building out contextualised personalisation and engagement that is built on insight and an understanding of their customers to better deliver positive, authentic and emotional experiences within the buying journey. 

“Personalisation doesn’t always necessitate hyper-segmentation.  Sometimes, authenticity resonates more profoundly with customers.”

For Cuzziol, there are three key pillars for effective personalisation – and while technology plays a role in supporting all three, it really should be the support act, and should not take the lead in developing customer journeys.

First of these key pillars is the customer – and this revolves around understanding them, building trust and positively reinforcing your brand identity with them.  It’s no secret that customer-centricity is vital to a brand’s sustainable growth.  In his session, Cuzziol challenged the retailers and brands at MoEngage’s #GROWTH Summit to think about what their customers are trying to do, the motivation behind them taking specific actions, and the obstacles they face in their buying journey.  He suggested in-depth customer data and analytics would be a guiding force in making the journey frictionless for shoppers and allow brands to meet them wherever they are and within whichever channel, be it WhatsApp, Email, In-App or another.

Second was the brand itself.  In a former role, when Cuzziol was Global Head of CRM at Aesop, he shared that they chose not to personalise communication too much with shoppers in order to stay true to the brand voice.  The brand became much more authentic to customers when it spoke about brand values and culture.  Consequently, this resulted in better results compared to what a highly segmented and personalised campaign might have given.  He suggested that retailers should first assess and understand the true essence of their brand, and then ask if and how much and where they need to personalise engagement.

Third and finally was the subject of trust.  Cuzziol urged retailers to think about ethics and data privacy from a customer point of view and then – with board-level buy-in – think about the quality of the data they’d like to collect.  How can this be sustainably and ethically collected to maintain brand perception and value?

“My experiences have crystallised into guiding principles for successful customer engagement. Balancing technological advancements with customer needs, understanding the evolving customer journey, and aligning loyalty programs with brand values remain paramount.”

Summarising his session, Cuzziol suggested that customer engagement strategies must adapt to accommodate unforeseen shifts.  The essence, he felt, lies not in a singular approach but in a dynamic, adaptable methodology tailored to brand identity and customer aspirations.  “Understanding, trust, and authenticity will perennially be the cornerstones of effective customer relationship management, resonating across the ever-evolving landscape of business and customer interactions,” he concluded.

While the retail sector outlook for 2024 is expected to be muted, hampered by ongoing macroeconomic challenges, weakened consumer demand and low economic growth prospects, retailers mustn’t let stagnation stifle innovation and future opportunities, the KPMG/RetailNext Retail Think Tank (RTT), an independent board of retail experts, warns.

With the UK economy set to tread water in 2024, the RTT expects this will impact growth within the retail sector.   Pressures on consumers and firms from high inflation may be easing, but “the economy faces major headwinds from the lagged impact of monetary policy tightening and tight fiscal policy settings,” according to Charles Burton, Director at Oxford Economics.

The RTT’s latest quarterly whitepaper – Retail outlook for 2024: What are the opportunities for retailers in a year of stagnation? – sets out its 2024 retail outlook, and includes key growth predictions, including re-invigorated retail formats and innovation trends, as well as its forecast for category winners and losers and predictions for the year ahead.

2024 Predictions – Key challenges and prospects for retailers

With monetary and fiscal policy remaining a dead weight on the UK economy in 2024, the RTT report highlights several challenges that will impact retailers into 2024.  These include rising cost pressures on their businesses, including National Living Wage and Business Rate rises; weakened consumer demand due to the ongoing squeeze on households through higher interest rate mortgage refixing for homeowners or rising rent costs for renters, wage growth rising against static tax brackets, and household debt servicing costs.

But, despite these challenges, the RTT predicts several growth opportunities in 2024, including: exploring growth models, such as retail media, or adopting platform business models following the success of Next and M&S and reassessing asset classes, such as retail park settings; investment in tech, including Gen AI, as well as innovating across commercial functions and the supply chain; tapping into new growth cohorts of consumers and moving away from a GenZ focus to acquire and retain older, more affluent consumers; and category winners seeing Food, Health & Beauty and Purpose-driven retail outperforming other verticals.

