The DataWeave Blog

Author: DataWeave Marketing

How Healthy is Your Assortment?
In 2025, both consumers and retailers continue to prioritize better health – albeit with evolving definitions and expectations.

The pandemic fundamentally transformed how consumers approach wellness, with this shift becoming entrenched in shopping behaviors years later. As shopping habits have permanently altered, retailers now face increased pressure to rapidly adapt their assortments with in-demand health and wellness products that enhance customer experience across various channels – online and offline.

Let’s explore how leading retailers are keeping consumers – and their own bottom lines – healthy by responding effectively to market trends to drive online sales and market share.

Health & Wellness Influence The Product Mix Across Categories

Consumption habits have changed dramatically since the onset of the pandemic. A McKinsey study shows that 82% and 73% of US, and UK consumers respectively now consider health & wellness a top priority. Typically shoppers adjust grocery shopping and meal planning at the start of the year, with many focusing on fresh, organic, and nutrient-rich foods.

The influential health and wellness mega-trend spans diverse retail channels, including grocery, pharmacy and mass. It extends across numerous categories like:
- Food and beverage (natural, organic, vegan, plant-based food)
- Health and personal care
- Beauty
- Cleaning products
- Fitness equipment
- Athleisure (apparel)
- Consumer electronics like health wearables.
Today’s health movement is so powerful and compelling that retailers have revised their business strategies to better serve health-conscious consumers. For instance, drugstores are reinventing themselves as healthcare destinations, with CVS and Kroger expanding into personalized care delivery and value-based clinics to enhance their health offerings.

Major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target report robust sales in health and wellness categories. For example, Walmart saw a 4.6% increase in comparable sales in early 2024, driven significantly by grocery, consumables, and health-related products.

New product categories are gaining traction:
- Functional foods and beverages are seeing unprecedented growth, with Target launching over 2,000 wellness items in the category, including exclusive products priced under $10.
- Personalized nutrition and mental health products are surging, including tailored dietary solutions and stress-reducing items.
- Health wearables and wellness tech continue to rise in popularity, with over 150 new wellness tech items launched at Target this year, including innovative red-light therapy devices.
- Transparency and sustainability certifications like organic, non-GMO, and vegan labels are increasingly driving purchasing decisions.
- Clinically proven benefits offered by health & wellness products are gaining traction among Gen Z.
Retail’s Survival Of The Fittest Moves Online

As the omnichannel retail sector continues to grow, more shoppers now make purchase decisions within minutes using just a few clicks rather than physically visiting brick-and-mortar stores. In some cases, AI agents like Operator from Chat-GPT or Gemini (Google’s Chatbot) even make personalized, curated lists and reduce the time taken to make purchase decisions. Traditional retail paradigms are rapidly becoming obsolete as consumers grow savvier, more empowered, and better informed than ever before.

To stay competitive, more retailers are embracing AI-driven data insights to adjust their assortments to reflect consumer demand for health and wellness products.

According to industry experts, data insights have emerged as a critical retail strategy that continues to gain momentum. This is because retailers can no longer afford to guess how to approach their omnichannel strategy. They need the accuracy, clarity, and efficiency of data insights to guide their assortment and pricing decisions to outmaneuver competitors, maximize sales, and win market share as shopping evolves online.

Among its retail best practices, Bain & Company recommends retailers “lead with superior assortments that use a customer-centric lens to reduce complexity and increase space for the products customers love.” Insights can help retailers discover the optimal mix of national brands, private labels, limited-time offers, and value-added bundles.

“Lead with superior assortments …
increase space for the products consumers love“
~ Bain & Company

Determining the optimal mix of products also includes bestsellers and unique items that help retailers distinguish their offerings. Assortment insights help retail executives track competitors’ assortment changes and spot gaps in their own product assortment to adapt to emerging consumer trends and in-demand products.

Why Effective Assortment Planning Matters

Assortment planning sits at the heart of retail success, directly influencing profitability, customer satisfaction, and competitive differentiation. In today’s health-conscious market, getting your assortment right means:
- Meeting Customer Expectations: Today’s health-conscious consumers expect relevant, high-quality products that match their wellness goals. A well-planned assortment signals that a retailer understands its customers’ evolving needs.
- Optimizing Inventory Investment: Strategic assortment planning ensures capital is allocated to products with the highest return potential while minimizing investments in slow-moving items.
- Creating Competitive Advantage: A distinctive assortment that includes popular health and wellness products alongside unique offerings helps retailers stand out in a crowded marketplace.
- Reducing Lost Sales: Effective assortment planning minimizes the risk of stockouts on high-demand health and wellness items, preventing customers from shopping elsewhere.
- Supporting Omnichannel Strategies: Well-executed assortment planning ensures consistency across physical and digital touchpoints, creating a seamless customer experience.
- Improving Operational Efficiency: A thoughtfully curated assortment reduces complexity throughout the supply chain, from procurement to warehouse management to in-store operations.
As health and wellness continues to drive consumer spending, retailers who excel at assortment planning can capitalize on these trends more effectively than their competitors, turning market insights into tangible business results.

AI-Powered Assortment Analytics Driving Retail Success

The synergy of AI and data analytics into retail assortment planning is changing how businesses approach inventory management. Retailers using AI-driven predictive analytics have achieved a 36% SKU reduction while increasing sales by 1-2%, showcasing the efficiency of data-driven approaches according to a McKinsey report.

Retailers face several challenges that can hinder strategic assortment planning:
- Limited Understanding of Competition: Retailers struggle to gain comprehensive insights into their product assortments relative to competitors, often lacking visibility into their strengths and weaknesses across categories.
- Data Overload: Assortment planning involves handling vast amounts of data, making it challenging for category managers to extract actionable insights without user-friendly tools and visualization.
- Cross-Channel Consistency: With omnichannel retailing, ensuring consistency across physical stores, e-commerce, and other channels is complex. Misalignment can lead to customer dissatisfaction and loss of loyalty.
- Adapting to Changing Market Trends: Identifying top-selling products and tracking consumer preferences is challenging. Balancing the right mix of products is crucial; without analytics, retailers risk lost sales or excess slow-moving inventory.
- Scalability and Efficiency: As retailers expand into new markets or categories, scaling their assortment planning processes efficiently becomes a challenge. Legacy systems and manual methods often fail to support the agility needed for quick decision-making at scale.
DataWeave’s Assortment Analytics helps retailers address these challenges by providing a robust, easy-to-use platform that delivers actionable insights into product assortments and competitive positioning. With AI-driven, contextual insights and alerts, retailers can effortlessly identify high-demand, unique products, capitalize on catalog strengths, optimize pricing and promotions, improve stock availability, and refine assortments to maintain a competitive edge.

Beyond Data: Actionable Insights That Drive Results

DataWeave’s platform provides a comprehensive, insight-led view into assortments through several key dimensions:
- Stock Insights: Monitor stock changes across retailers to stay updated on availability.
- Category and Sub-Category Insights: Analyze assortment changes, identify newly introduced or discontinued categories, and track leading retailers in specific segments.
- Brand Insights: Identify newly introduced, missing, or discontinued brands, as well as leading brands within chosen categories.
- Product Insights: Identify bestsellers and evaluate their impact on your portfolio, analyzing pricing and promotions.
- Personalized Recommendations: Receive suggestions tailored to your behavior and user profile to refine decision-making.
- User-Configured Alerts: Stay informed with alerts designed to highlight significant changes or opportunities.
The platform addresses data overload by providing an intuitive, insight-driven view of your assortment. Category managers gain a comprehensive, bird’s-eye perspective of key changes within specified timeframes, allowing them to focus on what matters most.

Preparing for the Future of Retail Health

To avoid supply chain bottlenecks, inventory shortages, and out-of-stock scenarios, retailers are strategically using data insights to anticipate fluctuations in demand and proactively plan how to manage disruptions that could affect their assortments.

For variety that satisfies consumers’ diverse product needs, retailers are using data insights to determine whether to collaborate with nimble suppliers to promptly fill any gaps.

To further strengthen their assortments’ attractiveness, retailers are using AI-powered pricing analytics to offer the right product at the right price. These analytics help retailers know exactly how they compare to rivals’ pricing moves with relevant data so they can keep up with market fluctuations and stay competitive by earning consumer engagement, sales, and trust.

To Conclude…

Like nourishing habits that improve consumers’ health, data insights improve retailers’ e-commerce health. Advanced assortment and pricing analytics, powered by artificial intelligence, help retailers make better decisions faster to boost their agility, outmaneuver rivals, and fuel online growth.

In a retail landscape where consumer preferences for health and wellness continue to evolve rapidly, the retailers who thrive will be those who leverage data and AI to understand, anticipate, and meet these changing demands with the right products at the right time. Reach out to us to know more.
July 12, 2024
Cinco de Mayo 2024 Pricing Insights: An Analysis of Discounts Amid Inflation
Cinco de Mayo is a vibrant celebration of Mexican-American and Hispanic heritage, marked by lively parades, festive tacos, and refreshing tequila across North America. For the service industry, brands, and retailers, this day offers a golden opportunity to roll out enticing promotions on beloved Mexican foods and beverages, drawing in large crowds and boosting sales.

Americans love to indulge in Mexican cuisine during Cinco de Mayo. Take avocados, for example: despite inflation, avocado sales soared to 52.3 million units this year, marking a 25% increase from last year, according to the Hass Avocado Board’s 2023 Holiday Report. Such festive events see a significant sales spike, largely driven by appealing discounts and special offers.

So, what discounts did retailers roll out this Cinco de Mayo?

At DataWeave, our cutting-edge data aggregation and analysis platform tracked and analyzed the prices and deals on Mexican food and alcohol products offered by leading retailers. Our in-depth analysis sheds light on their pricing competitiveness during Cinco de Mayo, revealing how pricing strategies differed across various subcategories and brands.

We conducted a similar analysis in 2022, allowing us to compare the prices of identical products this year versus last year. This comparison helps us understand the impact of inflation over the past two years on the prices offered today.

Our Methodology

For our analysis, we monitored the average discounts offered by major US retailers on over 2,000 food and beverage products during Cinco de Mayo, as well as in the days leading up to the event. Many retailers kick off their Cinco de Mayo promotions a week before, so we included the entire week leading up to May 5th in our analysis.

Key Details:
- Number of SKUs: 2000+
- Retailers Analyzed: Target, Amazon Fresh, Safeway, Walmart, Total Wines & More, Sam’s Club, Meijer, Kroger
- Categories: Food, Alcohol
- Analysis Period: April 28 – May 5
To truly demonstrate the value of Cinco de Mayo for shoppers, we concentrated on price reductions and additional discounts during the event. By comparing these with regular day discounts, we were able to highlight the genuine savings and benefits that Cinco de Mayo promotions offer to budget-conscious consumers.

Our Findings

Safeway led the pack with the highest average additional discount of 4.91%, covering 38.6% of their food inventory for Cinco de Mayo. Total Wine & More followed closely, offering an average discount of 3.46% across 70.8% of its tequila, whiskey, mezcal, and other spirit products during the Cinco de Mayo week.

In contrast, Target provided minimal additional discounts, averaging just 0.8% over a small fraction (11.6%) of its SKUs. Similarly, Kroger’s additional discounts were also 0.8%, but they were spread across over 60% of its tracked products. Walmart (1.4%) and Amazon Fresh (1.2%) offered relatively conservative discounts during the sale period.

During Cinco de Mayo, various brands rolled out attractive discounts to entice shoppers. Among beverage brands, The American Plains vodka led the way with the highest average discount of 20.80%. Coffee brands also joined the festivities with significant discounts: Death Wish Coffee at 14.30%, Dunkin’ at 11.10%, and Starbucks at 5.70%. Notably, Dunkin’ and Death Wish Coffee introduced complimentary beverages such as whiskey barrel-aged coffee and spiked coffee products to celebrate the event.

In the wine category, Erath stood out with a 10% additional discount. However, brands like Jose Cuervo and Franzia offered more modest discounts of 0.70% and 1.80%, respectively.

Food brands associated with traditional Mexican ingredients or products, such as tortillas, salsas, and spices, provided higher discounts compared to mainstream snack brands. For instance, McCormick (25%), El Monterey (13.3%), and La Tortilla Factory (16.7%)—known for ready-to-eat frozen foods, seasonings, and condiments—delivered the highest discounts. Other notable discounts included Jose Ole (12.5%), a frozen food brand, and Yucatan (8.3%), known for its guacamole.

Safeway’s private label brand, Signature Select, offered a 5.20% discount. Additionally, Safeway provided deep discounts on brands like Pace, Herdez, and Taco Bell, indicating an aggressive discounting strategy. In contrast, brands closely associated with Mexican or Tex-Mex cuisine, such as Old El Paso, Mission, Rosarita, and La Banderita, offered relatively modest discounts ranging from 0.5% to 3.3%.

The discount patterns varied between alcohol and food categories, with food brands generally offering higher discounts. This trend may be attributed to pricing being regulated in the alcohol industry. These differing discount levels highlight how brands navigated the balance between driving sales and maintaining profit margins during Cinco de Mayo, particularly in the context of inflation affecting costs.

Impact of Inflation on Cinco de Mayo Prices (2024 vs 2022)

To gauge the impact of inflation on popular Cinco de Mayo products, we analyzed the average prices at Walmart and Target between 2022 and 2024. These two retailers were chosen due to their prominence in the retail sector and the robustness of our sample data.

At Walmart, the Tex Mex category saw the highest average price increase, rising by 22.51%. Other notable subcategories with significant price hikes include Condiments (23.21%), Vegetables/Packaged Vegetables (21.22%), and Lasagne (14.10%). Categories like Dips & Spreads (13.77%), Pantry Staples (14.92%), and Salsa & Dips (8.23%) experienced relatively lower increases.

At Target, the Snacks subcategory had the steepest average price rise at 27.94%, followed by Meal Essentials (16.07%) and Deli Pre-Pack (8.82%). Categories such as Dairy (0.51%), Frozen Meals/Sides (7.11%), and Adult Beverages (7.41%) saw smaller price increases.

Brands associated with traditional Mexican or Tex-Mex cuisine faced higher price hikes. Examples include Old El Paso (24.59% at Walmart, 8.70% at Target), Tostitos (35.44% at Walmart, 11.41% at Target), Ortega (30.59% at Walmart, 19.69% at Target), and Rosarita (14.39% at Walmart).

In contrast, private label or store brands generally experienced lower price increases compared to national brands. For instance, Good & Gather (Target’s private label) saw a 9.55% increase, while Market Pantry (Walmart’s private label) had a 17.27% rise. This trend is understandable as retailers have more control over their costs with private label brands.

The data clearly indicates that both Walmart and Target have significantly raised prices across various categories and brands, reflecting the broader inflationary environment where the cost of goods and services has been steadily climbing.

Interestingly, we observed higher price increases at Walmart compared to Target. Although Walmart is renowned for its consumer-friendly pricing strategies, it too had to elevate grocery prices post-2022 to combat inflationary pressures. As consumers become more cost-conscious and reduce spending on discretionary items, Walmart and other retailers are now cutting prices across categories to align with shifting consumer behaviors.

Mastering Pricing Strategies During Sale Events

Our pricing analysis for Cinco de Mayo reveals compelling insights into the dynamics of retailer landscapes in the US. It highlights the enduring relevance of private label brands, even amidst fluctuating demand, showing the emergence of local, national, and small players vying for market share.

As retailers navigate inflationary pressures and evolving consumer behaviors, understanding these pricing dynamics becomes crucial for optimizing strategies and bolstering market competitiveness. This analysis offers actionable intelligence for retailers seeking to navigate the intricate terrain of sale event promotions while addressing shifting consumer preferences and economic challenges.

Access to reliable and timely pricing data equips retailers and brands with the tools needed to make informed decisions and drive profitable growth in an increasingly competitive environment. To learn more and gain guidance, reach out to us to speak to a DataWeave expert today!
May 22, 2024
Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023: Unveiling Health & Beauty Pricing and Discount Trends
On Black Friday this year, Health & Beauty brands saw a significant increase with a 13% jump in foot traffic, according to a report by RetailNext. Despite caution from various sources, higher prices for everyday goods, and high interest rates, consumers chose to spend big this cyber week.

So what kind of deals did top retailers and brands offer in the Health & Beauty category this BFCM? At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices and deals of Health & Beauty products across prominent retailers to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness this BFCM, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories and brands.

Also check out our insights on discounts and pricing for Consumer Electronics, Apparel, and Home & Furniture categories this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the average discounts among leading US retailers in the Health & Beauty category during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We noticed prices and discounts didn’t change significantly over the course of the weekend, and hence the average prices of products between the 24th and 27th of November are being reported. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across leading retailers during the sale.
- Sample size: 15,253 SKUs
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Sephora, Ulta Beauty
- Subcategories reported on: Shampoo, Toothpaste, Conditioner, Sunscreen, Makeup, Electric Toothbrush, Beard Care, Moisturizer
- Timeline of analysis: 24 to 27 November 2023
Our Key Findings

Average Discounts Across Retailers

Amazon leads the pack with a huge margin, offering an average discount of 31.9%, covering 62% of its products analyzed. Target follows an 18.8% average discount across only 5% of its analyzed assortment. The other retailers aren’t even close.

Ulta Beauty was the next in line, providing a 9.2% average discount followed by Walmart with a 6.8% average discount. Sephora, known for its premium beauty offerings, adopted a more conservative approach with a 3.5% average discount, targeting only 9% of its top products

Across retailers, it is clear that Amazon led the charge by far this cyber week, with the other retailers choosing to markdown prices conservatively in the Health & Beauty category.

Average Discounts: Subcategories

Amazon offered high discounts on lower priced subcategories like Toothpaste (49.4%), Sunscreen (46.3%), Moisturizers (38.5%), and Conditioners (37.5%), highlighting its focus on products with high demand that consumers would look to stock up on. Ulta Beauty also focused its discounts on Toothpaste (15.6%), Moisturizers (14.9%), and Conditioners (12.6%), targeting skincare and grooming.

