Retailers moving away from vouchers

Retailers are increasing their use of offers and money-off promotions over traditional vouchers, according to new research from American Express.

The survey of 200 in-house marketing decision-makers found that 29 percent of businesses did not use paper or digital vouchers in any of their offers during 2015. However, they did note that they weren’t stopping promotions, just finding alternative ways, with almost a third, 27 percent saying that they plan to run more offers in 2016 than in 2015.

The most popular types of promotion were money off specific products, favoured by 25 percent of respondents and a percentage off/back used by 25 percent. ‘Buy-one-get-one-free’ promotions, typically used by retailers, were favoured by just 9 percent.

Despite the ongoing popularity of offers and promotions, businesses identified significant barriers to successfully implementing them, including cost pressures, lack of ability to target consumers effectively and lack of time to produce collateral.

American Express vice president Dan Edelman said: “Our research shows that offers and promotions are still a vital weapon in retailers’ armouries, however, they are clearly conscious of the cost of offers and the need to target them effectively.

“Retailers are hungry for more data to help them deliver the most relevant offers to their customers. Many existing offers systems simply don’t provide the customer insights that businesses require in the modern age.”

Using its own customer data, American Express reveals that the most successful offers combine both in-store and online, calling for retailers to take a multi-channel approach.