The rise and rise of retail parks

When it came to its property outlook, the RTT expects retail parks to become the standout retail setting in terms of growth, predicted to improve relative to other assets classes, such as High Street and Shopping Centres.  Having already become a resilient retail setting during covid, buoyed by their tenant mix that included ‘essential retail’ supermarkets anchors, this rise and rise of retail parks shows no signs of stopping.

As CEO of JDM Retail, Jonathan De Mello, noted: “More comparison goods retailers want to trade on retail parks.  For Next and M&S, their retail park stores are among their best performing.  With a broadening of the offer away from just bulky goods, and more food and beverage operators seeking to trade on retail parks, they are increasingly providing a real alternative to high streets.”

Outside of retail park success, bricks-and-mortar will see a renaissance in 2024, the RTT predicts, driven in part by consumer demand as well as revenue driving opportunities presented by Retail Media Networks, which retailers including Currys, Tesco and Kingfisher have been swift to invest in.  RTT Co-chair and Head of Sales at RetailNext, Gary Whittemore, noted: “Predictions that online will soon be more than 50% of all retail are problematic given that the rate of growth has been slowing in recent years and also that the cost of trading online is now on a par with stores. While there will still be pressure on the high street and the push to out-of-town, a well-executed omnichannel approach will be the winning formula.”

 GenAI in 2024 – from mainstream hype to dial-moving reality

As part of its Innovation Outlook for 2024, the RTT whitepaper predicts that technology investments will continue to help separate retail’s winners from losers through 2024.  However, the ability or willingness of retail businesses to fund innovation will have a significant impact on where on the performance spectrum retailers sit, as Retail Technology publisher, Miya Knights, pointed out: “Where it may have previously been enough to adopt and deploy technologies that allowed operators to catch up to their competitors, those who genuinely innovate using IT and digital will succeed next year.”

Retailers should also ensure that economic stagnation doesn’t stifle innovation, according to RTT Co-Chair and KPMG’s Head of Retail, Paul Martin: “Even if the economic outlook remains muted, one thing history teaches us is that following a downturn we often experience an upturn, and retailers should be doing everything now to prepare for this.”

The RTT expects 2024 to be the year when generative AI (GenAI) will truly move the dial for retailers.  As retail consultant, Natalie Berg, put it: “2023 was the year that GenAI propelled into the mainstream, 2024 will be the year of integration.”

Food and Health & Beauty among 2024 categories winners, but Home retail expected to struggle

After 2 years of falling volumes in food retailing, the RTT expects a return to volume growth in 2024.  Mike Watkins, Head of Retailer Insight at NIQ, predicts food retail will see headline value growth of +4-5% in 2024, with volumes up around +0.5-1% next year.

Health, Beauty & Wellness is also tipped to be a category winner in 2024, as consumers favour the small luxuries in life and focus on wellness, according to James Sawley, Head of Retail & Leisure at HSBC.

Purposeful brands and those with strong sustainability heritage will enjoy good growth in 2024, albeit from a low base, Sawley suggests.  This will prompt pre-loved and circular retail seeing success.  “The pre-loved movement will continue to gain momentum, fuelled by the desire or need for value [and] we’ll see greater demand for durability, traceability and more transparency in retailers’ circularity efforts,” Berg added.

On the flip side, the RTT expects Home retail to face a challenging 2024, with retail consultant, Maureen Hinton, suggesting that a slow housing market, and the pandemic boom for home-related big-ticket items and technology delaying the replacement cycle, will make it more competitive for home-related sectors next year.

To download the RTT’s quarterly whitepaper, which includes wide-ranging insight from its members, analysis and exclusive data, visit: Retail outlook for 2024: What are the opportunities for retailers in a year of stagnation?