Sephora, meanwhile, offered the most attractive deals on the Makeup subcategory at 5.3% across 12.67% of its analyzed assortment, banking on the demand generated due to the brand’s popularity in this subcategory.

Target prioritized discounts on Toothpaste (22.5%), Shampoo (21.6%), and Moisturizers (18.9%). Walmart too offered significant discounts on Shampoo (21.6%) and Toothpaste (22.5%).

Retailers prioritized staple subcategories like Toothpaste and Moisturizer with substantial discounts during this Black Friday Cyber Monday, ensuring a broad consumer appeal. In contrast, discretionary items like Makeup may be less motivated by discounts alone, and hence saw lower discounts during the sale.

Average Discounts: Brands

Brands offered the most attractive deals on Amazon, with OGX leading the pack at 58.4% average discount. Neutrogena and Colgate followed with an average discount of 50.4% and 44%. This mirror’s Amazon’s subcategory focus on shampoos, conditioners, and toothpastes.

Other instances of brands offering attractive deals across retailers include Belif (27.9%) and Anastasia Beverly Hills (17.6%) on Sephora, Johnson’s (20%) and Philips Sonicare (18.8%) on Target, and Olay (12.2%) and Colgate (10.6%) on Walmart.

Ulta Beauty hosted several attractive deals by specific brands, including Moon (30.7%), Joico (24%), and Clinique (22.3%).

Share of Search For Health & Beauty Brands Across Subcategories

Our Share of Search analysis illuminates the strategic moves made by brands to enhance their visibility, playing a crucial role in influencing consumer choices during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Among some of the leading brands, Head & Shoulders and Oral-B increased their Share of Search by 2.3% and 1% respectively, reflecting a successful strategy to boost brand visibility during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events. On the other hand, L’Oreal Paris, Colgate, and Neutrogena faced marginal decreases in Share of Search.

Overall, since the difference in Share of Search values did not change dramatically, the visibility levels of leading brands across key subcategories remained consistent during the Thanksgiving weekend.

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For deeper insights on pricing and discounting trends across a diverse range of shopping categories during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, check out our blog!

To learn more about our AI-powered Pricing Intelligence and Digital Shelf Analytics platform, contact us today!
December 6, 2023
Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023: Insights on Pricing and Discounts in Home & Furniture
Insider Intelligence‘s forecast of a 4.5% growth in US Holiday Sales this year has been validated by the sustained robust spending observed during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Despite multiple challenges impacting consumer spending, such as escalating prices of everyday products and elevated interest rates, shoppers continued to spend significantly, aligning with these earlier predictions.

However, in response to these projections, retailers strategically adjusted their approach. Our analysis indicates substantial discounts prevalent in the Consumer Electronics and Home & Furniture segments during Cyber Week. Prominent retailers specializing in Home & Furniture, such as Wayfair, Overstock, and Home Depot, notably led the charge in offering attractive discounts.

At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices and deals of home & furniture products across prominent retailers to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness this BFCM, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories and brands.

We’ve also recently published our analysis of the Consumer Electronics and Apparel categories this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the discounts offered by leading US retailers in the Home & Furniture category during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We noticed prices and discounts didn’t change significantly over the course of the weekend, and hence the average prices of products between the 24th and 27th of November are being reported. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across leading retailers during the sale.
- Sample size: 44,716 SKUs
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Overstock, Wayfair, Home Depot
- Subcategories reported on: Dishwasher, Washer/Dryer, Mattresses, Beds, Dining Tables, Entertainment Units, Rugs, Luggage, Bookcases, Cabinets, Sofas, Coffee Tables
- Timeline of analysis: 24 to 27 November 2023
Our Key Findings

Discounts Across Retailers

Wayfair led the pack with the highest average discount of 27.5%, covering an impressive 88% of its Home & Furniture inventory. This bold strategy positions Wayfair as a go-to destination for consumers seeking substantial savings on high-quality Home & Furniture items during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Home Depot offered an average discount of 17.5%, covering a substantial 69% of the products analyzed, choosing to cash in on the Cyber Week madness. Overstock followed next with an average discount of 16.6%.

Interestingly, Home & Furniture happens to be one of the few categories in which Amazon did not offer the highest discount among the analyzed retailers, choosing a moderate average discount of 13.8%.

Best Buy also maintained a competitive stance in the category, providing an average discount of 12.8% across 58% of their assortment. Target adopted a conservative markdown strategy, offering a relatively low average discount of 6.5%.

In summary, the Home & Furniture category exhibited a diverse range of discounting strategies among retailers, reflecting a balance between competitiveness and profit margins. Consumers could have chosen from a spectrum of discounts based on their preferences and budget considerations during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Average Discounts: Subcategories

Among subcategories, Amazon offered a moderate 8.3% average discount on 32.9% of its products in this Dishwasher category, while Best Buy took a more aggressive stance with a 14.7% average discount covering 55.9% of its products.

Home Depot emerged as a standout player in the Washer/Dryer category, providing a substantial 21.3% discount on 78.4% of its analyzed inventory. Best Buy closely followed with a 15.1% average discount targeting 67.6% of its products.

Wayfair grabbed attention with a generous 36.9% average discount on Mattresses, covering almost all (99%) of its analyzed products. In addition, Wafair led the discount war in Beds, Dining Tables, Cabinets, Sofas, Coffee Tables, and Entertainment Units. Overstock took an aggressive pricing stance on Rugs, offering a substantial 52.3% average discount, covering 100% of its Rugs inventory.

Average Discounts: Brands

Among brands, Signature Design by Ashley maintained a consistent presence with substantial discounts on both Best Buy (25.24%) and Overstock (16.19%). This could be indicative of the brand’s commitment to appealing to a diverse customer base through varied retail channels. Costway emerges as a standout brand offering exceptionally high discounts at both Target (61.6%) and Walmart (51.7%).

Home Decorators Collection, Home Depot’s in-house brand, offered a significant 30.9% discount at Home Depot. High-margin private label brands like these afford retailers the opportunity to offer markdowns while retaining significant margins.

Strategic positioning on specific platforms, as seen with Alwyn Home on Wayfair and Noble House at Home Depot, suggests brands tailor their approach to the strengths and customer demographics of each retailer. The data suggests a nuanced interplay between brand positioning, discount strategies, and the perceived value offered.

Share of Search For Home & Furniture Brands

The Share of Search data for the Home & Furniture category unveils intriguing insights into brand visibility and performance during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events. In this competitive landscape, where consumer decisions are influenced not only by discounts but also by brand visibility, the dynamics of Share of Search become pivotal.

Samsung strategically increased its Share of Search during the sale, showcasing a 1.2% improvement. This suggests a deliberate effort to reinforce brand visibility and capture the attention of potential buyers actively searching for Home & Furniture products, in this case, Washer/Dryers and Dishwashers.

Bosch too experienced a notable surge in Share of Search by 1.1%. LG, meanwhile, maintained a consistent Share of Search, with a marginal decrease of 0.1%. American Tourister experienced a modest increase in Share of Search by 0.4%.

Like in the other categories analyzed, the dynamics of Share of Search in the Home & Furniture category reflect brand strategies aimed at not only offering discounts but also ensuring heightened visibility during the critical Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events. Positive shifts indicate effective marketing efforts, while stable performers demonstrate a resilient brand presence in a competitive online marketplace.

To explore how our insights can help retailers and brands boost their pricing strategies during sale events, reach out to us today!

For more in-depth analyses and trends across various shopping categories, stay tuned to our blog.
December 1, 2023
Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023 Insights: A Report on Pricing and Discounts in Apparel
As the highly anticipated shopping season approached, industry analysts, including Deloitte, had forewarned consumer spending caution owing to persistent inflationary pressures tightening budgets. Despite these concerns, the holiday spirit was buoyed by sensational deals that delighted bargain-hunting shoppers.

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), over 200 million consumers participated in both in-store and online shopping activities over the Thanksgiving weekend. This marked an almost 2% uptick from the previous year, surpassing the NRF’s initial estimates of 182 million and showcasing a robust start to the holiday shopping season.

So what was all the hype about this Black Friday and Cyber Monday? How did top retailers react to reports of possibly decreased consumer spending? At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices and deals of products across prominent retailers and categories to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness this BFCM, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories and brands.

In this article, we focus on the pricing and discounting strategies of Amazon, Walmart, and Target in the Apparel category.

(Read Also: Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023: Insights on Pricing and Discounts in Consumer Electronics)

Stay tuned to our blog for insights on other shopping categories like Home & Furniture, and Health & Beauty!

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the average discounts of apparel products among leading US retailers during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We noticed prices and discounts didn’t change significantly over the course of the weekend, and hence the average prices of products between the 24th and 27th of November are being reported. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across during the sale.
- Sample size: 17,981 SKUs
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target
- Subcategories reported on: Women’s Tops, Men’s Swimwear, Men’s Innerwear, Women’s Innerwear, Women’s Athleisure, Women’s Dresses, Men’s Athleisure, Men’s Shirts, Women’s Shoes, Men’s Shoes, Women’s Swimwear
- Timeline of analysis: 24 to 27 November 2023
Our Key Findings

Average Discounts Across Retailers

Amazon offered the most attractive deals, showcasing an average discount of 19.5%, applying to a substantial 61% of their apparel inventory.

Trailing closely behind was Target, offering an average discount of 14.8% across 52% of the products analyzed. Walmart, however, took a more conservative approach, providing an average discount of 8.5%, applicable to 29% of its products.

The contrast in discounting strategies highlights the diverse tactics employed by retailers to entice Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers within the Apparel category. Amazon remains the forerunner, balancing competitive discounts with a significant coverage of discounted items.

Target follows suit with a competitive stance, while Walmart opts for a more reserved markdown approach, given that the retailer tends to carry a large number of products in the affordable price ranges.

Average Discounts: Subcategories

Examining the Black Friday and Cyber Monday discount landscape within the Apparel category reveals intriguing patterns among major retailers. Amazon led the charge, boasting an impressive 24.9% average discount on Women’s Tops, covering a substantial 76.5% of its products. In the same subcategory, Target competed fiercely with a 25.1% average discount, covering 87.5% of its products. Walmart, taking a measured approach, presented a 14.6% average discount across 45.1% of its Women’s Tops inventory.

Notably, Men’s Swimwear at Target has no discounts. Meanwhile, Amazon remained aggressive across various subcategories, particularly in Women’s Shoes and Women’s Tops, aiming to capture a significant market share through both competitive pricing and a broad coverage of discounted items.

Average Discounts: Brands

Across brands, Tommy Hilfiger and Jockey took the lead on Amazon with an enticing average discount of 28.3% and 24.6% respectively, appealing to savvy shoppers. Calvin Klein followed closely with a 17.3% discount, offering a balance of style and affordability.

In Walmart, Crocs stood out with a 39.9% average discount, followed by Reebok (15.7%) and Hanes (14.9%) Xhilaration, Target’s in-house brand, stole the spotlight on the retailer platform with an impressive 50% average discount. Reebok (32.3%) and Levi’s (22.9%) maintained competitive discounts, appealing to diverse tastes.

Our analysis sheds light on the dynamic landscape of apparel discounts, showcasing how brands adopt varying pricing strategies to position themselves competitively for Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers.

Share of Search For Apparel Brands Across Subcategories

The dynamics of Black Friday and Cyber Monday extend beyond price reductions, with brands strategically vying for increased visibility through Share of Search metrics. This metric signifies a brand’s prominence among the top 20 ranked products in a given subcategory, offering valuable insights into their online marketplace visibility.

Among the standout performers in the Apparel category, Jockey experienced a significant surge in Share of Search, leaping from 1.70% before the event to an impressive 13.30% during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Speedo, in the Women’s Swimwear subcategory, demonstrated a substantial increase from 4.40% to 13.30%, solidifying its presence and gaining an 8.90% boost in Share of Search.

Tommy Hilfiger and Adidas also exhibited notable gains in Share of Search, increasing by 5.30% and 5.60%, respectively. However, some brands experienced a slight dip, with Speedo in the Men’s Swimwear subcategory seeing a 2.50% dip in their search visibility, and Reebok in Men’s Shoes witnessing a 3.3% decrease.

These fluctuations highlight the dynamic nature of brand strategies during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the Apparel category, where gaining visibility also proves to be crucial alongside offering competitive discounts.

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For a deeper dive into the world of competitive pricing intelligence and to explore how our solutions can benefit apparel retailers and brands, reach out to us today!

Stay tuned to our blog for forthcoming analyses on pricing and discounting trends across a spectrum of shopping categories, as we continue to unravel the intricacies of consumer behavior and market dynamics.
November 29, 2023
Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023: Insights on Pricing and Discounts in Consumer Electronics
As Black Friday and Cyber Monday unfolded across the globe, there was a noticeable subdued atmosphere compared to previous years. TD Cowen brokerage adjusted its forecast for US holiday spending, revising it down from an initial 4-5% growth to a more conservative estimate of 2-3%.

Compounded by persistent inflation and elevated interest rates, many consumers find themselves financially strained, leading to the projection of the slowest growth in US holiday spending in five years.

In this context, it would be relevant to investigate whether this restrained reaction from consumers had an influence on the extent of attractive deals and discounts provided by top retailers and brands during the sale event.

At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices and deals of consumer electronics products across prominent retailers to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness this BFCM, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories and brands.

Keep an eye on our blog for insights on other shopping categories like Apparel, Home & Furniture, and Health & Beauty!

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the average discounts among leading US electronics retailers during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We noticed prices and discounts didn’t change significantly over the course of the weekend, and hence the average prices of products between the 24th and 27th of November are being reported. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across leading retailers during the sale.
- Sample size: 23,505 SKUs
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy
- Subcategories reported on: Headphones, Laptops, Smartphones, Tablets, Speakers, TVs, Earbuds, Wireless Headphones, Drones, Smartwatches
- Timeline of analysis: 24 to 27 November 2023
Our Key Findings

Average Discounts Across Retailers

The observed Black Friday and Cyber Monday discount strategies reveal a distinct competitive landscape among major retailers. Amazon emerged as the frontrunner, offering the highest average discounts at 23.30%, spanning a significant 74% of their consumer electronics inventory. Best Buy closely followed, with an average discount of 19.40% across 76% of their products.

On the other hand, Target and Walmart adopted a more conservative stance, providing lower average discounts at 14.8% and 12%, respectively, with Target discounting 51% of its products and Walmart discounting 41%. This variation in discounting strategies highlights the diverse approaches retailers take to attract and retain Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers, balancing competitiveness with profit margins.

Average Discounts: Subcategories

In the Headphones subcategory, Amazon stands out with a substantial 31.40% average discount, targeting 84.69% of SKUs, showcasing an aggressive discounting strategy. Best Buy follows closely, demonstrating competitive pricing with a 21.80% average discount on 67.03% of products.

Meanwhile, in TVs, Best Buy offered a significant 17.9% average discount across 89% of its products, signaling a targeted effort to capture a broad market share in this subcategory.

In the Laptop subcategory, Target was highly conservative, with only a 4.1% average discount covering 14.3% of its products, while Walmart positioned itself with a moderate 9.5% average discount, targeting 39.8% of its inventory.

Among Smartphones, Amazon (14.7%) was third to Best Buy and Target, which offered average discounts of 20.5% and 18.1%, respectively. Walmart, with an average discount of only 9.9% in the subcategory opted for a relatively muted approach.

Average Discounts: Brands

The discount strategies across top electronics brands during Black Friday unveil distinct approaches. Samsung emerges as a focal point across Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target. The brand was most attractively priced on Best Buy, with an average discount of 25.3%, followed by Target (18.3%) and Amazon (17.9%).

Apple’s discounts were quite consistent across Amazon (17.6%), Best Buy (16.1%), and Target (17.8%), with the exception of Walmart (8.1%). JBL, interestingly, opted to discount very heavily on Best Buy, at an average of 38.8%, resulting in several attractive deals for shoppers on the website. Sony, too, offered impressive discounts at over 23% on Amazon and Best Buy, followed by 16% on Walmart. On Amazon, Amazon Renewed (13.9%) was among the most aggressively discounted products, highlighting an effort to further appeal to cost-conscious consumers.

Overall, our analysis throws light on the nuanced strategies employed by leading brands on Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target, reflecting a delicate interplay between brand positioning, pricing competitiveness, and customer appeal.

Share of Search For Consumer Electronics Brands Across Subcategories

The Share of Search data reflects intriguing shifts in brand strategies during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events. During sale events, brands looking to entice shoppers don’t rely only on price but also on search visibility to help drive awareness and conversion. Share of Search is defined as the share of a brand’s products among the top 20 ranked products in a subcategory, thereby providing insight into a brand’s visibility on online marketplaces.

Some of the brands that improved their Share of Search the most include LG, Skullcandy, Asus, JBL, and Samsung. On the other hand, prominent brands like Sony and Apple actually lost ground on this metric by 0.4% and 2% respectively.

At DataWeave, our commitment to empowering retailers and brands with actionable competitive and digital shelf insights remains unwavering. Our AI-powered platform provides a comprehensive view of market dynamics for our customers, enabling informed decision-making. As a partner in your journey, we offer tailored solutions to enhance your competitive edge, drive sales, and elevate your brand presence. To find out more about our solution, reach out to us today!

To learn more about pricing and discounting trends during Black Friday and Cyber Monday across various other shopping categories, stay tuned to our blog!
November 28, 2023
Backpacks to Binders: Examining Back-to-School Price Hikes in 2023

This year’s back-to-school shopping season has presented a considerable challenge for inflation-weary parents in the US. Despite chatter about alleviating inflation rates, the reality of rising prices tells a different story.

