In the Loupe
In the Loupe
What Shoppers Plan to Buy This Year ft. Podium
Melisa Monroe from Podium shares exclusive insights from a recent consumer survey of nearly 1000 prospective shoppers about projected holiday spending for the upcoming season, revealing data-driven strategies for retailers to maximize their sales.
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Welcome to In the Loop. Melissa helped conduct a consumer survey of close to a thousand shoppers about what their projected spending will be for this upcoming holiday season and she shares a whole bunch of the data and insights with me. She hasn't even published this information yet, but what I love about data is it truly is like ball. Don't lie, you know. The information is as real as it gets and you can interpret it to the best of your ability to find and predict kind of like the future. And I think that's a really compelling conversation to have, and Melissa is very interesting about how she shares some of these insights about what this upcoming holiday season will be like. So please enjoy.
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Speaker 1:And now back to the show. What is up, everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. I'm joined by Melissa Monroe with Podium. How are you doing today, Melissa?
Speaker 3:Hi Michael, so good, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing very well. I'm so excited to get a chance to speak with you. We're going to dive into all sorts of consumer behavior trends and what Podium's been advice that Podium's been working on and how retailers can lean into it. Before we jump into that, can you explain what it is that you do at Podium?
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. I am a marketing manager for the retail space, so my job is to uncover insights, strategies and stories to help retailers keep up and stand out and bring more people to your business. So I do all the marketing for the retail, the jewelry industry in particular. I work with different partnerships, all the different customers. I talk to customers all day, every day, but it's also part of my job is to understand the market to then uncover how we can help some of our customers do better business.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting because I find that I am sometimes balancing the focus on the consumer with, like, what are people buying as far as jewelry? And then how am I translating that? And do I need to be like a median to then explain it to the retailer themselves? But it's so funny because they usually understand better. But so it's like, can I like give them just like one nugget of information that might illuminate it in a different light kind of thing. It sounds like you're kind of balancing it in a similar way as well.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Exactly. That's exactly what I do.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about this survey that you just conducted. Can you kind of set up the constraints and who you were surveying and so that we can kind of have like a frame for how to review it? And so that we can kind of have like a frame for how to review it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. We are in a very different market environment and, again, podium is all about helping retailers succeed, helping jewelers succeed to be better small businesses, and the way you can do that is with information. And so I took it upon myself actually to go out and we did a consumer survey. We and we asked kind of what are your buying trends? What are? What are you looking to purchase for this 2024 holiday season? So that that's going to 2025 holiday season. That's going to include you know, labor Day, black Friday, thanksgiving, christmas, new Year's what are you looking at as a buyer as you're buying gifts for people? What does that look like?
Speaker 3:So I was very particular in this survey because, again, I want to make sure that all this information can help retailers sell more jewelry, and how I did that was I. We we conducted about. We got about 830 people 50% male, 50% female. Ages ages 21 to 85. And I asked that they made a minimum salary of over $25,000 a year More, because I didn't want to survey college students who needed money. I wanted to make sure these were your buyers, these are your people who are going to buy jewelry tomorrow, and so we had a base minimum salary as well, and so I asked them all sorts of questions of what they're planning on buying, what kind of sales they're looking for, etc.
Speaker 1:So really interesting because survey construction and for people listening at home. I've built a lot of surveys as well, and what's fascinating about them is that it's kind of hard to know how to ask these questions without leading, know how to ask these questions without leading. It's very important that you don't lead people into, because we can very easily are just kind of tailoring these questions to what we already expect or believe. But also sometimes you have to ask a question, the same question, in a different way, because what you can then do is take the results and run them against each other and then sort of validate whether or not it's actually true. So if you ask something in one frame in like a positive light and then you ask something in almost like a not negative light, you might even say the way that you look at them might actually be the same, but the reader might look at it slightly differently. So that's very interesting.
Speaker 1:When you got those results back, is that like something? I'm always it's like Christmas unboxing all the results? Is that something that you had to run through either like a bot, or did you have help from a data scientist? How did you start to kind of break down these results? Yeah, I had help from a data scientist.