With rapidly increasing use and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in their day-to-day lives, UK shoppers are increasingly expecting retailers to leverage AI to improve their buying journeys, the latest research from Intellias, the leading global retail technology partner, reveals.

Original research of over 1,000 UK shoppers by Intellias revealed that almost half (45%) of UK consumers already use Generative AI (GenAI) tools, such as ChatGTP, in their day-to-day lives, rising to 79% of Gen Z.  And this widespread and fast-growing adoption of GenAI is prompting consumers to recognise where they encounter AI within their buying journeys – with 42% of consumers are currently aware of retailers using AI in shopping experiences – and where they expect retailers to leverage AI capabilities to improve customer experiences.

With ongoing cost-of-living pressures continuing to encourage pricing- and promotions-sensitive shopping behaviour, AI applications in pricing and promotions topped where UK consumers felt AI added the most value in their online buying journeys.

Over a quarter (28%) of shoppers said AI-powered automated pricing and real-time promotions would enhance their customer experience, followed by AI use within loyalty schemes to deliver real-time personalised offers and rewards for 18% of those polled.

Top 5 areas where AI delivers the most value to UK consumers

1. Pricing and promotions – 28%
2. Loyalty – real-time personalised rewards – 18%
3. = Product discovery when searching online – 17% and Product information (i.e. AI-generated descriptions) – 17%
4. Product recommendations personalised by AI – 15%
5. AI-powered chatbots – 14%

While 14% of UK consumers said AI-powered chatbots added value to their buying journeys, 25% said AI chatbots proved the most disruptive AI application in their shopping experiences, while a further 25% said those automated chat functions were among the most ‘clunky’ elements of AI they experienced when purchasing items.

With the speed at which GenAI has been adopted by retailers and consumers in 2023, perhaps it is inevitable that the pace has led to some wariness among shoppers, with 43% of those polled saying that they are mistrustful of brands and retailers using AI in their shopping experiences.  However, 61% said they didn’t mind retailers using AI in their buying journeys so long as they were transparent about it, rising to 66% of Gen Z, and a further 52% felt that, as long as they had a good experience with a retailer or brand, they didn’t mind if it involved AI or not.

Alexander Goncharuk, VP of Retail at Intellias, commented: “There’s little doubt that the hype curve surrounding GenAI will continue to accelerate as we look ahead to 2024.  And this will be driven both by the consumer, who will become even more used to AI interfaces in their day-to-day lives, and by the retailers innovating and exploring different use cases that drive efficiencies and enhance customer experience across the value chain.”

“Looking ahead, the key to delivering AI-powered value to the shopper will rely on transparency of use, and seamless and intuitive integration as part of the omnichannel shopping experience, as well as building out robust and secure compliance procedures in the back-end,” Goncharuk concluded.

To find out more about Intellias’ latest ‘GenAI in Retail’ report, which outlines a best-practice blueprint for retailers looking to strategise, pilot and launch successful GenAI programmes, download the report here: GenAI in Retail.

Scurri, the next-generation delivery management platform, today announces its strategic partnership with Asendia, the world’s leading ecommerce logistics provider, to offer carbon neutral cross-border delivery (through offsetting) to the brands and retailers on its platform.

Asendia, a division of La Poste and Swiss Post, is at the forefront of providing parcel solutions for ecommerce shippers that sell and deliver internationally.  The company’s core ecommerce offering, e-PAQ, has led the industry in carbon neutral shipping through its accredited carbon-offsetting program since 2022, offering sustainable, dependable, and low-cost global shipping.

Brands and retailers on the Scurri platform, including mutual customer Brand Alley, are now able to access two Asendia solutions.  e-PAQ Select offers a fast, tracked, value parcel service that provides retailers with access to preferred final miles carriers in the main and emerging global ecommerce markets, while Asendia’s e-PAQ Plus service offers tracked postal services worldwide.

This latest partnership with Asendia extends Scurri’s existing sustainable delivery offering internationally, building on its recent partnership with HIVED – which provides zero-emission delivery carrier services within the UK.