As families hunt for school supplies, apparel, and other essential items for the academic year, the financial strain remains palpable. Experts note that elevated prices coupled with extensive shopping lists have compelled many parents to be more discerning about their purchases, expenditure thresholds, and preferred shopping venues. Essentially, shoppers are looking for more value for their money with every purchase. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2023 projection, this back-to-school season is poised to be the most financially demanding one to date. The forecast anticipates total spending exceeding $135 billion, marking an increase of over $24 billion compared to the previous year.

At DataWeave, we continually monitor and analyze pricing activity among retailers across popular shopping categories. Our recent study delved into the pricing trends in the back-to-school category, which includes backpacks, fundamental school supplies, binders, planners, writing instruments, and more. The aim was to understand how the costs of back-to-school essentials have shifted in 2023 in comparison to 2022.

Pricing of Back-to-School Products in 2023

Our analysis, spanning 1200 products across major retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, and Target reveals an average price surge of 9.8% in 2023 compared to the previous year.

This upward pricing trend can be attributed to retailers’ strategic efforts to guarantee product availability and uphold quality during a period of heightened demand. As the back-to-school season sparks a surge in shopping activity, retailers like Kroger, Amazon, and Walmart are likely adjusting prices strategically to align with the expenses incurred in securing adequate supplies, managing logistics, and meeting operational demands.

Kroger led the way with a 12.1% price hike, the most significant among the scrutinized retailers. It was followed by Amazon with an average increase of 10.5% and Target with 7.8%. Walmart remains the outlier, with the smallest price increases for back-to-school products in 2023.

Pricing across Categories and Subcategories

Among the various categories examined, backpacks have experienced the most pronounced escalation, with prices soaring by a substantial 25%. Within the top 10 highest priced backpacks we looked at, the most substantial price hikes were observed for brands like The North Face (44%) and Fjallraven (33%).

The Office Organization category also witnessed a significant price surge of 16.8%, attributed to subcategories like File Folders and Desk Accessories, which saw respective price hikes of 31.3% and 25.2%.

Categories like Memo Boards & Supplies (14.3%), Binders (12.5%), and Themebooks & Portfolios (12.4%) have likewise encountered notable price hikes. On the other end of the spectrum, Planners and Journals saw a modest rise of 4.4%, while Mailing and Shipping Supplies and Office Machine Accessories experienced comparatively lower price increases at 7% each.

Interestingly, while items like Journals and Writing Instruments maintain popularity year-round, Backpacks and Memo Boards are particularly sought after during the back-to-school season, contributing to more substantial price hikes in these categories.

On the other hand, consumers are consistently on the lookout for cost savings and deals from retailers, especially as they deal with inflationary pressures. In response, Kroger, Target, and Walmart have introduced back-to-school savings initiatives. For instance, Kroger is offering more than 250 items for less than $3 and some items for just $1, encompassing essentials such as paper, pencils, and glue sticks. Lower price increases across categories like journals and writing essentials could be attributed to these initiatives.

Brands with the Highest Price Increases across Categories

Across various back-to-school categories, some brands stand out with significant price increases. For instance, in the Office Organization category, Ubrands leads the pack with a substantial 38.30% surge, followed by Pendaflex at 30.80%. Meanwhile the Backpacks category sees Champion and Adidas recording significant price jumps of 29.6% and 23.6%, respectively.

Ubrands and Pentel from Basic School and Office Supplies Category also record high price increases at 22.70%, followed by Carolinapd from the Themebooks & Portfolios Category at 21.08%. 3M in Mailing in Shipping Supplies shows the lowest price increase at 6.80%.

Interestingly, the ever popular Writing Instruments category showcases BIC at the forefront, exhibiting the most notable price escalation of 13.2%. Expo trails closely at 11.6%, while Uniball demonstrates an 11.4% increase. Even Sharpie, a beloved writing brand, displays a modest price uptick of 9.3%.

The average price increments seen across brands mirror the overarching trend of increased costs throughout back-to-school categories.

Navigating the Competitive Pricing Landscape During the Back-To -School Season

Given the challenging pricing landscape during the back-to-school season, retailers would be wise to provide lower-cost alternatives alongside popular brand names. This allows parents to easily make substitutions while adhering to a school supplies list.

With our competitive pricing intelligence solution, retailers can confidently analyze and monitor their prices relative to competition, ensuring they maintain a leadership position in pricing within their desired set of products, while posturing for margins with other products.

To learn more about how we can help, reach out to us today!

September 11, 2023
Amazon India’s Pricing and Discounts on Prime Day 2023: A Deep Dive Analysis Across Leading Categories and Brands
Amazon’s India Prime Day 2023 shattered previous records with a peak of 22,190 orders received in a minute. An important aspect of Amazon’s India Prime Day was the benefits it offers to Prime Members. Thousands of sellers, brands, and bank partners collaborated to help Prime members save a staggering sum of over Rs. 300 Crores. The 2 day (July 15-16) event even witnessed strong growth in Prime membership, with 14% more members shopping than last year’s Prime Day event. 45,000+ new products were launched by over 400+ top Indian and global brands.

However, our analysis reveals that Amazon was able to make a huge splash despite adopting a relatively modest discounting strategy for the event.

Pricing and Discounts on Prime Day 2023

While Prime Day is Amazon’s showstopper, bringing huge benefits to partner brands and sellers, it’s interesting to also see how Flipkart responded to such a massive sale by its biggest competitor. Therefore, we leveraged our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to analyze the prices and discounts of Amazon and Flipkart across key product categories – Apparel, Home & Furniture, Consumer Electronics, and Health & Beauty – during Prime Day.

Since products on Amazon and other eCommerce websites are often sold at discounts even on normal days not linked to a sale event, we delved into the real value that Prime Day offers to shoppers by focusing on price reductions or additional discounts during the sale compared to the week before. As a result, our approach highlights the genuine benefits of the event for shoppers who count on lower prices during the sale.

Research Methodology

For our analysis, we tracked the prices of a large number of products across Amazon and Flipkart during Prime Day as well as the week prior to the event. The details of our sample are mentioned below:
- Number of SKUs: 85,000+
- Retailers: Amazon, Flipkart
- Categories: Apparel, Home & Furniture, Consumer Electronics, Health & Beauty
- Pre-event Analysis:10-14 July 2023
- Prime Day Analysis: 15-16 July 2023
Our Findings

Based on our analysis, Prime Day showcased relatively higher price reductions in the Health and Beauty category, offering an average additional discount of 5.3%. In comparison, the Apparel category had lower discounts at 4.90%, followed by the Home & Furniture category at 2.50% during the sale event.

The Consumer Electronics category, known for attractive prices during sale events, featured only 0.9% price reductions. This is due to the fact that the category was already being sold at a very high average discount of around 44.8% the week prior to Prime Day.

Below, we delve deeper into our analysis of each category to better understand how price reductions were distributed across key subcategories on Amazon. We also report on the degree to which Flipkart responded to Amazon’s pricing actions during the event.

Apparel

As Amazon grappled with heightened costs and reduced profit margins in apparel (like most other retailers), its average discount before Prime Day was already at 36.5%. Then, on Prime Day, Amazon’s apparel deals were tempered at around 4.9% average price reduction across 43.7% of its assortment.

Flipkart, on the other hand, offered only a modest additional discount of 1.8% across 17.7% of its Apparel assortment. It’s clear that while Flipkart took steps to compete against Amazon in this category, it was done to a lower extent on fewer products than Amazon.

Across all the apparel subcategories we analyzed, Men’s Shoes (11.6%), Women’s Shoes (9.5%), and Men’s Shirts (8.7%) were among the ones with the highest price reductions. On the other hand, Men’s and Women’s Swimwear (2.3%), Women’s Innerwear (2.9%), and Women’s Athleisure (3.3%) had conservative markdowns.

Pricing choices within different subcategories likely stemmed from a range of factors, such as inventory quantities, trends in demand, and the aim to harmonize competitive deals with the maintenance of viable profit margins. These decisions reflect Amazon’s attempt to cater to a consumer base that is particularly conscious of pricing.

Across all apparel subcategories, leading brands that offered the highest markdowns were Sweet Dreams (65.5%), Ketch (55.1%), Clarks (44.9%), and Kibo (38.4%). Meanwhile, Reebok and Adidas offered significant additional discounts at 26.3% and 24.9%, respectively, as well.

For brands, however, reducing prices is just one approach to entice shoppers. They must also guarantee their prominent presence and easy discoverability within Amazon’s search results. This significantly amplifies their potential to generate higher clicks and conversions. In our analysis, we monitored brands’ Share of Search across various frequently used search terms in addition to the discounts they provided. The Share of Search denotes the portion of a brand’s products within the top 20 search results for a specific search query.

Our data indicates that certain brands gained ground in their discoverability during Prime Day, while others fell behind. Van Heusen in Women’s Athleisure (30%), Campus in Men’s Shoes (50%), and Rovar’s (30%) in Women’s Swimwear among others, improved their Share of Search by significant levels during Prime Day.

On the other hand, brands like Sparkx in Men’s Shoes, Xyxx in Men’s Innerwear, WomanLikeU in Women’s Swimwear, and Adidas in Women’s Shoes lost around 40%-80% in their Share of Search during the event. This is likely to have impacted their sales volumes adversely.

Home & Furniture

The Home & Furniture industry faced challenges of reduced demand and overstocked inventory over the past year. Therefore, even before Prime Day, discounts offered in this category on Amazon averaged a staggering 45.3%. Consequently, on Amazon Prime Day, additional discounts averaged only 2.5% on Amazon, offered across 33.3% of its assortment. Flipkart opted, in effect, not to compete with Amazon in this category, offering a negligible additional discount of 0.8% across 14.70% of its assortment.

Of all the Home & Furniture subcategories we analyzed, Luggage (5.1%), Beds (3.9%), and Coffee Tables (3.1%) had high price reductions, while Rugs (0.6%), Bookcases (1.5%), and Washer/Dryers (1.2%) had lower markdowns. This highlights the difference in consumer preferences across geographies, with rugs being more discretionary in India but staple in the US.

The Home & Furniture category is not known for its brand loyalty among shoppers. Therefore, brands often rely on attractive pricing to gain shopper interest. This Prime Day, brands that offered the highest markdowns in this category include It Luggage (40%), Couch Culture (25.8%), Story@Home (23.3%), and Verage (21.2%).

In terms of Share of Search, Wudparadise in Entertainment Units gained the highest (50%). Solimo (an Amazon Brand) in Beds (40%), Sofas (30%), and Coffee Tables (10%) gained significant ground in its respective categories too. In contrast, About Space in Bookcases (-60%), Anika in Entertainment Units (-40%), and Sleepyhead in Mattresses (-40%) lost out on their discoverability in their respective categories during the event.

To gain a competitive edge during sale events like Prime Day, brands need to monitor their Share of Search closely, especially in categories like Home & Furniture with low brand loyalty.

Consumer Electronics

This Prime Day, five smartphones got sold every second with 70% of the demand coming from Tier 2 & 3 cities in India, largely comprising of foldable smartphones and newly launched smartphones (OnePlus Nord 3 5G, Samsung Galaxy M34 5G, Motorola Razr 40 Series, Realme Narzo 60 Series and iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G). Multiple new products were launched this Prime Day, by brands such as OnePlus, iQOO, Realme Narzo, Samsung, Motorola, boAt, Sony, and more in India.

Despite the high demand and new product launches, Amazon’s price reductions in the Consumer Electronics category averaged only 0.9% across 27% of its assortment. Similar to what we observed in the Home & Furniture category, this can be attributed to the prevailing high average discount of 44.8% the week prior to Prime Day. Essentially, in Consumer Electronics, shoppers needn’t always wait till sale events like Prime Day to view the most attractive deals. Several are offered even during the days leading up to the sale.

Across subcategories, Earbuds (2.4%), Wireless Headphones (1.6%), and TVs (1.3%) received the highest price reductions due to their popularity and high sales volumes during sales events. On the other hand, Smartwatches (0.6%), Drones (0.4%), and Smartphones (0.3%) had lower markdowns.

In terms of price reductions across brands, Da Capo (52.6%), Muzen (33.3%), JLab (23.6%), and Earboss (21.5%) offered the most attractive deals in the Consumer Electronics category. Notably, Amazon Basics also offered modestly attractive deals (12.2%), highlighting Amazon’s strategy of promoting in-house brands.

The Consumer Electronics category has a loyal shopper base, but generic search keywords like earbuds, headphones, and tablets remain essential for attracting high-intent shoppers and increasing brand awareness. So when it comes to Share of Search, Noise in Smartwatches, Samsung in Smartphones and Tablets, and HP in Laptops, all made strong strides in building their discoverability on Amazon during Prime Day.

Xiaomi in Laptops, Ekko in Earbuds, OnePlus in Smartphones and Apple in Tablets, lost out to other brands during the sale.

Health & Beauty

Health & Beauty emerged as the top-performing category in terms of additional discounts during Prime Day in India. Our data shows that Amazon offered an average additional discount of 5.3% on almost half of its products (46.8%) in this category. Competing head to head with Amazon in this category, Flipkart offered 5.5% additional discounts across 35.8% of its assortment.

Within all the subcategories we analyzed, Sunscreen (7.5%), Make-Up (7.2%), Shampoo (6.6%), and Moisturiser (6.4%) saw the highest price reductions on Amazon. Conversely, staple items like Toothpaste (3.%) and Beardcare (3.6%) had lower markdowns.

During the sale event, brands like Sadhev (43.4%), Clear (41.1%), Teenilicious (40.4%), and Coal Clean Beauty (38.4%), offered the most attractive deals.

In terms of significant gains in Share of Search for brands, L’Oreal Paris in Shampoo and Conditioner led the pack along with Oracura in Electric toothbrushes and The Formularx in Moisturiser. Perfora in Toothpastes and Ustraa in Beardcare also gained more than 10% in their Share of Search during the sale event.

Other popular brands like Tresemme in Conditioners, and Swiss Beauty in Make-Up surprisingly had reduced visibility among the top search results for relevant subcategories.

Navigating the Competitive Landscape: How To Thrive During Sale Events

Amazon’s strategic pricing during Prime Day reflects a balance of profitability, inventory, and competition. Competitive pricing insights empower retailers to make informed decisions, optimize strategies, and thrive during high-stakes events. Prime Day serves as a crucial opportunity to drive sales, attract new customers, and boost loyalty. Therefore, monitoring competitor prices accurately, at scale, is essential for impactful pricing strategies.

For more insights on staying ahead during sale events, reach out to us today!

If you’d like to learn about Amazon’s pricing and discounts during Prime Day 2023 in the US, check out our analysis here.
August 10, 2023
Amazon US Prime Day 2023: Insights on Pricing and Discounts Across Popular Categories and Brands
Amazon’s Prime Day this year proved to be a record-breaking success, becoming the largest Prime Day event in the company’s history. Over the two-day extravaganza, shoppers in the US spent a staggering $12.7 billion, a 6.1% increase from the previous year. Amid inflationary pressures and supply chain disruptions, Amazon adopted a bold discounting strategy, offering steeper discounts compared to Prime Day 2022.

An interesting aspect of Amazon’s approach is their loyalty based offerings. In the weeks leading to Prime Day on July 11-12, members of the loyalty program were given access to “invite-only deals” where shoppers could request invites to specific products that they were looking to purchase on deals. Overall, Amazon’s pricing and discount strategies during Prime Day were carefully designed to create a buzz among shoppers, generate increased sales, and maintain a competitive advantage in the market.

While Prime Day is Amazon’s showstopper, it’s interesting to also see how other leading retailers respond to such a massive sale by their biggest competitor. Do they also lower their prices during the event, or are they happy to take a backseat? To answer these questions, we leveraged our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to analyze the prices and discounts of Amazon and its leading competitors across key product categories – Apparel, Home & Furniture, Consumer Electronics, and Health & Beauty – during Prime Day.

Since products on Amazon and other eCommerce websites are often sold at discounts even on normal days not linked to a sale event, we delved into the real value that Prime Day offers to shoppers by focusing on price reductions or additional discounts during the sale compared to the week before. As a result, our approach highlights the genuine benefits of the event for shoppers who count on lower prices during the sale.

Research & Methodology

For our analysis, we tracked the prices of a large number of products across several leading retailers during Prime Day as well as the week prior to the event. The details of our sample are mentioned below:
- Number of SKUs: 110,000+
- Websites: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Overstock, The Home Depot, Wayfair, Ulta Beauty, Sephora
- Categories: Apparel, Home & Furniture, Electronics, Health & Beauty
- Pre-event Analysis: 4-10 July 2023
- Prime Day Analysis: 11-12 July 2023
Our Key Findings

Our data reveals that Amazon’s price reductions were most aggressive in the Consumer Electronics category, with an average price reduction of 10.4% on Prime Day, due to the category’s popularity and high demand.

The Health & Beauty (6.7%), Apparel (5.9%), and Home & Furniture (4.8%) categories offered relatively modest deals during the sale event.

Below, we delve deeper into our analysis of each category to better understand how price reductions were distributed across key subcategories on Amazon as well as the discounting strategies of Amazon’s leading competitors.

Apparel

As Amazon grappled with surplus inventory, heightened storage costs, and reduced profit margins in apparel (like most other retailers), its average discount before Prime Day was already as high as 13.3%. Then, on Prime Day, Amazon’s apparel deals were tempered at around 5.9% across an impressive 33.1% of its assortment, while Target and Walmart chose not to compete in a meaningful way.

Unlike Prime Day 2022, when Target competed with Amazon with high discounts, the retailer offered only 0.8% additional discount across 4.4% of its assortment in this category. Walmart, too, reduced its prices by only 1.4% on 8.5% of its assortment during Prime Day.

Check out our latest analysis on fashion pricing trends across 2022-23 to better understand the pricing dynamics in this category in greater detail.

Across all the apparel subcategories we analyzed, Women’s Athleisure (8.7%), Men’s Swimwear (8%), and Women’s Tops (7.6%) were among the ones with the highest price reductions. On the other hand, Men’s Athleisure (2.5%), Women’s Shoes (3.5%), and Men’s Innerwear (4.1%) had conservative markdowns.