Speaker 3:How did you start to kind of break down these results? Yeah, I had help from a data scientist as well as actually my background. You know, I was actually in the product development world for a long time in tech space. So I have the insights of like how to actually craft a survey correctly, like the right metrics of how to use it, like you know, and then how to make sure those AP tests are are the right ones, that you're getting accurate data. So that's actually my background, but I did have help because you know I always like to have help on those, on things this important. So it's great. Some of this information is going to be really a really big game changer for retailers as they plan their holidays, their holiday shopping.
Speaker 1:So we're recording this on September 15th. So it's always very funny because I do this Black Friday episode. I should go back and track when I do the first Black Friday episode of every season, season six. So I think that when I started I was doing it in like November and now we're in the middle of September, and next year I'll probably be doing this in August and we'll just keep going back until I'm doing it in February. So what kind of insights maybe high level what did you see from these survey results and what you found to be of interest?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you are actually your listeners are going to get. This is a very exclusive information, so I actually haven't released this yet, even to like our podium audiences quite yet. But you know, I want to give In the Loops subscribers the information.
Speaker 2:I know, I know the exclusive, the exclusive here.
Speaker 3:So very interesting. So we'll talk about inflation. We're going to talk about when people are talk about inflation. We're going to talk about when people are going to spend. We're going to talk about what they want to spend it on. It's going to talk about what kind of discounts they're looking for, or gifts, like what kind of promotions they're looking for this holiday season. Yeah, when they're going to spend, how they're going to spend and in what ways. So you know, a lot of times we, you know, we were talking about the whole customer journey, from when they come in, all the way to the very end of that payment option. What kind of payment options are they looking for? So I asked all sorts of questions. We have macroeconomics in here, microeconomics in here. I asked a lot of things when it comes to consumer spending.
Speaker 1:Now, when it comes, though, to let's start with what it is that they might want to be spending it on. So let's talk about, like, actual jewelry and I always laugh. I do a ton of episodes and we seem to focus less on jewelry trends, which is something that I'm very interested in, and, when I went to JCK, I thought it was so inspiring and so fun to see all the different jewelry that was going to be available this holiday season. What was your survey showing was going to be the kind of trend that people might be focusing on buying for the holidays?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So really I I kind of gave them a whole, a whole bunch of different areas that they could spend it in. So not necessarily into specifics on jewelry, you know, do you want like a bespoke setting or not? But more actually on, are you wanting like furniture? Are you wanting jewelry? Are you wanting like med spa services? Do you think you're going to have like home improvement? Are you buying a vehicle this Christmas, like? So we kind of went all over areas and what we found is that 42% of consumers said they were going to be spending their holiday budgets on jewelry in general. Wow, so that's, that's great for for the average jeweler out there. You have a good percent of the market wants jewelry for their loved ones this year.
Speaker 1:Now, is that different across different demographics? Because a lot of the times I think that jewelers are expecting that the buyer is going to be typically a male buyer buying for their significant other. But if they always say, like you know, their significant other usually picks and then the this guy is going to end up buying, is that something that they can lean into? For example, I know that wishlist parties are a big deal, or guys nights and that kind of thing. Is that something that you think would be backed up by your survey?
Speaker 3:I would say so, especially as you see men's jewelry trending right. I mean, chain necklaces are on the rise and are continuing to be on the rise right, which is exciting, and that's exciting that men's jewelry is becoming a bigger deal now, and so I think that's something to call out. Actually, you know, as you're preparing for your Black Friday this year, your holidays really not just Black Friday, but your holidays you know, making sure those are in stock, making sure you have those top inventory pieces ready to go, is going to be ideal for your store.
Speaker 1:Really interesting, and though you talk about men's jewelry and just like, unfortunately, when I think of men's jewelry, I do think of a lower price point item typically. However, with e-commerce, what we've seen from our platform is there was. With e-commerce, what we've seen from our platform is there was last year was the lowest price point or average order value that we've seen since I started tracking it. I have data going back to about 2020, and we were seeing the average order value going up and up and up, and I think it peaked right around the earlier part of 2023. And then in 2024, it cooled way off, but this year we're seeing it start to rebound, at least in the later part of this year. Is that something that you're starting to see Like? What was your survey result?