Rory O’Connor, CEO and Founder of Scurri commented: “As the UK domestic market for ecommerce becomes saturated, brands need to expand cross-border to seek out new growth opportunities.  At the same time, many of the highest spending customers around the world are rightly prioritising sustainability when buying online.”

“However, Scurri’s retail partners don’t need to overhaul entire supply chains to satisfy shoppers’ sustainability demands.  Our partnership with Asendia provides access to carbon-neutral delivery options, allowing brands to meet customer expectations and support the ongoing global drive to limit the impact of consumption on the environment.”

Amy Collins, Head of Asendia Global CSR Engagement, commented: “We’re very excited to add Scurri to our partner ecosystem to allow international sellers on its platform to deploy a carbon neutral cross-border delivery strategy.  Together, we can help UK retailers meet consumer demand by making their international shipping process more environmentally friendly.”

With over 1,000 carrier services and 97% carrier coverage in the UK, Scurri provides a robust and reliable last mile delivery service to retailers.  The company offers the highest level of flexibility in the industry for effective carrier management and shipment allocation, to improve speed and choice for shoppers, as well as maintain cost-effective and efficient fulfilment operations for retailers.

Akeneo, the Product Experience (PX) Company and leading provider of Product Information Management (PIM) solutions, today announced two more additions to the C-suite team and that it has experienced a surge of growth and momentum in 2023. Throughout the year, the company expanded its offerings and sharpened its operations to enhance product experiences for brands, manufacturers, retailers, and distributors on a global scale. Akeneo introduced a series of industry-shaping product updates, completed a strategic acquisition, honed its leadership team, garnered numerous accolades, and grew by over 100% in the US. The company also crossed the 850 worldwide customers threshold, led by major North American companies, including CarParts.com, Arc’Teryx, DSW, Nautica, Belvins, TaylorMade, and Chico’s.

“Our exceptional growth over the past year has allowed us to attract amazing talent to our leadership team, including our newest C-suite member, Andy Tyra, as Chief Product Officer,” said Fred de Gombert, CEO and founder of Akeneo. “Andy will be instrumental in accelerating our product roadmap and achieving our ambitious goals. Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on creating a world where every product interaction is an experience that guides consumers and professionals to the best purchase, anytime, anywhere.”

Product Updates and Launches:

This year, Akeneo retained a solid competitive edge against other PIM vendors, solidifying its innovative suite of products to accelerate roadmap and overall growth:

• Akeneo Supplier Data Manager is a simple, scalable, and collaborative way for retailers and distributors to collect product data from suppliers;
• Akeneo Activation for Retail, which connects rich product information from Akeneo PIM to the product detail pages of retailers and marketplaces worldwide, was launched in March with 20 channels and has grown to over 300 destinations worldwide;
• Additionally, Akeneo Product Cloud became available on the SAP® Store and Google Cloud Marketplace;
• Akeneo acquired Unifai, the market-leading artificial intelligence (AI) platform for data collection, cleansing, categorisation, and enrichment pioneered by the industry’s leading AI and machine learning (ML) experts, and leveraged this acquisition to create the first-ever AI for PX Centre of Excellence.

Leadership Team:

In 2023, Akeneo focused on cultivating, growing, and diversifying its leadership team. Akeneo is proud to have three females represented out of the four new C-suite team members appointed in 2023:

• Andy Tyra was appointed to the leadership team as Chief Product Officer (CPO) in October, collaborating with the Engineering, Product, and Design teams to define Akeneo’s overall technical and product strategy and lead the company toward operating in a multi-product modality. Tyra was a founding team member on AmazonFresh and AWS Marketplace, building these businesses to materiality from the very beginning. He also led Whereby as CEO in 2023.
• Nadine Pichelot was appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in November to support the company through its next phase by implementing infrastructure and processes that support profitable and sustainable growth. Pichelot brings 35 years of experience as a COO and CFO for global companies in the tech sector, including most recently at Anaplan.
• Sabrina Jaksa joined Akeneo’s C-suite as Chief People Officer, focusing on empowering employees to lead and grow with the next phase of corporate growth, increasing the gender diversity index, and improving employee satisfaction.
• Kristin Naragon was promoted to Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer in January and has since played a pivotal role in propelling the company beyond its 2020-2023 objectives. This year, Naragon won the Gold TITAN Women in Business Award for the Female Executive of the Year in the Marketing category, and the She Runs It Changing the Game Awards for the No Apologies category. She was also appointed to the MACH Alliance executive board in July.
• Other significant additions to the leadership team include former Amazon VP Tim Kohn as Technology and Product Advisor and Camille Fant as Head of Corporate Social Responsibility.

 

Awards / Leading Position Rankings:

Akeneo secured awards in 2023 from numerous organisations, affirming its status as a leader in the industry:

• Ventana Research Value Index Leader in PXM Research
• Globee Awards for American Business Retail Company of the Year
• Stevie® Award Silver Medalist Winner
• SoftwareReviews 2023 PIM Software Awards Gold Medalist Winner
• The Software Report’s Top 100 Software Companies

Innovative fem-tech brand, Elvie, has partnered with Wunderkind, the leading performance marketing solution that scales one-to-one messages for retailers, to drive revenue and customer loyalty, while growing its first-party database.

Founded in the UK in 2013, Elvie has been at the forefront of revolutionising the fem-tech sector.  With women at the centre of Elvie’s mission, the company has, for the past 10 years, been developing cutting-edge tech – and breaking societal taboos – in order to level up women’s lives, with two core products for breastfeeding and pelvic floor training.

As it looks to grow its Direct To Consumer (DTC) channel, Elvie wanted to adjust its marketing strategy to reduce reliance on increasingly competitive paid media channels, noting that these were delivering diminishing returns, both in terms of ROI and authentic and effective engagement.  Instead, it wanted to focus on developing its owned channels and capturing more first-party data to grow its customer community.  “From a brand perspective, we needed to be less reliant on paid performance marketing and instead build a community in our owned channels,” said Roselle Forman, Elvie’s Global Brand Manager.

To help scale and accelerate its owned channel efforts, Elvie sought a solution provider that could seamlessly integrate with its existing tech stack, opting to partner with Wunderkind.

Using Wunderkind’s unique identity resolution technology, Elvie was able to recognise a greater proportion of its ‘invisible’ non-logged in website traffic – enabling it to spot new prospects and secure its marketing opt-in, thereby significantly growing its addressable, first-party database.  It also helped Elvie identify existing and returning customers; allowing the fem-tech brand to retarget those customers with 1:1, personalised and behaviourally triggered emails at a much greater level of scale.

By partnering with Wunderkind, Elvie quickly grew its addressable marketing list, achieving a +23% better list growth performance than the initial goal set at launch.  In turn, this helped the fem-tech brand increase conversions and digital revenues – it saw a 10-fold increase in 1:1 email performance, resulting in an 8.35x return on ad spend (ROAS), with Wunderkind now ranking as Elvie’s #3 performance marketing channel in Google Analytics.

“Knowing what ongoing engagement can do for your brand, the focus on first-party data is key,” Victoria Harvey, Senior Global CRM Manager at Elvie, commented. “From day one, Wunderkind took complete control and did all the heavy lifting.  Even in our first month, we saw results far higher than expected.  We’re expecting roughly 71% more leads using Wunderkind for list growth and we’re over halfway to hitting that number after five months.  In terms of revenue, we’re already outperforming the initial estimate.”

Rosie Kraushaar, Client Partnerships Manager at Wunderkind, commented: “Elvie is such an exciting business to work with, they’re creating truly impactful products for women using the latest bio-feedback and connected mobile technology.  We’re delighted to have been part of their growth journey so far – and look forward to helping Elvie scale further as they build their DTC channels, their owned audience, and their brand.”