Pricing decisions across the various subcategories are likely to have been influenced by several factors like inventory levels, demand patterns, and the need to balance competitive offers with maintaining reasonable profit margins, as Amazon tried to cater to a more price-sensitive consumer.

Across all apparel subcategories, leading brands that offered the highest markdowns were Tommy Hilfiger (11.5%), Amazon Essentials (9.4%), Adidas (8.6%), and Calvin Klein (8.6%).

For brands, however, lowering prices is only one lever to attract and convert shoppers. They also need to ensure they’re highly visible and discoverable on Amazon’s search listings. This exponentially improves their chances of driving more clicks and conversions. In our analysis, we tracked the Share of Search of brands across several popular search keywords. Share of Search for a brand is defined as the proportion of the brand’s products in the top 20 search results for a search query.

Our data indicates that several brands gained impressive ground in their discoverability during Prime Day, while others fell behind. Gildan in Men’s Innerwear, Adidas in Men’s and Women’s Shoes, Anrabess in Women’s Athleisure, and Lululemon in Men’s Athleisure, among others, improved their Share of Search by significant levels during Prime Day.

On the other hand, brands like Hanes in Men’s and Women’s Innerwear, Kanu Surf in Men’s Swimwear, Cupshe in Women’s Swimwear, and others lost around 10% in their Share of Search during the event. This is likely to have impacted their sales volumes adversely.

Home & Furniture

The Home & Furniture industry has been challenged with reduced demand due to inflationary pressures over the past year or so. Leading retailers in the category overestimated the demand, leading to overstocking of inventory. As a result, Home & Furniture is one of the few categories that saw Amazon’s competitors participate at a significant level on Prime Day in order to ensure they don’t fall behind on liquidating their stock.

Amazon’s additional discounts averaged 4.8% across 30.2% of its assortment. Wayfair and Overstock too reduced their prices by 4.8% and 4.3% on around 44% of their respective assortments. Wayfair’s move is likely a part of their strategy to attract new customers and expand their market share, in response to a decline in their consumer base. Last year, Wayfair experienced a loss of 5 million out of its 1.3 billion consumers due to weakening demand.

Target and Walmart did offer additional discounts, but they were not at a competitive level. The Home Depot effectively opted not to compete at all during the sale event. Overall, the pricing actions of these retailers are in stark contrast to the highly conservative pricing strategies observed on Prime Day last year.

Our recent pricing analysis of the Home & Furniture category revealed more interesting insights and pricing dynamics over the past year.

Across all the subcategories we analyzed, Bookcases (8.2%), Rugs (7.8%), Mattresses (6.5%), and Luggage (6.2%) were among the ones with high price reductions.

Meanwhile, Sofas (2.4%), Washer / Dryers (2.4%), and Entertainment Units (2.7%) had lower markdowns. These are large and substantial purchases, making retailers more cautious about deeply discounting them while still ensuring profitability.

The brands that stepped up and offered the highest markdowns in this category include Zinus (20.2%), Comfee (10.8%), Sauder (9.9%), and Best Choice Products (8.7%).

In terms of Share of Search, Rockland in Luggage gained the highest (21%), followed by Farberware in Dishwasher, Olee Sleep in Mattresses, and Homeguave in Mattresses gained significant ground in their respective categories as shown in the image below.

Brands like Best Choice Products in Coffee Tables, Molblly in Mattresses, and Black+Decker in Washer/Dryers and Dishwashers lost a good portion of their Share of Search during the event. Due to high competition for visibility during sale events, brands that fail to keep an eye on their Share of Search stand to take a hit in their sales, especially in categories like Home & Furniture that tend to have low brand loyalty.

Consumer Electronics

2023 was the year of consumer electronics on Amazon Prime Day. Amazon’s price reduction during the sale averaged 10.4% across 54.5% of its assortment in the category. Target and Walmart, on the other hand, offered significantly lower additional discounts of 1.9% and 2.7% on 10.4% and 19.1% of their assortment, respectively.

The consumer electronics category often witnesses aggressive price reductions during Prime Day and other sale events due to its popularity and high demand. In addition, since retailer margins are usually low in this category, shoppers often have to wait for sale events like Prime Day (when brands markdown their wholesale rates) to have several attractive deals to choose from.

Across all the subcategories we analyzed, Smartwatches (15.4%), Wireless Headphones (15.4%), Earbuds (14.9%), Headphones (12.5%), and Tablets (12.0%), were among the ones with the highest price reductions. All of these subcategories are quite popular that tend to sell in large volumes during sale events.

Meanwhile, Laptops (2.1%), TVs (3.1%), and Smartphones (7.6%) had lower markdowns. A lower markdown on smartphones may reflect steady demand throughout the year, reducing the urgency to offer significant discounts during the short Prime Day window.

Amazon (22%), Tozo (12.5%), Lenovo (10.8%), JBL (8.3%), and Apple (5%) offered the highest price reductions in Consumer Electronics as a whole. Clearly, Amazon didn’t hold back on offering attractive deals on its own private label products in this category.

Consumer Electronics as a category tends to have a brand loyal shopper base. However, Share of Search generic search keywords are still very important for keywords like earbuds, headphones, and tablets that result in relatively lower priced products. HP in Laptops, Samsung in Tablets and TVs, and Oneplus in Smartphones all made strong strides in building their discoverability on Amazon during Prime Day. Beyond just driving more sales, this also has the intended effect of boosting brand awareness among high-intent shoppers.

Sony in Headphones, Asus in Laptops, and Insignia in TVs lost out to other brands in terms of their discoverability during the sale. Sony and Asus, especially would be hurting as they are prominent brands in their respective categories.

Health & Beauty

The Health & Beauty category is a favorite among consumers during Prime Day, as it encompasses a wide range of products like skincare, cosmetics, and grooming items. As shoppers often tend to stock up during the sale, brands and retailers are willing to offer competitive discounts and gain an edge over their competitors.

Our data reveals that the average additional discount on Amazon was 6.7%, offered on a little over a third of its assortment. Walmart reduced its prices sizably as well, by an average of 3.1% on 13.4% of its assortment.

Interestingly, Sephora and Ulta Beauty, leading retailers in the Health & Beauty category did not compete on price at all this Prime Day. It is likely they are confident their loyal customer base will not be influenced by Amazon’s Prime Day deals and be driven away merely by lower prices. In addition, keeping their prices steady during Prime Day might have been a strategic choice to protect their brand reputation and premium positioning.

Relatively premium subcategories like Electric Toothbrushes (10%), Moisturizer (8.3%), Beardcare (7.3%), and Make Up (6.7%) saw the highest price reductions on Amazon.

In contrast, staple items like Toothpaste (3.7%), Shampoos (5.4%), and Conditioners (5.7%) had lower markdowns.

Among the leading brands in this category, Oral-B (10.3%), Philips Sonicare (8.7%), Neutrogena (8.4%), and Colgate (5.6%) offered the most attractive deals during the sale event.

In terms of significant gains in Share of Search for brands, Oral-B in Electric Toothbrushes led the pack again. Neutrogena in Sunscreens and Somall in Toothpastes also gained more than 10% in their Share of Search during the sale event, followed by Tresemme in Shampoos and Airspun in Make-Up products.

Other popular brands like Crest in Toothpastes, e.l.f in Make-Up, Philips Sonicare in Electric Toothbrushes, and Sheamoisture in Beradcare surprisingly had reduced visibility among the top search results for relevant subcategories.

Staying Ahead of the Curve During Sale Events

This Prime Day, Amazon leveraged its scale to offer aggressive discounts across key product categories, while several competing retailers chose to sit back and let the sale play out. Others chose a selective discounting strategy that focused their modest price reductions on a small set of items.

At DataWeave, we understand the pivotal role competitive pricing insights play in empowering retailers and brands to gain a competitive edge, especially during crucial events like Prime Day. For retailers, the ability to track competitor prices accurately, at scale, in a timely manner is essential to plotting and acting on impactful pricing strategies and staying ahead of the curve.

To learn more about how this can be done, reach out to us today!
July 24, 2023
Decoding the 2022 Black Friday Record Sales: The Who, The What, and The How?
Contrary to popular speculation of lukewarm online sales owing to the weak economy, high inflation, and stretched wallets, Black Friday this year recorded a whopping $9 billion in e-commerce sales. Despite the lull in online shopping across many retailers in the months preceding Thanksgiving and weakened consumer sentiment, US online merchants saw a sizable boost in sales during and after Thanksgiving, albeit at a slower growth of 2.3%, as reported by Adobe Analytics.

This article looks closely at the Black Friday data to understand which brands, retailers, and product categories were key players. Through DataWeave’s innovative Digital Shelf Analytics product, we deep dive into the availability, discount, and share-of-search data to deduce why some product categories and retailers fared better than others.

Who: Retailers and Brands that had the Highest Presence

Black Friday sales this year were driven by consumers grabbing the biggest and best deals to make the most of their already stretched wallets. Many shoppers opted for flexible payment schemes, and Buy Now Pay Later (BPNL) payments rose by 78% compared to the week before Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, Amazon, which was the most searched retailer during Black Friday last year, came only fourth this year, as reported by the Search Intelligence company, Captify.

According to Captify, Walmart was the most searched retailer for Black Friday deals, followed by Target, Kohls, and Amazon in that order. Amazon, however, has reported its biggest Thanksgiving sale this year, with independent retailers selling through Amazon seeing a total sales of $1 billion. With the economic slowdown and thin wallets looming large, discount rates greatly influenced consumer spending. Mobile shopping accounted for 55% of digital sales, 8.5% more than the previous year.

As told by Adobe, Electronics were the significant sales driver, reporting 221% higher sales than in October this year, with smart home items and audio equipment playing an important role with 271% and 230% higher sales. Toys ( popular purchases were Fortnite, Roblox, Bluey, Funko Pop!, and Disney Encanto) and exercise equipment also registered a substantial growth of 285% and 218%, respectively.

Other top-selling items included gaming consoles (Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 devices, games including FIFA 23, NBA 2k23, and Pokemon Scarlet & Violet), drones, Apple MacBooks, and Dyson products (airwrap and vacuum). Amazon’s most popular items were reported to be Apple Airpods, Nintendo Switches, Echo Dot smart speakers, and Fire TV sticks.

What: Top Selling Product Categories

Electronics, closely followed by home appliances (robotic vacuum cleaners), toys, and exercise equipment, were popular product categories in demand during Black Friday this year. Several retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Target, Kohls, BestBuy, and Home Depot, offered lucrative pre-Black Friday discounts to trigger early sales kick-off.

Amazon carried an early discount of 50% on its Echo smart speaker, Target offered 30% off on Dyson vacuum cleaners, Walmart offered 25-35% off on Apple ipads and watches, and Kohls offered 51% off on the iRobot Roomba.

Amazon’s top ten best-selling products ranged from Amazon devices like Echo Dot speakers, Fire TV sticks, and Echo Show to Apple AirPods, Nintendo Switches, New Balance sneakers, Champion Apparel, and Burt’s Bees Lotions. The popular product categories were home, fashion, toys, beauty & health, and Amazon devices. Consumers heavily supported small businesses, contributing to $1 billion in sales. Top sellers from small businesses included card and board games.

Briefly correlating the discounts offered with the best-selling product categories, one can notice that the deals have largely influenced Black Friday sales this year. Popular categories are those that have had deep discounts, reflecting the consumer’s tendency to wait and grab the best deals.

How: Role of Digital Shelf Analytics – Key Performance Indicators

DataWeave’s Analysis Methodology

We have seen a summary of the Black Friday 2022 statistics – sales recorded, top-selling products, product categories, and retailers. Using DataWeave’s e-commerce analytics product, we track and study the variations in digital shelf KPIs across retailers before Thanksgiving and during Thanksgiving to understand how these influence sales.

Availability scores, discount rates, and share of search data are analyzed for top retailers in the US for key product categories. Data is tracked and analyzed across two time periods – before Thanksgiving (Nov 10 – Nov 21) and during Thanksgiving (Nov 21 – Nov 25).

Methodology
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Best Buy, Sephora, Target, Ulta, Walmart
- Product Categories tracked: Electronics, Home Improvement, Beauty, Furniture
- Digital Shelf KPIs tracked: Availability, Discount rates, Share of Search
- Location: USA
Amazon maintained good availability across all product categories – Beauty ranks the highest.

Salient Insights
- Amazon maintained good overall availability – an improvement of 3% over Prime day.
- Beauty had the highest availability of 95%, with none and Lotion & Brushes reporting 97% and 95% availability, respectively. Shampoo reported the lowest availability at 92%
- Home Improvement had the least availability at 87%, with dishwashers (68%) and washers and dryers (78%) having the lowest availability.
- Unlike Furniture and Home Improvement, most categories maintained similar availability scores before and during Black Friday.
- Furniture improved its availability during Black Friday by 4%, while Home Improvement reported a decrease in availability during Black Friday by 4%.
- Electronics, which was a major sales driver, had an availability of > 90% across all sub-categories except for Television, which had a low availability of 70%
- Tables and chairs registered 99% availability under Furniture
The above data indicates that Amazon ensured the high availability of utility products that consumers would buy even during a slow economy. Other retailers showed similar availability trends, with scores being similar prior to and during the event.

Discounts Drove Sales – Best Buy offered the Highest Discounts

Highlights
- Best Buy offered the highest early Black Friday discount of 30%, followed by an additional 9% discount around Black Friday. Walmart followed next with 21% early discounts and an extra 4.5% discount during the event. Amazon came next with 17% early discounts and a 5% discount during Black Friday. Discount rates seem to strongly correlate with online searches, with Walmart beating Amazon this year as the most searched retailer for Black Friday deals.
- Electronics was the most discounted category across Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, with an average discount of 21%. Walmart gave lower deals on electronics (12%). Electronics also had heavy early discounts of 12%, with most retailers giving an additional discount of 7-8% closer to Thanksgiving.
- Best Buy offered early discounts of 10% and further upped their discounts by another 12% closer to Thanksgiving. Being the most discounted category, electronics was also a significant sales driver this Black Friday.
- Amazon offered the highest discounts for Beauty products (18%), followed by Ulta at 10% and Walmart at 8%. Sephora and Target gave minimal discounts on beauty products (3%)
- Best Buy gave the maximum discounts on Home Improvement products (16%), followed by Amazon at 14%. Walmart gave much lower discounts of 7% on Home Improvement products.
- Furniture is another category with 12-13% discounts at both Amazon and Walmart.
- Best Buy’s strategy this year has been to offer heavily discounted early deals to boost their sales.
Icons: Flaticons.com

Icons: Flaticons.com

Icons: Flaticons.com

Icons: Flaticons.com

Highlights
- Airpods and headphones were the most discounted item under Electronics, with Amazon and Target offering a whopping 27-29% discount. This clearly resulted in heavy sales of AirPods this Thanksgiving.
- Best Buy and Target had good discounts on all electronic items, while Amazon gave heavier discounts on AirPods, headphones, and smartwatches.
- Walmart did not offer hefty discounts on laptops and headphones, instead focused on Smartwatches, smartphones, and television.
- In Home improvement, Best Buy offered the biggest discounts for refrigerators, washers and dryers, and dishwashers, while Amazon focussed more on Tools.
- Walmart did not offer many discounts in this category.
- Amazon topped the discount charts for maximum combined discounts for makeup and hair brushes on the day of the event.
- All retailers offered better discounts for utility products like tables, chairs, and cots (~15-17%), while dressers and couches carried lower discounts (~6-10%).
Highlights
- Different companies had different discount strategies based on price buckets.
- Amazon gave heavier discounts in the lower price buckets (< 200$) and lower discounts for products priced higher than 200$.
- Best Buy offered the heaviest early discounts of >25% on products priced under 20$ but provided a few additional discounts during the event. For products priced higher than 20$, Best Buy uniformly offered substantial early discounts as well as further discounts during the event.
- On the other hand, Target focussed on mid and high-priced items, offering heavy early discounts of 16-18% on products priced higher than 100$ and early discounts of ~7% for middle and lower-priced items. For middle-priced products (40-100$), it offered heavier discounts of 10-12% during the event.
- Walmart focussed on mid-priced products, offering the highest discounts (both early (~12%) and additional discounts (5%)). It offered the least discounts (~8-9%) on products priced higher than 200$.
Share of Search – Amazon is the only retailer with sponsored searches; Apple AirPods rule the roost.

Salient Insights
- Amazon is the only retailer with sponsored searches, with HP, Lenovo laptops, and Apple AirPods occupying the highest share. This correlates with AirPods being one of the most sold products.
- HP laptops had the highest share on Amazon pre-Event but gave the spot to Lenovo during Thanksgiving.
- Tracphone and Motorola smartphones, Insignia Televisions, and JBL headphones had a good SoS on Amazon.
- On Best Buy, HP and Dell laptops featured most in searches, with HP ruling the roost during the event. Lenovo had a small presence.
- Samsung smartwatches, televisions, and Apple AirPods have a big chunk of the search at Best Buy.
- On Target, pop sockets, smartphones, Apple smartwatches, headphones, and AirPods have the most prominent presence. Apple was the most featured brand in this segment.
Note: The share of search percentage reported here is the average score across all subcategories (makeup, lotion, shampoo, hair dryers and hair brushes) of Beauty.

Salient Insights
- Amazon, Target, Sephora, and Ulta sold beauty products, with Amazon being the only retailer with sponsored products.
- Ogx, bs-mall, conair, hywestger were popular brands on Amazon, with interest-based ads occupying a substantial part of the search results, especially in Lotions (~40-50%)
- Tresemme, Scotch Brite, Revlon and Cerave were popular brands in Target
- Dyson products (brushes and hair dryers) are featured at Ulta’s top of the search, followed by Pureology shampoos.
- Sephora’s own collection of brushes featured prominently on their website both before and during the event, followed by Dyson and T3 brushes and hair dryers.
Note: The share of search percentage reported here is the average score across all subcategories (refrigerator, washers/dryers, dishwashers, tools and coolers) of Home Improvements.

