- The document outlines 10 trends for 2022 that brand marketers should watch, including rising prices, diversification, personalization, new entrants like private label brands, expanding e-commerce, increased automation, improved inventory management, alternative products, harnessing data, and navigating social media and walled gardens.
- It recommends brands test new product variations, send personalized messages to maximize sales, arm themselves with more data insights to compete against new startups, double down on digital sales, automate operations, optimize inventory visibility, offer alternative products, harmonize online and offline data due to iOS changes, and find solutions to measure social media influence.
3. Our brand partners have a lot to deal
with. We want to share some of the
biggest themes we're thinking about with
them.
They make skincare, cosmetics,
electronics, water, tape, food, booze, tires,
stethoscopes (seriously), and even
apples!
Economic conditions have no bias for
product or category. These dynamics will
create more uncertainty and opportunity.
Brands need to monitor inflation, pricing,
the stock market, labor, and wages to
create appropriate offers for shoppers.
Below are the top trends we are thinking
about with our customers.
4. Labor, cost of goods and services, and
just about everything is increasing in
cost - according to your opinionated
dinner party guests, your armchair
economist friend, social media, and
news outlets.
This will impact shopping behaviors
and brands should be prepared to
respond accordingly.
Rising Prices
5. Price points, product types,
packaging, categories, and more.
With all the changes in 2022,
experimentation will help brands
win shoppers' hearts, minds, and
wallets.
Test and learn with new
variations of products or explore
higher margin or hyper growth
categories.
Diversification
6. Digital allows the most niche audience
and shopper segmentation. Shoppers
expect relevant communication.
If you expect shoppers to engage and
get on board with your products, its
critical to find your audience.
Use digital signals to improve all
communications in store, offline, and
online.
Send hyper-personalized and targeted
messages to drive awareness and sell
products to maximize ROAS.
Personalization
7. Private label and DTC brands are
everywhere. It costs almost nothing
to spin up a website to start selling
or to slap a label on a third-party
manufacturer's product to compete
with the big brands.
Arm yourself with more data and
insights with your partners. Demand
help and transparency.
Startup brands see your 100+
employee brand team and raise you
a Shopify store and clever growth
hacking for about the cost of cable.
New Entrants
8. Double and triple down in
digital sales. This is not just
DTC. Its not just Amazon.
Take control of all online
sales. Brands that sell in
multiple channels will
flourish as they can control
margins and profits better
from HQ. Pros and cons
exist on both sides.
E-Commerce
DTC gives you direct access to
consumers (and their data),
but shipping and fulfillment
can wreck profitability for a
brand.
Retail is great for volume and
distribution, but margins get
thin with all the extra help.
Pull levers available to you so
your brand P&L gets optimized
instead of obliterated. If you
don’t have levers - we’d love to
talk.
Real time retail inventory and
transactions augment existing
brand insights.
9. Automate everything. Production,
supply chain, ordering, processing,
packaging, hard-to-fill labor, and
more.
We’re fans of automating
optimizations on websites & digital
campaigns with retail sales from
Pear Commerce, but automation in
other areas work too.
08
Automation
10. Inventory
Management
Knowing where your inventory levels
are is critical. If you’re the fastest
growing brand or balancing demand
in soft or firm inventory spots, you’ll
need to understand whats going on
in all your retailers.
Don’t rely on retailer, distributor, and
velocity reporting exclusively.
Companies with better data exist to
help you achieve targets.
11. Money is everywhere and looking for
a home. Those placing bets continue
piling into Environmental, Social, and
Governance (ESG) focused
opportunities.
Alternatives to meat, dairy products,
textiles, and more continue gaining
traction.
Shoppers prefer alternatives to the
traditional diet and products. Brands
can offer other solutions to a shift in
customer preferences.
Alternative
Products
12. In the online world, Apple and iOS came out
swinging by allowing users to opt out of
tracking. Social campaigns were crippled
and brands watched ROAS drop.
This year, brands need to harmonize offline
and online data to effectively
communicate with shoppers. Zero-party
data is here.
In the offline world, shopping still exists and
there are plenty of insights to mine from
this behavior. Understanding inventory,
geographic ebbs and flows, retail
preferences, and more can help paint a
comprehensive picture of all shoppers and
ideal cohorts for brands.
Data
13. They are notorious for being more
difficult to get uniform measurement vs.
other digital channels. Nobody wants to
play nice and nobody shares their toys.
Brands get left in the corner with nothing
to do but hope for the best.
This will continue, but solutions exist to
offer transparency while you capture
critical eyeballs and sales from the
latest TikTok dance or IG story.
Social Commerce &
Walled Gardens
Influencers are influencing more than
ever. Now they drive sales. Brands need
to invest here and should continue to
do so.
Find partners that can help quantify
your investment and compare ROAS to
other advertising and marketing
channels. I have a great reference.
14. Brands have enough to worry about
and more this year.
We know there are a lot of options
out there in shoppable media and
e-commerce solutions.
We saw an opportunity to improve.
Many require manually entering
UPCs or zip codes, updating
inventory, or managing the store
lists based on what you think is
accurate inventory.
Conclusion
That creates days of work to setup
shoppable experiences and a lot of
headaches with spreadsheets and
weeks before you're live. Others
charge extra for more retailers,
UPCs, or landing pages.
None of this is helping you manage
or improve any of the above
conditions that actually impact
your business.
Pear Commerce is different and it
was built for you!
15. Retail sales and closed loop
attribution is often referred to as
the “holy grail” for brand marketers.
Its here. We built it.
Then we automated the process so
you can start measuring real ROAS
in days not weeks.
We would love to introduce you to
Pear Commerce.
The Holy Grail