Speaker 3:So I would say, when it comes to anything that you have a lower ticket item, which sometimes that can really make jewelers, you know, a little more disappointed. However, let's like, look at the good that's coming from that, which is you had someone come into your store. So my question to retailers is you've had someone come into your store. What have you done to make them come back into your store? And so I think, when it comes to your holidays, your holiday spending and, um, not your spending your holiday marketing making sure that you are sending those mass text messages, um, getting your opt-in list built out so that you can get people to come back in, um, whether that's like encouraging them to clean some of their jewelry and then having them come back into your store to then take advantage of that promotion. So that's why I love that we're actually talking about this in September, because this gives all the retailers this time to make sure that they're reengaging those customers that have had those lower ticket items. Encourage them to come back in, encourage them to get a cleaning, encourage them, give them some education about the jewelry industry, have them join your marketing lists. Then from there, you can send out all of your holiday promotion, like right now is the time to prep.
Speaker 3:In this survey I actually do ask how often are you comfortable with receiving marketing messages? And it was very interesting because over 50% said they would expect to receive a marketing message at least once a month from a small business. So that means your people who've already bought from you once want to hear from you. They want to hear from you, they want to know, they want to support local. Go in and build that marketing, that, that marketing list up with those people who did buy those smaller items, who did buy those smaller chains, um, those spot smaller list items, and then from there you can see a huge jump in your holidays because you've your reach has been more incredible.
Speaker 1:What a really interesting uh insight, especially when it comes to text messages. It's something that we I'm starting to see used very effectively. Just like a personal anecdote is there's this one apparel company it's actually an e-sports brand that I'm a big fan of called 100 Thieves, and what's fascinating about them is I do opt in for their text messages, and part of it's curiosity because I would love to see just like how are they framing things. But what's really nice is a lot of times it's not as salesy as you might expect. Sometimes it does kind of feel like I'm getting a text message from a friend Absolutely which.
Speaker 1:You know I'm drinking the Kool-Aid pretty hard, if that's the case. But you know they'm drinking the Kool-Aid pretty hard if that's the case. But you know they'll tease like a drop. They have these exclusive drops where it's limited printings of certain things hey, don't miss the drop, it's coming tomorrow at this time and then it's like a teaser image, and what I really like is sometimes they have the teaser image exclusively made for the text message group, so, as a result, they're not using that image anywhere else. So you might see exclusive pieces or information about the drop early, but only if you're in the text message group, which I find to be really incentive.
Speaker 3:So absolutely, absolutely, and that's what we find too is if you can segment your audience right. Like you, you have people already bought from you, you have this loyalty program, you have people who want to recommend you and refer you. If you can build that out and then do those VIP segmentations of of whether that's an inventory drop or whether that's just like something about your store, if you're celebrating your store's anniversary, if something's going on event-wise, or again if you want to talk about industry, you become this voice, this industry voice for your community, when you really leverage out that text message marketing and I think that's really interesting. Again, going back to our survey, we found that text message marketing has the most influence on consumers holiday spending. So we asked you know, do you care more about in store displays? Do you care about, like marketing emails, social media? You know what do you care about? And it came back over and over again that the people actually enjoy getting that sale in their text. That is something that they care about and it's something that works.
Speaker 1:Really cool to hear it's. It also very much feels, yeah, like I'm on the, on the know, I'm in the know and knowing that, uh, I think that the the rate of acceptance or like um 98% 98% open rate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you're looking. If you're going to compare your different channels of marketing as a small business owner, you have your. Your email email gets about 33% on average. You have direct mail, which actually gets. Direct mail gets a little bit more 45%, but your actual, your um, like the coupon, like the, the people who take advantage of what that sale is is actually less than 2%. So you might get a lot of awareness by direct mail but you're not going to get a lot of buys from direct mail where text messaging actually has a 98% open rate and it also has huge click through rates as well, where you're seeing people taking advantage. You know, I have stories because, again, I talk to retailers every day. I have stories of people who have sent out a mass text message um and in two days have made over $30,000 of sales in their store um to their, their group, and so that's that's kind of incredible numbers.