Salient Insights
- In Amazon, Frigidaire and RCA had the highest SoS amongst Refrigerators, and LG occupied the highest share among washers and dryers, Coleman in Coolers, Dewalt in Tools, and Comfee in Dishwashers, both before and during Black Friday.
- In contrast, on Best Buy, Samsung had the highest share of SoS amongst Refrigerators, package deals were most prominent in washers and dryers, LG among dishwashers, ifixit in Tools, and Corsair in Coolers.
Note: The share of search percentage reported here is the average score across all subcategories (bed, chair, couch, dresser, and table) of Furniture.

Salient Insights
- Interest-based ads occupied the highest SoS on Amazon for Beds.
- Urban shop and Amazon basics were popular in Chairs, Lifestyle in Couches, WLive in Dressers both before and during the event.
- Vasagle was more popular during the event than Furrion in Tables, though the reverse was true prior to the event.
Summary & Key Takeaways

Black Friday this year was a pleasant surprise to Brands and Retailers, reporting much larger sales than predicted. After experiencing a slump in sales in the months leading up to Thanksgiving, e-commerce vendors have a reason to be optimistic about their holiday season sales forecasts.
- A record-breaking $9.2 Billion in online sales was reported by Adobe Analytics, a growth of 2.3 % compared to the previous year.
- Mobile shopping accounted for 55% of digital sales, a rise of 8.5% compared to last year.
- Retailers wooed customers through deep discounts (~30%) prior to Thanksgiving and around Black Friday. Heavily discounted items like Apple AirPods were the most popular.
- Thanks to inflation and stretched wallets, consumers were willing to spend but waited to grab the best and biggest deals. Utility products had better sales.
- With tough competition between retailers on who offers the best discounts, Amazon slid down to the fourth position, and Walmart was the most searched retailer.
DataWeave, through its Digital Shelf Analytics and Commerce Intelligence solutions, gleans useful insights from e-commerce data and breaks down trends during global shopping events like Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. If you are a brand or a retailer who would like to know more about our products and solutions, contact us at contact@dataweave.com.
December 14, 2022
Critical Features of an Effective Price Intelligence Tool For Retailers

In the age of a mature eCommerce and omni-channel retail ecosystem, pricing is the premier competitive battleground. It’s both the biggest offensive weapon to capture market share – and the biggest vulnerability if you stumble. In fact, a recent Statista survey revealed that 70% of US online users prioritize competitive pricing in their digital shopping choices. Yet most retailers still struggle with consistent, profitable pricing often replying on instincts rather than data-led intelligence.

That’s where Pricing Intelligence (PI) comes in. PI is a fast-evolving discipline powering data-driven, continually optimized pricing strategies to help merchants make rapid, surgical adjustments that attract customers and protect margins. Most retailers are aware of Pricing Intelligence tools, but they miss out on getting one that serves their needs and proves its ROI consistently.

Because of course, not all pricing intelligence solutions are created equal. Here’s top features retailers looking to invest in a Pricing Intelligence tool should look out for.

1. Accurate Product Matching

Of course, accurate pricing data is table stakes for any PI solution – The core premise of any pricing intelligence tool is enabling robust product tracking and price monitoring of your own catalog against the competition.

So, a PI tool must take care of matching each of your product across all other sources, so that you can make a straightforward comparison and take actions.

But since the internet is not a one standard entity and even the same or similar products can have different titles, descriptions, specs and images, most retailers end up capturing incomplete or inaccurate data completely undermining their intelligence. A good Pricing Intelligence tool like DataWeave’s should be able to leverage Similarity Matching and AI-based image tracking to bring more products under product matches and present a more complete picture.

2. Width of pricing types and factoring in real net effective prices

Product accuracy must extend far beyond just basic “landed” or “street” pricing and cover more types of specialized pricing situations. A robust pricing intelligence tool should automatically detect and handle nuanced mechanics like:

– Bundled/kit/packaged pricing

– Pricing regulated by manufacturer policies (MSRP, MAP, etc.)

– Complex promotional structures (% off, BOGO, BXGX, etc.)

– Inventory-level or stocking threshold-based pricing

– Zonal/regional taxes, fees and price variations

– Segment-based pricing for members, loyalty tiers, etc.

– Pricing tiers or breaks based on volume/purchase quantities

Properly capturing and classifying these additional pricing nuances by retail vertical is key. Otherwise you’ll have major blind spots and inaccuracies that leave you open to being undercut or overpriced compared to real-world market dynamics.

3. Real-Time, Continuous Monitoring and High Data Update Frequency

Data points like product prices and offers get stale fairly quickly. Ideally, we want to see real time data. Real time is not achievable at scale, or might even be an overkill in many cases.

However, an effective PI tool must present up-to-date data to the extent possible. Based on requirement this can vary from a day to a few hours thus helping the business stay ahead of the price curve.

4. Scalable Coverage and Contextual Enrichment For Full Product Information

For many retailers, one of the biggest pricing intelligence challenges is scaling comprehensive, accurate monitoring across their full product catalog and relevant competitor ecosystem. This is especially true for those operating regionally or with multiple banners/brands.

You need robust data collection capabilities to ingest and process pricing data on everything from big box retailers and national sellers all the way down to small mom-and-pop shops that may only sell locally – but could still impact your pricing perception.

A best-in-class PI solution should have the ability to dynamically monitor millions of products and tens of thousands of competitor sources globally, processing all those inputs in a normalized, unified way. Additionally, your PI solution needs to be flexible to adapt seasonal or special requirements – whether that involves tracking key value items more frequently, or getting updates on pricing changes during festive seasons.

But beyond just raw data collection scale, leading PI solutions also enrich and add context around that pricing data to make it far more actionable through technologies like:

– Machine learning models to extract intelligent insights

– Semantic processing to identify nuanced pricing mechanics

– Competitive product knowledge graphs to map relationships

– Location data appending for geographic/zonal context

This enrichment bridges the gap between simple “list prices” and real-world factors like localized promotions, inventory levels, demand elasticity and other variables that should be driving more nuanced, profitable pricing decisions.

5. Pricing Opportunities

A good PI tool should present data at different levels of granularity: category, sub-category, brand, and individual product. This helps the category/merchandizing team or the pricing analysts to surgically strike problem areas. For instance, when you are tracking 1000s or even 100s of products, it’s next to impossible to go over every product and take pricing decisions.

Furthermore, with large, diverse product catalogs, it’s impossible for category managers to manually monitor pricing on every SKU. Your pricing intelligence tool must automatically analyze and highlight prioritized pricing opportunities where action is needed – enabling efficient pricing decisions at a glance.

6. Historical Pricing

“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” But they also say, history can be a useful predictor of the future. Nowhere is it truer than in competitive price intelligence.

An analysis of historical data almost always shows a trend that can be capitalized on for competitive pricing. A good PI tool stores and presents historical pricing data in a useful manner.

7. “It’s not [just] about the money”

Retail is a highly competitive and commoditized sector. So, price is an important factor for a consumer when making a decision to buy a product. Having said that, as a retailer, you don’t always want to compete on pricing.

You may want to compete through better packaging, or giving the user more choice (variants/colours/sizes), or better SLAs. This is where a Price Intelligence tool needs to go beyond just pricing. It needs to capture and present all other relevant data points associated with a product.

8. Uncluttered User Experience

Any tool built for a user needs to be usable, intuitive, and uncluttered. More so for busy managers who need to take several decisions quickly day on day. A Price Intelligence tool is in essence a Data Product. A data product is built on top of a lot of data; however, a good data product is one “where data recedes to the background”.

A data product is not one that delivers a lot of data, but one that delivers actionable data and insights based on data. Data presentation is also another important aspect. A good PI tool delivers the most important data points in formats and templates that a customer can easily consume.

DataWeave provides Competitive Intelligence for retailers, brands, and manufacturers. It is built on top of huge amounts of products data to provide features such as: pricing opportunities (and changes), assortment intelligence, gaps in catalogs, reporting and analytics, and tracking promotions, and product launches.

DataWeave is powered by distributed data crawling and processing engines that enables serving millions of data points around products data refreshed on a daily basis. This data is presented through dashboards, notifications, and reports. PriceWeave brings the ability to use BigData in compelling ways to retailers.

PriceWeave lets you track any number of products across any categories against your competitors. Still not convinced? Try us out. Just send us a request for a demo.

March 31, 2022
Fake Reviews: A Real Pain Point for Brands
Online reviews have revolutionized how customers purchase products and services. In fact, eCommerce success for certain products hinges on the ratings and reviews. With this, have come the pitfalls of corruption in eCommerce.

New brands trying to establish a presence and capture critical mass have been known to resort to soliciting fake and paid reviews to uplift their brand in search rankings. Similarly, these brands can also encourage fake negative reviews on competitor’s listings to bring down their value. Bots and paid manual reviews are usually employed to rake up the review count. Review sites like TrustPilot, Google Reviews, and marketplaces like Amazon are littered with fraudulent reviews. In fact, Guardian calculated that 3.6% of all reviews on TripAdvisor were fraudulent. According to a 2021 report by Statista, 46% of the 2.7 million online fake reviews that were removed were five-star reviews!

Fake online reviews are misleading since customers shopping both online and offline rely on reviews to make purchase decisions. Fake reviews also pose further problems because they deceive consumers into spending money on a product or with a company they may not have otherwise chosen.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) made a recent announcement to send penalties to over 700 brands and retailers for fake endorsements and reviews. While this notice references influencer content and testimonials, it also applies to customer reviews.

In this blog, we will discuss the importance of reviews for brands and retailers, spotting fake reviews on Amazon, and steps that eCommerce companies can take to tackle fake reviews.

Importance of reviews for Brands and Retailers

Customers do not make blind purchases. Consumers read reviews before buying products. Statistics show that irrespective of the industry, having a positive online presence is essential and has become an integral part of branding. It also indicates that customers have a high confidence level in fellow consumers’ opinions. Overall, positive online ratings & reviews can help skyrocket eCommerce sales.

Customers are more likely to purchase if other customers, even strangers, agree that it was a great purchase. Reviews also make brands more visible.

Why are fake online reviews so resilient?

A significant reason is that the ROI of getting fake reviews increases profitability & sales multifold. For example, an extra star on Yelp can increase a restaurant’s revenue by 5% to 9%. FTC has said that the expenditure on fake reviews can provide a 20x return. However, fake and incentivized reviews are a huge problem. Amazon, one of the largest eCommerce marketplaces, banned incentivized reviews in 2016. It took down suspicious reviews and has taken legal action against sellers who violate its policies.

Online Reviews

How to Spot a Fake Review on Amazon

Marketplaces, Google, and review sites like Yelp can get hundreds of thousands of reviews daily. In a survey by PCMag that interviewed 1,000 US shoppers who looked forward to shopping on Prime Day 2020, only 16% were very confident about detecting fake Amazon product reviews, and 24% were confident they could do it. The rest of the survey respondents were somewhat or not confident they could pick out the fakes on Amazon. Here are our best tips for spotting fake reviews on marketplaces like Amazon:
- Duplicate Content: If you notice dozens of reviews with the same description and title as if they were copied and pasted multiple times, they’re most likely fake reviews.
- Multiple Reviews on the Same Day: Another identification of fake reviews is when there are dozens or multiple reviews on a single day. There can be a bunch of both positive and negative reviews for products.
- Unverified or Anonymous Reviewers: You can see if the review is from a verified buyer on Amazon. Brands can also check if they have any record of the reviewer’s purchase to weed out fake reviews.
- Incorrect Language: Fake reviews can come from people outside your country. If you notice multiple reviews with similar incorrect words and common errors, there is a good chance those reviews are fake, and someone paid the reviewer to write them.
What can eCommerce brands do to protect themselves against fake reviews?
- Follow a zero-tolerance policy for fake reviews.
The major step is to ensure that fake reviews are never posted on your site. Allowing fake reviews negatively affects your business and your bottom line. You can hire a third-party UGC moderator that uses data-driven, anti-fraud methods to evaluate reviews. It will be a much more successful and quicker step in protecting your brand’s reputation.
- Don’t screen out negative reviews.
While receiving a negative review might be the worst nightmare, they’re necessary for a successful UGC program. Customers are more likely to purchase from a business that responds to all reviews, including negative reviews. Customers said that negative reviews have more detailed product information, while 32% of those customers think they’re less likely to be fake. Besides, brands that respond to negative reviews gain customers’ trust and loyalty.
Here are some Tips on how to Respond to Negative reviews online.
- Be transparent about how you collect UGC.
Brands can ensure that their customers trust user-generated content by being honest about how they collected it. Companies should never ask for paid or incentivized positive reviews. Instead, brands should empower their customers to leave honest feedback. If you’re offering free products, a chance to win something, or discount coupons in exchange for an unbiased review, then the review should specify how it was collected. For example, you can add indicators like “this reviewer received a coupon or a free product in exchange for honest feedback.
- Maintain trust
Having fake reviews causes a loss of trust, with many consumers believing that they have seen fake reviews for online and offline businesses. Removing fake reviews doesn’t only help with revenue and brand trust, but it also helps brands to maintain trust among their existing and future customers.

Conclusion

Fake reviews are one of the biggest reputation killers and a huge problem for eCommerce platforms, brands, and customers. Brands must take the necessary steps to minimize the risk of fake reviews and expand businesses among authentic users. Although modern text generation tools are becoming more competent in writing realistic reviews, there are AI- and ML-backed tools that can accurately detect reviews written by other machines.

Need help tracking your online ratings & reviews? Or decoding customer sentiment from reviews they’ve left for your products? DataWeave offers a customizable and scaleable data solution to analyse ratings and reviews for online retailers and brands vis v vis their competitors.
Sign up for a demo with our team to know how DataWeave can help.
March 27, 2022
Amazon Prime Day 2021 Discounts Set Home Leaders Apart

Home is where the shopping cart is.

After last year’s blistering pace of e-commerce sales growth in the home category, we at DataWeave wanted to know how Prime Day 2021 discounts on home products would impact retailers and brands around the world.

We focused our analysis on how international retailers adapted their Prime Day pricing strategies to distinguish their offerings across eight home subcategories, including bed & bath, kitchen and pet supplies.

Our Methodology
We tracked the pricing of products among 21 leading retailers in nine countries across five regions, including:

• The US (Ace Hardware, Amazon US, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Petco, PetSmart, Target and Wayfair US)
• The UK (Amazon UK, Ebay, Etsy, OnBuy and Wayfair UK)
• Europe (Amazon France, Amazon Germany and Amazon Italy)
• The Middle East (Amazon Saudi Arabia and Amazon UAE)
• Asia (Amazon Japan and Amazon Singapore)

The results showed some surprising differences among retailers and regions. See how retailers used pricing as a competitive strategy to win Prime Day sales in the home category, as well as international home brands that stood out for the discounts on their products.

Percentage of items with a price decrease

The US retailer with the overall highest percentage of home products with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon US (26.4%).

Home subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per US retailer were:

• Ace Hardware: Power & hand tools (21.2%)
• Amazon US: Furniture (36.3%), appliances (34.1%) and kitchen (28.3%)
• Best Buy: Appliances (0.9%)
• Home Depot: Power & hand tools (0.2%)
• Lowe’s: Furniture (29.2%), power & hand tools (5.5%) and appliances (4.1%)
• Petco: Pet supplies (11.6%)
• Target: Bed & bath (37.9%), furniture (32.5%) and kitchen (11.5%)
• Wayfair US: Pet supplies (31.9%), home & garden (25.6%) and bed & bath (24.8%)

The UK retailer with the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon UK (36.4%).

Home subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Appliances (41.7%), power & hand tools (39.5%) and furniture (36.4%)
• Ebay: Smart home (10.5%), bed & bath (10.1%) and furniture (8.3%)
• Etsy: Bed & bath (1.7%), kitchen and pet supplies (both 1.5%)
• Wayfair UK: Kitchen (17.7%), bed & bath (10.8%) and home & garden (5.9)

In Europe, Amazon Germany had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (27.3%).

Home subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Appliances (15.9%), power & hand tools (15.8%) and furniture (14.2%)
• Amazon Germany: Power & hand tools (40.0%), appliances (33.7%) and pet supplies (28.4%)
• Amazon Italy: Furniture (11.8%)

Across the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (41.6%).

Home subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Power & hand tools (53.8%), pet supplies (33.3%) and appliances (30.4%)
• Amazon UAE: Appliances (55.8%), kitchen (49.9%) and pet supplies (49.0%)
• Amazon Japan: Appliances (15.3%), power & hand tools (10.8%) and furniture (9.0%)
• Amazon Singapore: Bed & bath (35.4%), appliances (30.2%) and power & hand tools (27.2%)

Magnitude of price decrease

The US retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was Target (20.3%).

The home subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per US retailer were:

• Ace Hardware: Power & hand tools (14.3%)
• Amazon US: Kitchen (21.0%), appliances and pet supplies (both 18.3%) and furniture (15.1%)
• Best Buy: Appliances (8.7%)
• Home Depot: Power & hand tools (17.7%)
• Lowe’s: Power & hand tools (13.4%), furniture (13.0%) and appliances (10.8%)
• Petco: Pet supplies (17.2%)
• Target: Bed & bath (28.9%), smart home and kitchen (both 19.1%) and furniture (18.5%)
• Wayfair US: Pet supplies (4.6%), kitchen (4.4%) and bed & bath (4.1%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per US retailer included:

• Ace Hardware: Zircon (48.6%), Smith\u0027s (36.1%) and DMT (30.0%)
• Amazon US: Supply Guru (56.3%), Seresto (55.4%) and Advantage (53.4%)
• Best Buy: Panasonic (29.1%), Farberware (16.6%) and Insignia™ (14.0%)
• Home Depot: Husky (17.7%)
• Lowe’s: Metabo HPT (43.2%), Dewalt (27.8%) and GZMR (26.5%)
• Petco: Seresto (50.0%), Open Road Brands (45.4%) and Starmark (42.1%)
• Target: Little Tikes (50.0%), Bobsweep (43.9%) and Shark (42.2%)
• Wayfair US: Sorbus (57.8%), GE Appliances (45.9%) and Nu Steel (42.1%)

The UK retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was Etsy UK (19.8%).

