Being a retailer now presents several advantages, but also numerous challenges, especially when it comes to cracking the DTC code.

The main advantage? 

Being able to present today's customers with a wider choice of products and brands.

The main challenge?

Retailers face increasing pressures to keep up with the fast-paced trends and fickle nature of modern consumers.

While they offer a large variety of products, it’s hard to focus on specific offers to present to customers.

At the same time, being able to crack the paid acquisition channels often relies on niching down your offers and managing to craft the perfect creative strategy.

As a retailer, it can be hard.

But the good news is that it’s possible. 

Using Panoramata, you can track all your competitors' marketing strategies and all the marketing strategies used by the brands you’re selling in your store. So you’ll know the most effective talking points and never run out of inspiration to create an effective marketing strategy.

Offering a variety of customer benefits along with pricing strategies are a few ways to adapt to the ever-changing customer demands. 

Getting creative in engaging customers across multiple touchpoints is also a big plus factor in enchanting new customers and keeping the old ones.

In this game of "keep up or lose", it is up to retailers to maintain competitiveness.

We have reviewed a dozen French retailers to explore their top marketing strategies.  Consider incorporating the following to improve your chances of success.

• 5 Ways to Keep Up in the French Retail Industry
  • Send daily emails featuring the latest and trending offers from all brands
  • Offer a loyalty program with exclusive benefits
  • Offer promotions with urgency, especially during seasonal shopping events
  • Provide a mobile app version of your website
  • Use incentives in your email subject lines

• Frequently Asked Questions
  • What is a retailer?
  • What is the importance of a retailer to consumers?

How to Maintain Competitiveness in the French Retail Market?

Send regular emails featuring the latest and trending offers from all brands

Keep your customers up-to-date with the latest offerings from their favorite brands. Newsletters are one of the best channels to announce new product updates because the notification goes directly to their inboxes.

A daily email can serve as their easy reference during the days when they need to buy something from your store.

Sending regular emails showcasing your latest offerings also keeps them engaged and increases the likelihood of sales. Here, the deal is already presented to them so with just a few clicks on the CTA button, they can go right to where the offer is.

It's a great way to ease their shopping experience instead of browsing the website for this information.

Veepee keeps its customers informed by delivering a daily email highlighting the newest products and ongoing sales.

They make brilliant use of the subject line to display the names of the brands featured in each email.

La Redoute serves as a notable example by consistently posting ads that spotlight their latest collections often paired with enticing discounts.

Offer a loyalty program with exclusive benefits

A loyalty program is not a new feature offered by retailers but if you're not doing this, you're falling behind. It's a win-win technique for businesses to attract, and retain customers, and encourage repeat sales by offering rewards, discounts, and other special incentives. 

Customers like to be recognized or at the very least ensure that they benefit from consistent shopping at a store. Retailers can use their loyalty programs to not only reward customers but also deliver relevant content to them.

The French retailer FNAC does well in enticing customers with the benefits of their loyalty card.

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Here, they share the many advantages one can get out of a single loyalty card most especially in terms of savings.

One exemplary illustration of a brand that executes this strategy well is Sephora. They frequently release ads offering exclusive discounts for store visitors and loyalty card holders.

ManoMano also published ads focused on promoting the advantages of their membership program.

Offer promotions with urgency, especially during seasonal shopping events

To encourage quick action from your customers, use the sense of urgency wisely in your promotional emails.

Seasonal shopping events and big holidays are the calendar days when customers are on the lookout for great deals and expect communication from you.

Leverage these special marketing opportunities to boost sales and motivate them to seize limited-time deals by sending emails that tap into their fear of missing out (FOMO).

Zalando adopts this email strategy by consistently sending emails during sales events.

Here are three examples they sent for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Singles’ Day.

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Provide a mobile app version of your website

If you are a business that deals with selling products, then having a mobile app version if beneficial than just a responsive eCommerce website alone.

A mobile app offers several advantages both to users and marketers. For one, it offers a seamless experience with its ability to work online and offline. It is the most fundamental difference between a website and an application.

Although apps need active internet to allow critical tasks to be performed like payments, they can still offer basic content and functionality to users even in offline mode.

Mobile apps also offer personalized content since they let the users clearly define and set their preferences from the beginning. As a marketer, you can use the mobile app's ability to observe a user's engagement and behavior when offering direct content and updates. This means promoting your products will be way easier and tailor-fit.

Additionally, apps load faster and they perform actions faster too, bringing delightful experiences to customers when interacting with your brand.

These superior features are what make the brands like Sephora opt to create their mobile app.

Sephora routinely promotes its app, offering exclusive promotions to its users. They highlight the app's availability on both the Google Play Store and App Store at the bottom part of their emails.

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Use incentives in your email subject lines

Incentives can go a long way in gratifying your customers. This element, when used in your email subject lines, can consequently increase the open rate.

Incentive subject lines grab the audience's interest by highlighting the benefit they will receive if they open your email.

Try weaving a promising offer into your subject lines (but of course, be true to your promise as they open the email).

We've gathered some of the most enticing subject lines by used by ManoMano in their newsletters.

 One thing's for sure - customers expect a lot from retailers today from the types of offerings to providing a seamless shopping experience (both online and in-store).

By understanding the challenges and developing strategies to address retailer challenges, they can meet customers' expectations which is the ultimate goal of improving sales.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a retailer?

A retailer is an individual or business that buys products in bulk from a manufacturer or wholesaler and then sells them to the end-users/customers.

What is the importance of a retailer to consumers?

A retailer serves as a vital link between business and consumers. It provides customers with the ability to access a wide range of products from different brands worldwide.