Speaker 1:Really interesting. I think that that kind of stuff is something that I hope that our clients are going to lean in on, and I'm sure that podium is definitely available to help on that. Let's dive in. What about? Are you seeing anything related to how they're going to buy things?
Speaker 1:I'm very obviously very invested in e-commerce, but increasingly I've had a kind of a real, a real moment this past year where I started to realize, all right, e-commerce is not going to. I thought that every single store was going to like lose, not lose, uh, seed market share in in-store sales and essentially have their website be their cash register for them. And I thought that, even if you were in store, that you would like basically buy from the website on in store. So, for example, taking advantage of a firm basically through the website. That's what I thought the future was going to be, and now it's increasingly like the. We always talk about omni channel. It seems like the omni channel experience is taking going from browsing online and then going into the store and then holding the object and then being able to buy, and I'm starting to see that that is increasingly more popular and I'm starting to be like, okay, how can we convert from online to in-store. What are you seeing on your survey for maybe like the channels or methods of purchase that you're seeing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're definitely going to see. Here's what we found out. We found out that consumers are going to come into your store because, especially when it comes to something like jewelry kind of what you hinted at earlier, michael they like to see that tennis bracelet on their wrist, they love to see that ring on that finger, they want to see that dazzle right, and that is like a warm and fuzzy that they're looking out for. There's some stuff you could do, like virtual try on and you know different augmented reality things that you could do with that, that you could be interested in with your text messages, marketing, like you could link some of that stuff which could be interesting. But people are going to come into your store, but what they're also going to do is they're going to shop after hours. They're going to look at your website, they're going to be browsing as they're in bed watching Netflix, thinking, oh crap, I got to find some holiday gift for this person, and they are going to look. So 80% of consumers are actually going to be shopping from the hours of 8 pm to 2 am. That means they're browsing and then they're going to come in and visit your store after that. So you do want to make sure that your online presence is still set up for success. Right, you want to make sure that you have beautiful pictures, you want to have a good online presence, but really, what you really need is a way for when customers reach out to you so say I'm online, I'm watching Netflix, I see that Michael Diamonds has just using your name, I see that Michael Diamonds has an amazing tennis bracelet that I would like. And if I reach out to them, I want to make sure that I'm getting responded to very quickly, whether that response is, hey, we open again tomorrow at 9am, we'll talk to you then or if you have an AI sales assistant that could take over the chat for you. There's lots of options that you can do, but you want to make sure that, first off, you're being able to be found when you're online, that your store's being found, making sure your SEO is up to date. Second off, making sure your website looks pretty. It looks nice because people are going to be browsing you after hours. And then, third, making sure that you are capturing every inquiry, whatever it might be, after hours as well. So utilizing you know, podium has an AI sales assistant that we have just launched that can help kind of nourish those, nurture those customers and let them know when the store will be open, or can even like directly recommend your inventory if you want that. So lots of different options, but making sure that you understand when the customer is going to be looking at your website and then when they're going to be coming into your store, I think really matters as well.
Speaker 3:As you know, we also found that we kind of asked that question too. You know, what kind of sales are you looking for? Do you want like a bundled? Do you want a bundled sale? Do you want something that has like a service, like a package? Do you want a free add-on? Do you want a free gift? Do you want like a limited time offer? What do you want? A free gift? Do you want like a limited time offer? What do you want?
Speaker 3:And, overwhelmingly, people want percentage off discounts. So if you're, if you as a retailer, are trying to decide, oh, I need to, I want to do like a free gift for anyone who comes into the store, um, really like, maybe, maybe, look at your financing and change your strategy to how do I give them an even better percentage off discount and skip the gift? Because that. That is. That was overwhelmingly what our survey told us. They prefer those percentage off discounts. They don't want a BOGO, they don't want free upgrades or add ons or gift or a bundled, anything like. Just give that raw price to them. That's what they care about raw price to them.