The home subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Furniture (21.8%), power & hand tools (21.5%) and appliances (20.8%)
• Ebay: Pet supplies (12.2%), appliances and furniture (both 12.0%) and bed & bath (10.0%)
• Etsy: Pet supplies (44.3%), kitchen (18.1%) and bed & bath (14.2%)
• Wayfair UK: Home & garden (12.2%), bed & bath (9.2%) and furniture (8.9%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases across home sub-categories per UK retailer included:

• Amazon UK: Tefal (54.0%), Caterpack (51.6%) and Nylabone (49.9%)
• Ebay: Bob Martin (59.8%), Fridgemaster (57.5%) and Tetramin (49.3%)
• Etsy: Celebnails and vitrifiedstudio (both 49.5%), Deco-Den UK Supplies (46.5%) and Caxo Beauty (36.9%)
• Wayfair UK: Breakwater Bay (41.1%), Zipcode Design (33.3%) and Heritage Brass (29.7

Among European retailers, Amazon Italy offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day (29.9%) among a total of 49 products.

The home subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Bed & bath (11.7%), pet supplies (11.2%) and appliance (9.2%)
• Amazon Germany: Kitchen (23.4%), power & hand tools (22.3%) and furniture (20.2%)
• Amazon Italy: Furniture (29.9%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per European retailer included:

• Amazon France: Thermobaby (47.6%), Sinogoods (44.6%) and Tractive (40.0%)
• Amazon Germany: Sage Appliances (56.5%), Nasum (51.7%) and Hikenture (49.2%)
• Amazon Italy: Gifort (55.1%) and Wokkol (4.8%)

Across the Middle East and Asia, Amazon UAE offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day (15.3%).

The home subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Furniture (18.0%), pet supplies (15.9%) and power & hand tools (15.8%)
• Amazon UAE: Pet supplies (17.8%), appliances (16.4%) and kitchen (16.2%)
• Amazon Japan: Kitchen (25.4%), furniture (14.5%) and bed & bath (13.6%)
• Amazon Singapore: Kitchen (14.0%), furniture (11.1%) and appliances (8.0%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per retailer in the Middle East and Asia included:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: American Baby Company (55.5%), Charmcollection (49.0%) and LG (46.9%)
• Amazon UAE: Knorr (54.0%), Ocean Patio (50.0%) and Bikuul (48.2%)
• Amazon Japan: キングジム (King Jim) (59.1%), Skylight (52.0%) and Cozyone, Hbada and Bauhutte (バウヒュッテ) (all 50.0%)
• Amazon Singapore: Trademark Home (59.8%), Gaggia (54.5%) and Ely’s & Co. (46.8%)

Discounts before, during and after the event

The US retailer with the biggest overall home discount before Prime Day was Amazon US (27.0%). Amazon’s biggest pre-event discounts were on power & hand tools (28.6%), kitchen (28.3%) and furniture (28.0%).

Ace Hardware offered the biggest discounts on power & hand tools during and after the event (both 34.1%).

Amazon UK stood out for discounts this Prime Day. It was the UK retailer with the biggest overall home discount before (26.1%) Prime Day, with the deepest discounts on appliances (29.0%), power & hand tools (27.1%) and pet supplies (25.9%).

During Prime Day, Etsy and Amazon UK offered the biggest discounts (29.7% and 29.6%, respectively).
Etsy’s top discounts were on pet supplies (40.0%), kitchen (32.5%) and bed & bath (28.1%), while Amazon UK’s top discounts were on power & hand tools (32.3%), appliances (31.4%) and pet supplies (28.9%).

After the event, Etsy had the biggest discount (29.8%), led by kitchen (34.3%), pet supplies (32.9%) and bed & bath (28.9%).

In Europe, Amazon Italy offered the biggest overall home discount before (31.6%) and during (29.4%) Prime Day. Amazon France offered the biggest discount after (21.4%) Prime Day.

In the pre-sales event, Amazon Italy gave the most generous discounts on pet supplies (31.6%) and appliances (9.3%).

During Prime Day, Amazon Italy offered the biggest discounts on pet supplies (31.6%), furniture (28.3%) and appliances (9.3%).

After Prime Day, Amazon France offered the biggest discounts on kitchen (24.6%), appliances (22.9%) and pet supplies (21.4%).

Popularity

In the US, among home products with high popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (26.8%) and Target offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (23.6%).

For home items with moderate popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (26.9%) and Target offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (18.9%).

Among home merchandise with low popularity, Amazon US offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (23.8%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (15.9%).

Amazon UK stood out in this analysis of product popularity. In the UK, among home products with high popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (37.1%) and Etsy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (20.9%).

For home items with medium popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (35.9%) and Etsy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (24.4%).

Among home merchandise with low popularity, Amazon UK offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (34.9%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (21.7%).

In Europe, Amazon Germany stood out for discounts for home products across all levels of popularity.

Among home goods with high popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (29.1%) and the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (19.1%).

For home items with medium popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (28.4%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (19.8%).

Among home merchandise with low popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (22.5%) and Amazon Italy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (55.1%) related to a product count of 9.

In Middle East & Asia, among home items with high popularity, Amazon Singapore offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (35.6%) and Amazon Saudi Arabia had the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (19.4%).

For home products with medium popularity, Amazon UAE offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (47.5%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (16.0%).

Among home goods with low popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (43.3%) and Amazon Japan had the greatest magnitude of price decrease (15.5%).

Prime Day 2021 hit a global home run

Overall, Prime Day 2021 offered consumers many generous deals on home products across every region.

According to our analysis, the retailers whose Prime Day pricing stood the most were Amazon US and Target in the US, Amazon UK and Etsy in the UK, Amazon Germany and Amazon Italy in Europe, Amazon UAE in the Middle East and Amazon Japan in Asia.

Check out our Prime Day 2021 pricing insights across other categories, including health & beauty, fashion and electronics.

July 30, 2021
Prime Day 2021’s Best Fashion Discounts Around the World

Consumers are moving beyond yoga pants. After a long year of pandemic lockdowns and the casual comfort of a homebody lifestyle, shoppers are giving their wardrobes a makeover. During this year’s Prime Day sales event, retailers around the world were well prepared for fashion shoppers’ enthusiasm for a fresh look.

That’s why we at DataWeave wanted to know how Prime Day 2021 discounts played a role in fashion marketing. We focused our analysis on how global retailers adapted their Prime Day pricing strategies to distinguish their offerings across seven fashion subcategories, including men’s and women’s shoes, and clothing & accessories.

Our Methodology
We tracked the pricing of products among 16 leading retailers in nine countries across five regions, including:

• The US (Amazon US, Nordstrom, Target, Walmart and Zappos)
• The UK (Amazon UK, Ebay, Etsy and OnBuy)
• Europe (Amazon France, Amazon Germany and Amazon Italy)
• The Middle East (Amazon Saudi Arabia and Amazon UAE)
• Asia (Amazon Japan and Amazon Singapore)

This year’s results showed some impressive discounts among retailers and across regions. Let’s see how retailers used pricing as a competitive strategy to win Prime Day sales in the fashion category, as well as international fashion brands that stood out for the generous discounts on their products.

Percentage of items with a price decrease

The US retailer with the overall highest percentage of fashion products with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon US (34.5%).

Fashion subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per US retailer were:

• Amazon US: Watches (43.1%), men’s clothing & accessories (34.0%) and men’s shoes and women’s shoes (both 32.8%)
• Nordstrom: Men’s clothing & accessories (5.2%), women’s shoes (2.1%) and women’s clothing & accessories (1.5%)
• Target: Women’s shoes (28.3%), men’s shoes (13.0%) and women’s clothing & accessories (7.2%)
• Walmart: Watches (6.8%), women’s clothing & accessories (6.4%) and men’s shoes (4.2%)
• Zappos: Women’s shoes (28.2%), men’s clothing & accessories (13.6%) and men’s shoes (6.5%

By far, the UK retailer with the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon UK (30.7%).

Fashion subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Women’s shoes (38.5%), watches (33.5%) and men’s shoes (25.0%)
• Ebay: Men’s shoes (7.6%), women’s clothing & accessories (6.0%) and women’s shoes (5.5%)
• Etsy: Jewellery & accessories (4.7%), men’s clothing & accessories (4.3%) and women’s clothing & accessories (2.4%)

In Europe, Amazon Germany had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (35.0%).

Fashion subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Women’s clothing & accessories (27.6%), watches (24.2%) and men’s shoes (19.4%)
• Amazon Germany: Women’s shoes (38.7%), watches (37.6%) and men’s shoes (36.7%)

Across the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE had the overall highest percentage of fashion items with a price decrease for Prime Day (49.1%).

Fashion subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Men’s clothing & accessories (54.0%), watches (52.0%) and men’s shoes (47.0%)
• Amazon UAE: Watches (55.8%), men’s clothing & accessories (54.3%) and men’s shoes (51.0%)
• Amazon Japan: Women’s clothing & accessories (17.5%) and men’s clothing & accessories (2.6%)
• Amazon Singapore: Women’s clothing & accessories (50.0%), men’s shoes (44.8%) and women’s shoes (40.9%)

Magnitude of price decrease

The US retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was Nordstrom (29.3%).

The fashion subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per US retailer were:

• Amazon US: Women’s clothing & accessories (16.3%), watches (14.6%) and men’s clothing & accessories (14.3%)
• Nordstrom: Women’s clothing & accessories (35.0%), women’s shoes (29.3%) and men’s clothing & accessories (28.4%)
• Target: Men’s clothing & accessories (21.9%), women’s clothing & accessories (19.3%) and women’s shoes (18.6%)
• Walmart: Men’s clothing & accessories (23.5%), women’s shoes (16.7%) and women’s clothing & accessories (11.5%)
• Zappos: Women’s clothing & accessories (11.9%), men’s clothing & accessories (10.6%) and women’s shoes (6.6%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases on fashions per US retailer included:

• Amazon US: Free Soldier (57.3%), Rockport (52.0%) and Alvaq (48.9%)
• Nordstrom: Little Words Project (60.0%), Robert Barakett and Nordstrom (50.0%) and Bonobos (49.1%)
• Target: Cowboy Bebop, Avatar: The Last Airbender, YuYu Hakusho, Dragon Ball Z and Naruto (all 40.0%)
• Walmart: Tredsafe (42.2%), C. Wonder and Crocs (both 30.0%) and Deer Stags (26.1%)
• Zappos: Volcom (25.9%), O’Neill (20.8%) and Bandolino (20.5%)

In the UK, Ebay and Etsy tied for the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on fashion products for Prime Day (both 14.7%).

The fashion subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Women’s shoes (27.9%), men’s shoes (27.5%) and men’s clothing & accessories (18.2%)
• Ebay: Men’s clothing & accessories (19.1%), men’s shoes (17.7%) and watches (17.6%)
• Etsy: Women’s shoes (30.2%), men’s shoes (17.1%) and jewellery & accessories (16.3%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases across fashion sub-categories per UK retailer included:

• Amazon UK: Invicta (43.9%), Boss (42.7%) and Accurist (41.2%)
• Ebay: Dickies (55.6%), Havaianas (55.0%) and Branded (46.7%)
• Etsy: Mirugb (50.0%), LilisLeatherShop (41.6%) and OnaieShop (40.0%)

Among European retailers, Amazon Germany offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on fashion products for Prime Day (16.1%).

The fashion subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Women’s shoes (22.4%), men’s clothing & accessories (12.1%) and watches (9.1%)
• Amazon Germany: Women’s clothing & accessories (17.7%), watches (17.3%) and men’s clothing & accessories (15.0%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per European retailer included:

• Amazon France: Converse (58.3%), Alsino (43.2%) and Scuderia Ferrari (35.6%)
• Amazon Germany: Truth & Fable Damen Kleider (59.6%), Victorinox (59.5%) and Sockenkauf24 (56.7%)

Across the Middle East and Asia, Amazon Japan offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on fashion products for Prime Day (18.4%).

The fashion subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Men’s clothing & accessories (20.3%), men’s shoes (18.4%) and women’s shoes (16.7%)
• Amazon UAE: Men’s shoes (20.5%), men’s clothing & accessories (19.0%) and women’s shoes (18.9%)
• Amazon Japan: Men’s clothing & accessories (23.7%) and women’s clothing & accessories (18.0%)
• Amazon Singapore: Women’s shoes (12.2%), watches (7.6%) and men’s shoes (5.0%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per retailer in the Middle East and Asia included:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Dorina (48.7%), Cole Haan (40.2%) and Boss (39.7%)
• Amazon UAE: Aldo (53.2%), Mvmt (51.4%) and Inkast Denim Co. (39.4%)
• Amazon Japan: Face Trick Glasses (30.2%), モアプレッシャー (More Pressure) (23.7%) and
アツギ (Atsugi) (21.7%)
• Amazon Singapore: Bloch (49.0%), Adidas (38.5%) and Chums (31.4%)

Discounts before, during and after the event

Nordstrom was the US retailer with the biggest overall fashion discount before (39.0%), during (40.5%) and after (41.2%) Prime Day.

Nordstrom’s biggest pre-event discounts were on women’s shoes (44.2%), women’s clothing & accessories (36.6%) and men’s clothing & accessories (36.1%).

Women’s shoes (43.1%), men’s shoes (42.6%) and men’s clothing & accessories (39.5%) were the leading subcategories for Nordstrom’s discounts during Prime Day.

After the event, Nordstrom’s biggest discounts were for women’s shoes (42.5%), men’s shoes (42.2%) and men’s clothing & accessories (41.5%).

In the UK, Ebay offered the highest discounts before (43.7%), during (42.1%) and after (42.3%) Prime Day.

Before Prime Day, Ebay biggest discounts were on men’s clothing & accessories (47.9%), men’s shoes (43.9%) and watches (43.3%).

Ebay’s top discounts during Prime Day were on men’s clothing & accessories (45.3%), men’s shoes (44.6%) and women’s shoes (39.5%).

After the event, Ebay had the biggest discounts on men’s clothing & accessories (45.6%), women’s shoes (42.9%) and men’s shoes (41.9%).

In Europe, Amazon Germany dominated with the biggest overall fashion discounts before (27.1%), during (31.8%) and after (26.5%) Prime Day.

In the pre-sales event, Amazon Germany offered its most generous discounts on watches (27.5%), women’s shoes (12.6%) and men’s shoes (5.7%).

During Prime Day, Amazon Germany’s biggest discounts were on women’s clothing & accessories (36.8%), men’s clothing & accessories (32.5%) and watches (32.0%).

After Prime Day, Amazon Germany had the highest discounts on women’s clothing & accessories (34.1%), men’s clothing & accessories (27.6%) and watches (26.6%).

Popularity

In the US, among fashion products with high popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (36.8%) and Nordstrom offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (29.8%).

For fashion items with medium popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (35.2%), and Nordstrom offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (28.1%).

Among fashion merchandise with low popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (27.2%) and Nordstrom offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (31.6%).

In the UK, among fashion products with high popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (31.6%) and Ebay offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (14.3%).

For fashion items with medium popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (32.5%) and Ebay offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (17.6%).

Among fashion merchandise with low popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (24.5%) and Etsy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (23.1%).

In Europe, Amazon Germany dominated discounts for Prime Day 2021 across all levels of popularity.

Among fashion goods with high popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (40.5%) and the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (16.3%).

For fashion items with medium popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (32.5%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (16.5%).

Among fashion merchandise with low popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (30.8%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (15.1%).

In Middle East & Asia, among fashion items with high popularity, Amazon Saudi Arabia offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (55.9%) and Amazon UAE had the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (20.6%).

For fashion products with medium popularity, Amazon UAE offered both the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (49.3%) and the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (17.8%).

Among fashion items with low popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (46.1%) and Amazon Japan had the greatest magnitude of price decrease (21.5%).

Prime Day fashion deals galore

Overall, Prime Day 2021 gave global shoppers an abundance of generous discounts on fashion items.

According to our analysis, the retailers whose Prime Day pricing stood out the most were Amazon US and Nordstrom in the US, Amazon UK and Ebay in the UK, Amazon Germany in Europe, Amazon UAE in the Middle East and Amazon Japan in Asia.

For more global Prime Day 2021 pricing insights, see our analysis of electronics and health & beauty products.

July 27, 2021
Prime Day 2021 Reflected the Global Health & Beauty Category

As consumers socialize more this year, retailers around the world are competing for sales in the torrid health & beauty category.

That’s why we at DataWeave wanted to know how Prime Day 2021 discounts played a role in the pricing strategies for health & beauty products. We focused our analysis on how global retailers adapted their Prime Day pricing strategies to distinguish their offerings across seven health & beauty subcategories, including makeup, health care and baby care.

Our Methodology
We tracked the pricing of products among 16 leading retailers in nine countries across five regions, including:

● The US (Amazon US, Sephora, Target, Ulta and Walmart)
● The UK (Amazon UK, Ebay, Etsy and OnBuy)
● Europe (Amazon France, Amazon Germany and Amazon Italy)
● The Middle East (Amazon Saudi Arabia and Amazon UAE)
● Asia (Amazon Japan and Amazon Singapore)

The results showed some surprising differences among retailers and regions. See how retailers used pricing as a competitive strategy to win Prime Day sales in the health & beauty category, as well as international health & beauty brands that stood out for the discounts on their products.

Percentage of items with a price decrease

The US retailer with the overall highest percentage of health & beauty products with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon US (23.9%).

Health & beauty subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per US retailer were:

● Amazon US: Fragrance (32.4%), oral care (27.1%) and skin care (22.7%)
● Sephora: Makeup (0.2%)
● Target: Oral care (2.7%), baby care (1.6%) and hair care (0.8%)
● Ulta: Makeup (3.7%), skin care (0.8%) and hair care (0.1%)
● Walmart: Fragrance (35.3%), hair care (27.0%) and skin care (23.1%)

By far, the UK retailer with the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon UK (41.9%).

Health & beauty subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per UK retailer were:

● Amazon UK: Oral care (62.5%), fragrance (46.2%) and hair care and skin care (both 45.4%)
● Ebay: Makeup (8.1%), fragrance (7.1%) and skin care (4.7%)
● Etsy: Oral care (3.4%), skin care (2.3%) and makeup (0.9%)

In Europe, Amazon Germany had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (33.1%).

Health & beauty subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per European retailer were:

● Amazon France: Skin care (27.2%), fragrance (25.0%) and hair care (24.4%)
● Amazon Germany: Skin care (49.7%), fragrance (41.3%) and hair care (37.2%)
● Amazon Italy: Skin care (5.9%)

Across the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE had the overall highest percentage of health & beauty items with a price decrease for Prime Day (54.1%).

Health & beauty subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per retailer were:

● Amazon Saudi Arabia: Health care (56.4%), hair care (48.8%) and fragrance (46.2%)
● Amazon UAE: Skin care (64.3%), fragrance (64.0%), and hair care (58.4%)
● Amazon Japan: Oral care (5.3%), skin care (4.5%) and makeup (3.3%)
● Amazon Singapore: Baby care and health care (both 35.6%), makeup (32.6%) and fragrance (31.3%)

Magnitude of price decrease

The US retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was Ulta (33.3%).

The health & beauty subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per US retailer were:

● Amazon US: Hair care (18.0%), baby care (15.5%) and health care (15.4%)
● Sephora: Makeup (24.5%)
● Target: Hair care (46.6%), oral care (28.4%) and skin care and baby care (both 15.0%)
● Ulta: Hair care (40.8%), skin care (34.0%) and makeup (32.5%)
● Walmart: Baby care (11.5%), skin care (11.3%) and hair care (11.0%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per US retailer included:

● Amazon US: Cerave (54.5%), Aquaphor (54.4%) and Yankee Candle (50.7%)
● Sephora: Nars (25.9%) and Marc Jacobs Beauty (23.1%)
● Target: Kristin Ess (50.0%), Hot Tools (48.6%) and Arc Oral Care (both 40.1%)
● Ulta: KKW Beauty, Lime Crime, Ulta and NYX Professional Makeup (all 50.0%), CoverGirl (47.8%) and Biolage (40.8%)
● Walmart: Whitening Toothpaste (57.6%), Absolute New York (56.7%) and Zdmathe (48.5%)

The UK retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on health & beauty products for Prime Day was Amazon UK (18.6%).

The health & beauty subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per UK retailer were:

● Amazon UK: Oral care (23.5%), makeup (22.0%) and skin care (20.2%)
● Ebay: Hair care (16.0%), fragrance (14.4%) and makeup (11.5%)
● Etsy: Makeup (20.0%), oral care (16.1%) and skin care (13.3%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases across health & beauty sub-categories per UK retailer included:

● Amazon UK: Philips Sonicair (56.8%), BaByliss For Men (53.0%) and Dr. PawPaw (52.9%)
● Ebay: Oral-B Braun (50.3%), Clean (50.1%) and Versace (46.0%)
● Etsy: Valdenize (both 48.4%), Allure Wedding Jewelry (32.8%) and Moroccan White (30.0%)

Among European retailers, Amazon Germany offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on health & beauty products for Prime Day (20.2%).

The health & beauty subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per European retailer were:

● Amazon France: Skin care (20.4%), baby care (17.8%) and makeup (16.2%)
● Amazon Germany: Skin care (28.2%), makeup (22.6%) and health care (21.3%)
● Amazon Italy: Skin care (9.9%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per European retailer included:

● Amazon France: Look Concept (59.8%), Douyao (57.5%) and Eco Styler (57.4% for both hair care and health care)
● Amazon Germany: Le Cuisinier (58.4%), Beurer (47.5%) and Solida (45.9%)
● Amazon Italy: Bezox (9.9%)

Across the Middle East and Asia, Amazon Japan offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on health & beauty products for Prime Day (18.0%).

The health & beauty subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per retailer were:

● Amazon Saudi Arabia: Health care (25.1%), skin care (19.3%) and baby care (16.5%)
● Amazon UAE: Makeup (23.1%), hair care (18.3%) and baby care (18.1%)
● Amazon Japan: Skin care (27.6%), hair care (17.2%) and makeup (14.7%)
● Amazon Singapore: Skin care (10.1%), hair care (8.9%) and health care (8.2%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per retailer in the Middle East and Asia included:

● Amazon Saudi Arabia: Tide (59.8%), bblüv (58.3%) and Mas (55.0%)
● Amazon UAE: Syoss (59.7%), Vertex (59.1%) and Onesea (58.7%)
● Amazon Japan: ドクターブロナー (Dr. Bronner’s) (54.8%), ゼルマ (Zelma) (50.0%) and いち髪 (47.8%)
● Amazon Singapore: Changing Lifestyles (56.6%), Dynarex (53.0%) and Grohe (52.5%)

Discounts before, during and after the event

In the US, specialty beauty retailers’ discounts stood out during Prime Day sales. The US retailer with the biggest overall health & beauty discount before (43.4%), during (39.3%) and after (39.4%) Prime Day was Ulta. During and after Prime Day, Sephora was a close second at 38.2% for both periods.

Ulta’s biggest pre-event discounts were on makeup (44.2%) and skin care (33.0%). Hair care (40.8%). makeup (39.5%) and skin care (36.0%) were the leading subcategories for Ulta’s discounts during Prime Day. After the event, Ulta’s biggest discounts were for hair care (40.8%), makeup (39.6%) and skin care (37.3%)

In the UK, OnBuy offered the highest discounts before, during and after Prime Day at 70.0% off baby care products. Yet the total product count was only 2.

Among the remaining rivals, all of whom had a product count above 1000, Ebay had the highest discounts before (30.8%), during (33.8%) and after (35.0%) Prime Day.

Before Prime Day, Ebay biggest discounts were on hair care (48.9%), fragrance (23.9%) and makeup (23.4%). Ebay’s top discounts during Prime Day were on hair care (50.3%), makeup (24.9%) and fragrance (24.8%). Similarly, after the event, Ebay had the biggest discounts on hair care (49.9%), makeup (26.7%) and fragrance (26.2%).

Across retailers in the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE offered the biggest overall health & beauty discounts before (26.0%), during (30.7%) and after (26.0%) Prime Day.

In the pre-sales event, Amazon UAE offered the most generous discounts on makeup (30.7%), fragrance (29.9%) and health care (29.2%).

During Prime Day, Amazon UAE’s biggest discounts were on makeup (37.2%), fragrance (31.6%) and health care (31.3%).

During Prime Day, Amazon UAE offered the biggest discounts on fragrance (30.5%), makeup (30.0%) and health care and baby care (both 26.8%).

Popularity

In the US, among health & beauty products with high popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (24.3%) and Target offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (29.3%).

For health & beauty items with medium popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (26.0%), and strategic partners Target and Ulta both offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (33.4%).

Among health & beauty merchandise with low popularity, Walmart offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (18.5%) and Ulta offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (37.4%).

Amazon UK stood out among all levels of health & beauty product popularity.

In the UK, among health & beauty products with high popularity, Amazon UK offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (42.8%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (18.6%).

For health & beauty items with medium popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (42.8%) and Etsy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (20.1%).

Among health & beauty merchandise with low popularity, Amazon UK offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (35.4%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (17.6%).

In Europe, Amazon Germany dominated discounts for health & beauty products across all levels of popularity.

Among health & beauty goods with high popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (34.6%) and the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (20.6%).

For health & beauty items with medium popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (32.7%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (20.0%).

Among health & beauty merchandise with low popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (33.5%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (20.6%).

In Middle East & Asia, among health & beauty items with high popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (53.0%) and Amazon Saudi Arabia had the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (18.7%).

For health & beauty products with medium popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (55.3%) and Amazon Saudi Arabia had the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (19.7%).

Among health & beauty goods with low popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (54.5%) and Amazon Japan had the greatest magnitude of price decrease (18.7%).

Health & beauty’s stunning Prime Day deals

Overall, Prime Day 2021 gave shoppers around the world the opportunity to score generous discounts on health & beauty products.

According to our analysis, the retailers whose Prime Day pricing stood out the most were Amazon US and Ulta in the US, Amazon UK and Ebay in the UK, Amazon Germany in Europe, Amazon UAE in the Middle East and Amazon Japan in Asia.

Stay tuned for Prime Day 2021 international fashion and home goods pricing insights.

July 22, 2021
Who Won Prime Day 2021’s Consumer Electronics Price War?

Amazon’s Prime Day 2021 global shopping event took place June 21 and 22, 2021 and smashed previous sales records. At DataWeave, we wanted to know how Prime Day 2021 deals and discounts on electronics compared across retailers and regions. We focused on how retailers adapted their Prime Day pricing strategies to stand out in the competitive consumer electronics category.

Our Methodology
We tracked the pricing of several leading retailers in nine countries across five regions, including:

• The US (Amazon US, Best Buy, Target and Walmart)
• The UK (Amazon UK, Ebay, Etsy and OnBuy)
• Europe (Amazon France, Amazon Germany and Amazon Italy)
• The Middle East (Amazon Saudi Arabia and Amazon UAE)
• Asia (Amazon Japan and Amazon Singapore)

Let’s see how retailers used pricing tactics to gain a competitive advantage during Prime Day, as well as which electronics brands had the highest discounts around the world.

Percentage of items with a price decrease

The US retailer with the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon US (26.3%).

Electronics subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per US retailer were:

• Amazon US: Headphones (36.3%), video games and electronics (both 35.8%) and cameras (35.7%)
• Best Buy: Wearables (10.1%) and electronics (6.8%)
• Target: Electronics (21.4%), Bluetooth & wireless speakers (19.4%) and tech accessories (14.8%)
• Walmart: Cell phones & accessories (25.8%), TV & video (14.9%) and cameras (9.4%)

The UK retailer with the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon UK (30.4%), closely followed by OnBuy (30.0%). Of note, Amazon UK offered price increases on 10 times as many products as OnBuy (2379 vs. 237).

Electronics subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Electronics (53.2%), cameras (41.8%) and headphones (41.5%)
• Ebay: TV & video (19.2%), computers & office (12.2%) and cell phones & accessories (7.5%)
• Etsy: Electronics (1.4%)
• OnBuy: Cell phones & accessories (35.5%) and wearables (4.8%)

In Europe, Amazon Germany had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (28.9%).

Electronics subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Cell phones & accessories (35.2%), electronics (21.0%) and cameras (19.6%)
• Amazon Germany: Cell phones & accessories (43.3%), electronics (42.5%) and headphones (39.2%)
• Amazon Italy: Headphones (25.0%), cell phones & accessories (14.3%) and Bluetooth & wireless speakers (8.3%)

Across the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (36.1%).

Electronics subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Video games (47.8%), electronics (46.8%) and cell phones & accessories (41.2%)
• Amazon UAE: Electronics (63.4%), tech accessories (60.3%) and cell phones & accessories (60.1%)
• Amazon Japan: TV & video (14.9%), musical instruments (11.8%) and electronics (10.3%)
• Amazon Singapore: Wearables (32.2%), car electronics (30.4%) and musical instruments (30.2%)

Magnitude of price decrease

The US retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was Target (18.6%).

The electronics subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per US retailer were:

• Amazon US: Cell phones & accessories (20.4%), electronics (20.1%) and headphones (18.7%)
• Best Buy: Wearables (16.9%) and electronics (13.3%)
• Target: Video games (27.9%), tech accessories (25.6%) and headphones (24.4%)
• Walmart: TV & video (10.6%), computers & office (10.3%) and home audio & theater (10.1%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per US retailer included:

• Amazon US: JBL (57.2%), Hape (55.0%) and Falcon (52.8%)
• Best Buy: Bower (40.0%), Vtech (36.7%) and Wingthings (30.0%)
• Target: 2k Sports and 2K Games (both 56.7%), Little Tikes (50.0%)
• Walmart: Moonlite (54.3%), Sceptre (45.9%) and Polaroid (38.5%)

The UK retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was OnBuy (22.1%).

The electronics subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Home audio & theater (28.4%), electronics (21.7%) and cell phones & accessories (20.1%)
• Ebay: TV & video (19.5%), wearables (18.7%) and computer & office (16.6%)
• Etsy: Electronics (14.8%)
• OnBuy: Cell phones & accessories (22.3%) and wearables (5.9%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases across electronics categories per UK retailer included:

• Amazon UK: Amazon (58.3% for both cell phones & accessories and headphones), Flexson (55.4%) and Ibra (47.9% for both cameras and TV & video)
• Ebay: Falcon (52.0%), Ticwatch (48.4%) and Grougs by Live Lead (47.9%)
• OnBuy: Sony (33.1%), Apple (23.1%) and Samsung (21.3%)

Among European retailers, Amazon Italy offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day (18.9%) among a total of 66 products.

The electronics subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Home audio & theater (13.1%), video games (10.5%) and TV & video (10.3%)
• Amazon Germany: Video games (22.0%), electronics and musical instruments (both 20.3%) and cell phones & accessories (20.2%)
• Amazon Italy: Cell phones & accessories (41.2%) and headphones (28.1%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per European retailer included:

• Amazon France: DCSk (59.0%), Amazon Basics (58.7%) and Qoosea (46.3%)
• Amazon Germany: Meister (53.5%), Rampow (51.4%) and Gewa (51.1%)
• Amazon Italy: Homscam (41.2%) and Gamurry (15.1)

Across the Middle East and Asia, Amazon Japan offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day (11.9%) among a total of 66 products.

The electronics subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Video games (16.8%), electronics (12.8%) and cell phones & accessories (12.4%)
• Amazon UAE: Car electronics, headphones and tech accessories (all 13.1%)
• Amazon Japan: Headphones (25.4%), home audio & theater (23.6%) and cameras (14.9%)
• Amazon Singapore: Car electronics (9.4%), cell phones & accessories (8.6%) and electronics (8.3%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per retailer in the Middle East and Asia included:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Belkin (52.9%), Topoint (49.3%) and Promate (45.7%)
• Amazon UAE: Amazon Basics (56.3%), Bettyliss (52.1%) and Acreate (50.3%)
• Amazon Japan: タニタ(Tanita) (49.7%), Laza-Vally (47.8%) and Nebula (33.3%)
• Amazon Singapore: Pintech Percussion (55.0%), Pac (53.4%) and Goldwood Sound Inc. (52.9%)

Discounts before, during and after the event

The US retailer with the biggest overall electronics discount before Prime Day was Amazon US (26.6%). Amazon’s biggest discounts were on home audio & theater (30.5%), TV & video (29.1%) and cell phones & accessories (28.6%).

Walmart offered the biggest discounts during (32.1%) and after (31.5%) the event. During the event, Walmart’s biggest discounts were on cell phones & accessories (46.3%), home audio & theater (35.5%) and computers & office (31.0%). Similarly, after the event, Walmart’s biggest discounts were on cell phones & accessories (45.8%), home audio & theater (35.3%) and computers & office (30.8%).

OnBuy was the UK retailer with the biggest overall electronics discount before (65.3%), during (68.6%) and after (69.1%) Prime Day with a product count of 237. OnBuy’s biggest discounts were on cameras (69.5% before, during and after the sales event), cell phones & accessories (rising from 67.6% before the sales event to 71.6% during and 71.8% after the event) and wearables (65.2% before and after the event yet 35.5% during Prime Day).

In Europe, Amazon Germany offered the biggest overall electronics discount before (21.4%), during (25.6%) and after (20.2%) Prime Day. Amazon France and Amazon Italy also offered comparable overall discounts (21.1%) before Prime Day.

In the pre-sales event, Amazon Germany gave the most generous discounts on cameras (34.1%), wearables (24.7%) and headphones (24.3%). During Prime Day, Amazon Germany offered the biggest discounts on video games (30.7%), headphones (30.1%) and electronics (28.3%). After Prime Day, Amazon Germany offered the biggest discounts on headphones (24.2%) electronics (22.6%) and cell phones & accessories (22.1%).

Across retailers in the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE offered the biggest overall electronics discount before Prime Day (24.3%), whereas Amazon Japan offered the biggest discount during (32.0%) and after (32.3%) Prime Day.

In the pre-sales event, Amazon UAE offered the most generous discounts on TV & video (31.3%), musical instruments (31.0%) and headphones (25.4%). During and after Prime Day, Amazon Japan offered the biggest discounts on Bluetooth & wireless speakers and electronics (both 99.0%).

Popularity

In the US, among electronics with high popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (27.8%) and Target offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (21.3%).

For electronics with moderate popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (24.7%) and Best Buy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (15.4%).

Among electronics with low popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (25.2%) and Best Buy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (13.4%), closely followed by Amazon US (13.3%).

In the UK, among electronics with high popularity, OnBuy offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (44.0%) among 84 products and Etsy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (28.5%) among 150 products.

For electronics with moderate popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (29.3%) and OnBuy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (26.7%).

Electronics with low popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (23.9%) and OnBuy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (26.3%).

In Europe, among electronics with high popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (30.1%) and the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (20.2%).