Speaker 1:That's what they care about. I saw something about the human mind when offered a value versus a percentage, people, even if that percentage is less than the value, they will choose the percentage almost every time, because they're like the mind is like incapable of rationalizing a percentage in. You know, a dollar amount is the dollar amount, but a percentage it could be anything, and I've seen that increasingly is like yeah, do you want $100 off or do you want 10% off? And it's like well, obviously, if the thing is over $1,000, then you want the 10% off, but if it's under $1,000, then you probably want the dollar value. Now I I'm choosing 10, I think, and and it sounds a little bit more snappy too because it obviously incentivizes when you go with a percentage, you're incentivizing larger sales because then the discount's larger.
Speaker 1:I think that that's a really interesting really is. Uh, what about like things related to, for example, the um? It used to be really popular to sell like accoutrements with it, like, oh, if you buy a ring, you get a like a cleaning kit or something like that. Is that something that's still popular or is that falling down the ladder as well?
Speaker 3:No, that's falling down the ladder as well. And again, that's kind of what we found that 50% of consumers are looking for percentage off discount promotions, and then, on top of that, found that 50% of consumers are looking for percentage off discount promotions and then, on top of that, 77% of those consumers are influenced by that percentage discount. So, kind of going back to what you were saying, michael, like the percentage off is what matters more than, like the jewelry cleaning kits are coming. If you come in the day of Black Friday, you get that free tote. Like, consumers aren't looking for that quite as much, really, you know, if you look at just what inflation's done and the market environment in general, I think we found that you know, people still want to spend. They still want to, you know, have a good holiday, but they're just being different in how they spend their money. Those free gifts is not gifts are not quite as drawing to them.
Speaker 1:Really quite interesting. But, melissa, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back I want to talk about maybe sales strategies and some marketing that people can do to take advantage of these insights. So, everybody, stay with us. This episode is brought to you in part by stone algos jeweler os. If you're an independent jeweler offering bridal in your brick and mortar store, I need to tell you guys about what I recently discovered that will explode your bridal sales.
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Speaker 1:Thanks, and now back to the show. All right, everybody still speaking with melissa monroe from podium. So, melissa, one thing I sometimes do I run my own art business on the side and I sometimes try to relate art with jewelry, because they're both, I consider, luxuries, which I feel like the selling and buying strategy is sometimes related, and one thing I've found is that the human touch is very important, especially for jewelry. People always talk about these relationship building and how they're always trying to kind of nurture these long-term relationships, especially with their VIPs, but even with first-time buyers, to get them to come back. We've already talked about text messaging. Is there any other ways that people can sort of nurture the relationships and sort of I hate to say cash in on them around the most important part of the year?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So we have something in Podium and, whether you're a Podium customer or not, this is a very important concept. They're called drip campaigns. So you can use a drip campaign to and a drip campaign is essentially what you would think it is right If you're thinking of like a hose that's just drip, drip, drip, drip and it's going to be filling up a bucket, right, and your customer is your bucket and that hose is just a little drip going in, but it's. It's slowly but surely filling up the bucket and once that bucket is full, they're going to make a purchase.
Speaker 3:So what you can think of a drip campaign is it's marketing touch points for your customer all throughout their life as your customer. So that means wishing them a happy anniversary. That means reminding them of your store sales. That's becoming a industry leader on jewelry in general. Right, like what is the industry doing? What's lab grown versus? You know all of all of that kind of stuff becoming that that market um leader there. It's encouraging people to get their jewelry cleaned. It's wishing them happy birthday.
Speaker 3:It's it's using that clienteling method of a drip campaign and setting up those text messaging campaigns right to their phone that create that customer loyalty, that create that in-person human touch and I also I kind of want to talk about that human touch so you can actually set up those campaigns. Because me, if I was a business I was a small business owner for about 10 years and that, just if I was to hear a podcast and to hear someone say you have to wish them happy anniversary, happy birthday, you have to tell them things, and I would be so overwhelmed right now. Don't worry, technology is a beautiful thing, everyone, and you can utilize it to really unlock some amazing stuff for your customers. So you can automate these text messaging campaigns within Podium. You can set this up once, have your segmented list of your VIP groups and then it just goes on a timer. So once you set it, you can forget it and your customer loyalty is going to be continuously being built, which is, I think, huge if you're a small business owner, if you're a jeweler, to know that those kinds of things can be automated.
Speaker 3:But also, number two you know we are in an interesting spot in the world right now where AI and AI agents are like top of mind, I think, for everyone. I think everyone's starting to be like wait, how do I utilize this tool? And so I again ask some questions in my survey, because AI is top of mind for consumers as well. And I was just curious you know you were talking about websites earlier, e-commerce, all that good stuff, you know. Do shoppers care? Do they care if an AI bot is talking to them?
Speaker 1:Is I in my heart. I am sort of at this point. I had a moment where it was like AI is so cool, and then I was like I'm going to test and see if I can find out if they're AI or human, because I only want to talk with a human. And now I'm kind of back up to the top where I'm just like I want the answers to be the right answers. So I guess I don't really care.
Speaker 3:Totally, exactly, exactly, and I'm the exact same way, michael. So what we found in our survey actually is that nearly one in two shoppers don't mind if the business is using an AI bot to communicate with them. So 49% of consumers are actually indifferent or don't care if the business uses AI, which is really really interesting, right? Because if your AI bot can extend your business hours without making you have to pay someone's salary, without making you have to be exhausted from the holiday time, if you can leverage AI to extend your business hours to keep those customers engaged, to keep them happy, that's gonna be very transformative for your business. So what we also found was 52% of these consumers are likely, and very likely, to engage with the business after hours.
Speaker 3:And so if you have an automated system with virtual assistants available to help right away, you know answering questions, answering oh, do you do? You don't do? Can I set an appointment? Are you an appointment based business? Are you not? Do you do cleanings? Do you not Like all those different questions like that? You can even get you can get an answer immediately from someone texting you at 9 PM at night.
Speaker 1:How, how great is that for you as a business? I love it. I love the idea of extending your business not even just hours more like um window. It's like allowing people to do that, that browsing, but in a more of a, a leaned in kind of way where, yeah, sometimes people inquire about stuff at weird hours.
Speaker 1:And you're totally right with what we're seeing on our e-commerce side of things is, we do see, the hours of like 9 pm are actually some of the most active e-commerce hours and it's partially probably because of the fact that the store is not open, so they don't have the option. But it's also because you said, people are watching the new season of Wednesday and they have on the side window because they keep it minimized, they go and they are shopping for Christmas because they're for holidays and it's just, at the same time, it's like when you can start allowing that quality experience without again having to be that person. That's like on the other line, because I know these people, like I talk with them leading up to the holidays every year and they are always always, always just very stretched, rather thin, and if you can take something off their plate, man, sounds like a great idea.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Exactly. And if you can take something off their plate, man sounds like a great idea. Absolutely Exactly, if you can take, you can take that off your plate so that you can go do things as a business owner. That matters more, right? So, networking, setting up those you know, understanding your inventory, looking at your data, making great purchasing decisions, if you can, kind of you know, optimize not only your drip campaigns and your market, your loyalty building, outreach, but also your window of business, that's a game changer. It's absolutely a game changer.
Speaker 1:Just on the topic of drip campaigns, it really has been super fascinating. We set up a drip campaign this year. Actually, we launched it in January. I plan to do an In the Loop episode, probably after it's been launched for 12 months, just to break down how things go. And what's really interesting is, like you said, it's like a drip, drip, drip, and the first one is usually the biggest. People open the first one most, but then there's some fall off and then there's some fall off and that's to be expected. You can. You can't expect it to grow, because that's just not really how the dripping is going to work. It's more that you're staying in their inbox and staying a part of it. And for us it took us.
Speaker 1:I logged all of my hours on the project and Ross actually our CEO he was very passionate about it, so I worked with him on this project and what was really cool about it is we just had our sights set on making one sale and if we could get one person who would not have made a sale to make a sale as a result of our drip campaign, it would cover all of our costs. Human hours on this project, and I think that for you it's like how long are you going to have to spend either working with Podium or setting it up on their own to have this their own drip campaign? I think you sit down, you log those hours and see how long that would take and then rationalize it with, like, one piece of jewelry. How long, uh, how much jewelry would you have to sell to make that time investment worth it? So something to think about.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, I think. Um again, when I was a small business owner, I said they did the same thing where I was like okay, well, I have to live off of four appointments a month. So like how, how hard is it to get four appointments? And kind of the same thing, you know, uh, so Melissa, maybe as we bring this thing together.
Speaker 1:I've loved looking at data and I love thinking about the possibilities as a result of it. However, sometimes data can be overwhelming. You get lost in it. Can you boil things down to maybe just a little checklist at the end for some of our retailers to walk away with and maybe start taking action on for their own business as they go into the most important part of the year?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, right now, we're in September, and so you, the great beautiful thing that you are given right now is some time. So, from again, some insights we got from our survey, there's probably I'm going to say five things that I would absolutely make sure to do. The first I want to make sure that your online reviews are set up for success. You've responded to all of them. You're the first to be found, you're the first to be chosen, because consumers they say they check their online reviews seven out of 10 times before they visit a local business. So, making sure that your online reviews are set up, that you've responded to everything and that you can get some more. You're actually in this window right now where you have time to go get some more.
Speaker 3:So reach out to your customers, ask them for reviews, build up your SEO. That's your number one. Your number two, your number two would be figuring out your promotions making sure you can give the best percentage off that you can, because, again, 80% of consumers are wanting percentages off this holiday season. So, making sure that you look at your data, look at your inventory. Where can you offer the best percentage off discounts that you can? Number three grow your marketing opt-in lists right now, and what I mean by that? What I mean by that is we know that customers want to hear from you. They want to hear from you at least once a month.
Speaker 3:So what can you send today to all of your customers that have ever walked through your door? So that's going to be a non-marketing message. What can you send today? That's going to be something that could be like a fun fact about your store. That could be something like an industry educational something, something that's non-promotional, that you can send out to all of your contacts anyone's phone number that you have in your system. That then you can build your opt-in list, because from there you encourage people.
Speaker 3:If you want to hear about our holiday promotions, opt in for a text message, you opt them in and then that's going to give you a trickle effect into some huge holiday unlocks, right? So then, when you send your Black Friday promotion in November, you've actually already done your homework, you've done the heavy lifting and you've built your customer base out with those non-marketing messages. Now I would say fourth. Fourth is take the time and set up an AI agent. Make sure that you have an AI agent of some sort that is answering all of your frequently asked questions, answering all the things that when those people are shopping offline, they're shopping online off of your business hours, that you have someone that can respond to them.
Speaker 2:That's going to be a huge-.
Speaker 1:Yeah, are you open tomorrow? Exactly yeah. Do you have gift wrapping? All those questions.
Speaker 3:Right, right, what? Yeah, exactly All those questions. Make sure you can. Again, you have the gift of time. This is your gift of setup. So use this next month to set up that AI agent to answer all those frequently asked questions. Because when you are going to be in your store with your Black Friday and it's going to be crazy and phones are going to be off the hook and you're going to have so many customers in there, you are going to be like, oh, my goodness, what am I going to do? You can actually have that peace of mind that those questions are getting answered for you at all times. So it's going to make you be able to be with your customers when you're in the store, but also when you're off hours. You have someone else working for you. It's going to pay for itself. Just do it. So that's my fourth. One is to set up the agent. Last but not least, number five. Number five is this is going to be a little different how are you taking your payments?
Speaker 3:So something I haven't mentioned yet in the in the Black Friday survey is how many people want to take advantage of a. You know buy now, pay later. You mentioned a firm earlier. How many people wanted to take advantage of that layaway kind of opportunity there. So what we found is that if you can be more unique with how you set up your payments, that can bring more. You're quicker to cash right.
Speaker 3:So in our survey we asked do people want, like would they be trusting of, a payment link via text? And it was overwhelming. We had over 41% of people said they would absolutely pay in a payment link. What we also think if you're thinking again about strategizing your Black Friday and the people you have, if you're able to turn your mobile device into a mobile kiosk and then every sales associate can then become a checkout, that is going to be a huge unlock for you as, again, you're navigating the busyness that is Black Friday and the holiday season. So making sure that you can turn that mobile device into that kiosk, being able to send a payment link and then offering those auto pays, those buy now, pay later financing options, is a big unlock for small businesses. Because what we found consumers planned to start their holiday shopping early this year. They are going to shop the sales and they're still going to spend. We have a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Let me pull up the stat Actually we have 75% of consumers are expecting to spend more, or significantly more than they did last year. Wow, so I think that's good. That's good news, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's good news. People are still going to spend. They don't want their budgeting now. They're going to spend, maybe a little earlier, but they're going to spend. They're going to come into your now. They're going to spend maybe a little earlier, but they're going to spend. They're going to come into your store. They're going to spend. But let's use these months now let's start this in September to do some of that back work to check those Google reviews, to grow your opt-in lists, to make sure you have the right promotions, to build out your AI agents and then to make sure you have all the different payment options that you can for your store. All of that will lead to so much success for those retailers.
Speaker 1:What a really great little final list. I think that that's so important, just like on the thought. You know, I always try to think of, like, what are my big purchases for the year that I am not locked into? It's not like my house, my car, but it's like, um, every year I buy a ski pass and my ski passes they're expensive, but what's cool is they offer me, uh, to split it up between, uh, six months of financing for zero, zero percent interest, and they and I think they basically do that to make it so that more people are able to actually pull the trigger and buy this. Because what do they want? They want to sell ski passes and do they care about making a little bit of extra money? No, they care about getting more people to say yes.
Speaker 1:And I also think that about the number, I mean, you have data. Our data always shows that the number one indicator for success online is having a financing option at checkout, and it makes sense. People want to have the opportunity to split payments up and for the retailer it doesn't really matter. Most of the most of the financing, I think all the ones that we offer guarantee the payment. They basically pay you and then they take, they buy the they take the risk.
Speaker 1:They take the risk and they buy the loan, so I a lot of times. It costs zero dollars to even set up an account with them. They want you to start offering them in store. I recommend taking the time to set that thing up.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I'm with you on that, Michael, as well.
Speaker 1:Melissa, as we wrap this thing up, any final thoughts before we get people going. I know that everybody's going to get out of this and be fired up to get started, but any final thoughts?
Speaker 3:Yeah, my final thought is just start. Just start today. I know sometimes it can be so overwhelming, you know when, as a small business owner, you have so many things to do, I encourage you start using technology, start making sure you're doing all of your marketing activities correctly. Um, and you know, utilize tools. Utilize tools like punchmark, like podium, to really come through. And um, make your life easier as a small business owner. Just start.
Speaker 1:Heck. Yeah, get started today and yeah, hopefully you have a really amazing Q4. I know that the Punchmark team is going to be ready to help you get these things set up. If you do end up signing up with Podium, first of all, mention in the loop. Second of all, we do have a spot right in the back end of your website that allows you to enter your Podium API key super easy, and that's one of the features of having a partner like Podium, so feel free to ask your account manager if you need help with that. But, melissa, I really can't thank you enough for coming on. I think this is super cool and we'll have to do a follow up when you do your next big survey, because I love data. I think it's very interesting. Thank you again.
Speaker 3:You are so welcome. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody. We'll see you next week. Thanks again for listening. Bye, all right, everybody. That's the end of the show. Thanks so much for listening this week. My guest wasissa monroe, and she's with podium. You can learn more about podium in the show notes below. This episode was brought to you by punchmark and produced and hosted by me, michael burfo. This episode was edited by paul suarez with music by ross cockrum. Don't forget to rate the podcast on spotify and apple podcasts and leave us feedback on punchmarkcom slash loop. That's l L-O-U-P-E. Thanks. We'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Cheers, bye.