For electronics with moderate popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (29.7%) and Amazon Italy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (41.2%) among 12 products.

Among electronics with low popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (26.7%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (17.2%).

In Middle East & Asia, among electronics with high popularity, Amazon Singapore offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (32.2%) and Amazon Saudi Arabia had the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (10.4%).

For electronics with moderate popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (48.8%) and Amazon Japan offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (11.5%).

Similarly, among electronics with low popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (36.9%) and Amazon Japan the greatest magnitude of price decrease (13.3%).

Consumers won big on Prime Day 2021

Overall, Prime Day 2021 offered a wide range of deals across the competitive electronics category in each region. Almost all of the retailers we studied (except for Ebay) showed up in the analysis for offering notable discounts and pricing strategies this year. Amazon US, OnBuy, Amazon Germany, Amazon Japan and Amazon UAE appeared in the results most often among their respective regions. Stay tuned for Prime Day 2021 pricing insights across other categories, including home, health & beauty and fashion.

July 20, 2021
Dazzle Dad With Electronics & Home Goods for Father’s Day
This year, shoppers will skip neckties and celebrate Dad with gifts for his home office or man cave.

As our personal and professional lives grow increasingly digital and tied to our homes, retailers face new seasonal sales opportunities. Retailers whose assortments contain in-demand electronics and home products can drive more e-commerce sales revenue and gain a competitive edge in time for Father’s Day 2021.

According to the NRF, Father’s Day spending is expected to hit $20.1 billion, up 18% from 2020’s total of $17 billion. The vast majority (75%) of Americans plan to celebrate the fathers, husbands and other paternal figures in their life this Father’s Day.

Popular products dads will love

Retailers can inspire Father’s Day shoppers by filling their assortments with in-demand electronics and home products, as these two categories continue to boom.

Consider these recent results related to electronics and home goods:
- Online sales of consumer electronics grew 18% year-over-year in 2020 as more consumers work, shop and enjoy entertainment in the comfort of their homes.
- To win more sales on Black Friday 2020, certain retailers offered attractive deals and deep discounts on electronics like laptops, mobiles, wearables, USB flash drives, tablets and headphones.
- Home furnishings sales rose 12% year-over-year in 2020 as homebound consumers invested in products for domestic comfort, organization and functional purposes.
- On Cyber Monday 2020, home merchandise saw bustling sales, as storage items, cabinets and bookcases were among the most competitively priced products in the category.
Since home is the new hub, retailers can plan their assortments to align with this enduring consumer trend to outplay rivals. Optimizing their product mix involves making decisions on the right balance among bestsellers, hot trends, unique products and essential items to gain a competitive advantage.

Grab shoppers’ attention with desirable promotions

Although shoppers appreciate variety, the abundance of product choices available online can overwhelm consumers. In response, retailers can craft persuasive and timely digital campaigns to help simplify the customer experience.

Digital promotions, including banner ads and search campaigns, can help retailers spark a sense of urgency that motivates shoppers to buy. The key is for retailers to connect to consumers with the right messaging, timing and targeting to earn their attention, trust and sales. Retailers need effective promotions to optimize their ad spend.

Pricing secures the sale

To maximize top line performance, retailers also need to nail their Father’s Day pricing strategies.

Notably, consumption habits and loyalty have dramatically shifted during the pandemic, which has affected retailers’ pricing strategies. Value pricing continues to soar due to economic uncertainty, job losses and a growing desire for value for money. Last year, 30% of consumers switched to a new brand due to better prices, while 25% cited better value as the reason they switched, according to McKinsey & Company.

On the other side of the socioeconomic spectrum, premium pricing is also on the rise. Upscale shoppers are now more willing to splurge on high quality goods, including home furnishings and electronics. These consumers will pay more for merchandise that adds value or purpose to their lives. In addition, digitally-savvy Gen Z and Millennial consumers are spending 125% as much as they did in 2019. As a result, retailers that capitalize on consumers’ enthusiasm and price elasticity will drive incremental e-commerce revenue gains.

As e-commerce competition intensifies and informed, empowered shoppers know where to find the best prices, more retailers now seek a new pricing approach to stand out, drive sales growth and protect against price wars.

Drive revenue with the right products, promotions and prices

To win the attention and sales of Father’s Day shoppers, more leading retailers now use data insights to make faster, more effective assortment and pricing decisions that maximize their e-commerce sales.

Data analytics help retailers know which products consumers will actually buy. Leading global retailers rely on Assortment Analytics from DataWeave to ensure their online assortments keep up with evolving consumer needs. Building a competitive product mix can set retailers apart and boost e-commerce sales by offering in-demand merchandise. Assortment analytics give retailers insights on the most popular brands and products on any e-commerce website, and help them spot and fill any assortment gaps to capture more sales.

To captivate online shoppers’ attention, retailers use DataWeave’s Promotional Insights to lower acquisition costs with marketing promotions that resonate. As online shoppers increasingly seek timely offers, these insights help retailers quickly evaluate the effectiveness of their promotions and optimize their digital ad spend. Retailers gain near-real-time insights on the brands, categories and products their rivals promote, including campaign frequency, duration and messaging for promotions that convert.

Major retailers also turn to Pricing Intelligence from DataWeave to promptly adapt to rivals’ online price changes and shifts in consumer demand. Retailers drive more revenue and margin by easily identifying fluctuations in consumer demand and rivals’ pricing, as well as any gaps. Retailers gain an edge by seeing pricing patterns that their rivals miss. They gain accurate exact and similar product matching, and near real-time pricing updates to stay competitive and fuel e-commerce conversions.

Data insights help retailers delight dads

This Father’s Day, retailers can apply data insights to offer consumers eye-catching promotions of in-demand electronics and home products at the right price to wow dads. Insights from DataWeave can help retailers make smart, competitive assortment, promotion and pricing decisions that boost agility, improve the customer experience and drive e-commerce sales for this special occasion – and all year long.
June 16, 2021
As Value Shopping Soars, Pricing Matters More

The pandemic’s profound economic impact sparked a surge in value shopping.

Between February and December 2020, 10 million Americans lost their jobs.¹ Due to the pandemic, 36% of lower-income adults and 28% of middle-income adults lost a job or took a pay cut (vs. 22% of upper-income adults). In addition, less than a quarter of lower-income adults have three months’ worth of emergency funds (vs. 48% of middle-income adults and 75% of upper-income adults).²

These financial shifts matter to retailers, as lower- and middle-income households account for 81% (29% and 52%, respectively) of the total U.S. population.³ Reduced disposable income among households like these has led more consumers to embrace bargain-hunting as a shopping habit.

We’ll see why price sensitive consumers are influencing retailers to adjust their e-commerce pricing strategies to stay competitive and responsive.

Consumers seek value across retail categories

Recent research shows 50% of U.S. adults are more sensitive to product prices now than before the pandemic. Also, 80% of U.S. shoppers are taking at least one action to seek more value when they shop for groceries, prioritizing value for money over speed.⁴

According to McKinsey, 65% of consumers cited value as one of their top three reasons they switched brands during the pandemic. Also, 40% of shoppers cited a desire for better value and 38% cited better prices or promotions as reasons for choosing new products.⁵

Value-oriented pricing influences purchases, as 70% of consumers said product discounts are more important today compared to a year ago. In addition, 54% of consumers said better online deals and discounts are a leading factor that persuades them to choose a specific retailer.⁶

As e-commerce explodes, consumers have greater access to information. They can find the best price across online sites and receive notifications when a product’s price drops before they buy.

Retailers face intense pricing pressure

Similar to the aftermath of the 2008 recession, discounters and dollar chain retailers are now thriving as consumers seek superior value for money. Consumers need new products yet they no longer want to spend as much as before.

That’s why bargain retail is poised to be among the biggest winners in 2021 as consumers get out and socialize more. ⁷

Dollar General continues to aggressively expand its omnichannel reach as value shopping soars.⁸ To stay competitive, Family Dollar has partnered with Instacart on same-day delivery.⁹ In the fierce grocery sector, hard discounter Aldi’s omnichannel expansion includes a focus on private labels and efficient operational processes that improve cost effectiveness and competitive pricing.¹⁰

Across retail categories, a remarkable 50 million price changes take place online every day. Given consumers’ shift to value shopping, more retailers are changing their pricing to offer discounts both online and in-store.¹¹ However, to avoid costly price wars, more retailers are now taking a renewed approach to their pricing strategies to protect their margins as they compete.

Specifically, to optimize their e-commerce business for profitable growth, more retailers are modernizing their pricing strategies with data insights.

Pricing intelligence is retailers’ secret weapon

As e-commerce rivalry heats up, retailers must evaluate pricing across more online websites to keep their own prices competitive. This process is becoming increasingly complex and time consuming. Meanwhile, retailers may consider adopting aggressive pricing tactics to win online sales. Yet this pricing strategy is unsustainable over the longer term, as it erodes profit margins.

Today’s heated e-commerce rivalry means retailers can no longer afford to guess at price points or use the same pricing tactics that relied on before the pandemic.

That’s why leading retailers turn to data insights for their pricing strategies to stay agile and flexible while rapidly adapting to fluctuations in consumer demand and competitors’ pricing.

Now more retailers turn to DataWeave’s Pricing Intelligence to drive more revenue and margin.

To optimize profit margins, retailers use our actionable insights to make pricing decisions according to data-driven recommendations. They also make decisions to protect their desired price perception.

Monitoring competitors’ pricing moves helps retailers benchmark their own performance, identify gaps and respond to market trends faster. They can also refer to historic pricing data analytics to accurately anticipate and counter rivals’ next moves to gain an edge.

Retailers that apply data insights to optimize their pricing can drive more online revenue by finding the ideal price consumers are willing to pay while still maintaining profitability. Pricing intelligence can make customer acquisition more efficient, and help retailers grow online sales and market share.

Amid greater price sensitivity, retailers’ pricing strategies are evolving to use data to adapt to consumers’ needs and drive e-commerce sales and profitability. DataWeave’s Pricing Intelligence gives retailers an edge so they stay agile and competitive, and maximize e-commerce sales across consumers of all economic levels.

1. Howland, Daphne. The middle class is stressed and the pandemic isn’t helping. Retail Dive. January 20, 2021.
2. Howland, Daphne. The middle class is stressed and the pandemic isn’t helping. Retail Dive. January 20, 2021.
3. Bennett, Jesse, Richard Fry and Rakesh Kochhar. Are you in the American middle class? Find out with our income calculator. Pew Research Center. July 23, 2020.
4. Maake, Katishi. DoorDash, Instacart Eye Launching Credit Cards. The Harris Poll. April 9, 2021.
5. Charm, Tamara, Harrison Gillis, Anne Grimmelt, Grace Hua, Kelsey Robinson and Ramiro Sanchez Caballero.Survey: US consumer sentiment during the coronavirus crisis. McKinsey & Company. May 13, 2021.
6. Berthiaume, Dan. Survey: Deals drive purchases during pandemic. Chain Store Age. March 18, 2021.
7. Thomas, Lauren. Beauty and bargain retail could be the biggest winners in 2021, Wells Fargo predicts. CNBC. March 25, 2021.
8. Unglesbee, Ben. Dollar General ramps up expansion of Popshelf concept. Retail Dive. March 19, 2021.
9. Ryan, Tom. Will same-day delivery pay off for dollar stores? RetailWire. February 8, 2021.
10. Anderson, George. Should Aldi’s growing store count and digital progress keep rivals up at night? RetailWire. February 11, 2021.
11. Berthiaume, Dan. Survey: Deals drive purchases during pandemic. Chain Store Age. March 18, 2021

June 2, 2021
Food Delivery Gives Moms a Delicious Break On Mother’s Day

Moms deserve a scrumptious celebration. In time for Mother’s Day, restaurants and their food delivery partners can unburden mothers from the chore of cooking by delivering the gifts of ease, convenience and nourishment.

Over the past year, moms have been starved for time amid the disruption of working from home and supporting their children’s virtual schooling. Meanwhile, grandmothers have been starved for social connection, as many of them have only seen their loved ones on Zoom.

Restaurants can satisfy consumers’ unmet needs. Using timely, empathetic digital marketing can help restaurant operators stand out on food delivery apps (like DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub and Postmates) and sell more online this Mother’s Day – and all year round.

Delight moms with what they really want

According to the NRF, 83% of consumers plan to celebrate Mother’s Day in 2021. On average, shoppers plan to spend $220.48 (up $16 since last year), the highest amount in the history of NRF’s Mother’s Day surveys. ¹

Most (62%) moms say they would love to eliminate the chore of cooking on Mother’s Day. Dinner is the most important meal on Mother’s Day, and most moms prefer restaurant meals (53%) to home cooked meals (39%). ²

Given consumers’ willingness to spend and Mom’s appetite for restaurants, Mother’s Day 2021 is poised to be a powerful sales event for restaurants.

Restaurants need new ways to navigate market trends

The restaurant industry faces consolidation, as 17% (110,000) of U.S. restaurants permanently closed in 2020, and 87% of full-service restaurants reported an average 36% drop in revenue. ³ These figures prove restaurant operators need help to boost their top line and cut costs as they adapt to intense rivalry and shifting market conditions.

During the pandemic, many consumers have embraced home for health or financial reasons or a creative outlet. Although 55% of consumers have been eating at home more often since the pandemic began, 65% say they are tired of cooking at home. ⁴

Fortunately, consumers are in a celebratory mood. Last year, Mother’s Day was a top sales day, as consumer spending at restaurants soared 103% on Mother’s Day Sunday and 63% on Saturday. ⁵ Restaurants can relieve consumers of the chore of cooking and add variety to dining occasions like Mother’s Day.

Successful restaurants gain a digital data advantage

To satisfy consumers’ needs and outplay rivals, restaurants now turn to data analytics from DataWeave to protect their profitability with effective pricing, menu and promotion decisions.

Pricing analytics

Restaurant operators can optimize their pricing to stay competitive. For instance, restaurants can compare their offerings and delivery fees with those of rivals to pinpoint and fill any gaps. Monitoring rivals’ pricing moves also helps restaurant operators stay flexible by keeping their prices affordable, so they can attract online sales growth.

Menu analytics

To minimize costs, more restaurants are streamlining their menus. Menu analytics can help operators spot the optimal mix of bestselling items and emerging food trends, like plant-based, vegan, gluten-free and local sourcing. To know which items to keep, operators can even use data insights on menu items down to the ZIP code level to localize their offerings and adapt to diverse tastes to drive online sales.

Promotion analytics

As consumers embrace home entertaining this Mother’s Day, restaurant operators can use data insights to boost sales. They can monitor rivals’ moves and compare their promotional strategies with those of competitors. Evaluating their digital marketing performance (like their brand’s discoverability and visibility ranking on food apps’ homepages) helps restaurants show up more prominently online and sell more.

Savvy restaurants welcome celebrations as lucrative sales occasions

Restaurants can spice up Mom’s life by letting her relax and receive the gifts of tasty meals, time savings and family festivities. Operators can simplify Mother’s Day celebrations by giving consumers a hassle-free dining experience so families can focus on connecting rather than cooking.

For a business advantage, restaurant operators can apply digital marketing insights to boost their agility in responding to consumers’ needs and rivals’ moves.

To stay agile and competitive as the food delivery market booms, leading restaurant chains and food delivery providers are collaborating with DataWeave to make data-driven pricing, menu and promotional decisions that fuel online sales.

^{1 Retail Holiday and Seasonal Trends: Mother’s Day. NRF. 2021
2 New Study Shows What Moms Really Want On Mother’s Day. US Foods. May 2020.
3 Valinsky, Jordan. 10,000 of America’s restaurants have closed in the past three months. CNN. December 9, 2020.
4 Contreras, Tricia. How the pandemic is shaping home cooking trends. SmartBrief. September 30, 2020.
5 Lalley, Heather. Despite pandemic, Mother’s Day was huge for restaurants. Restaurant Business. May 18, 2020.}

May 7, 2021
This Mother’s Day, Dazzle Moms With These Beauty & Fashion Trends
Show moms extra love this year. With Mother’s Day coming up fast, savvy beauty and fashion brands will use this special occasion to inspire pampering and gift giving to fuel their e-commerce sales growth.

This year, beauty and fashion are poised to boom, as 40% of consumers plan to buy beauty products and 37% will buy new outfits for going out. ¹ According to eMarketer, apparel and accessories e-commerce sales will grow nearly 19% this year due to pent-up demand for clothing, while health and beauty sales will rise 16%. ²

“People will be happy to go out again …
there will be a fiesta in makeup and in fragrances.”

~L’Oréal CEO and Chairman Jean-Paul Agon

After beauty and apparel sales declined last year, brands now seize every opportunity to capitalize on the categories’ resurgence in 2021. To differentiate their goods, brands can use e-commerce marketing best practices to position their fashion and beauty items as spectacular gifts that moms will love.

Aligning with the latest trends can help brands boost online growth.

Hot trends dominating beauty and fashion

This Mother’s Day, shoppers can delight moms with beauty bestsellers like:
- Mask-friendly makeup: As we continue to wear masks over the short-term, cosmetics like false lashes, smudge-proof mascara and ultra-hypoallergenic eyeshadow will remain popular. ³
- Fragrances: Online fragrance sales rose 45% year-over-year in 2020. Clean and organic beauty categories grew 56% with fragrance brands growing the most. ⁴
- Purpose-led brands: Consumers crave companies that care. More online searches contain keywords like “ethical beauty” and “sustainable makeup” for products that help consumers look good and feel good. ⁵
Online fashion is in vogue

Before the pandemic, consumers bought less than one-third of their apparel or footwear online; last year, the proportion surged to an astounding 51%. In 2021, consumers will invest even more in their wardrobes, including trends like:
- Comfort: Athleisure will remain in demand as many consumers still prefer comfortable clothing when they work from home. ⁷
- Beloved staples: Classic pieces like jeans, dresses and simple yet elegant tops are making a comeback as consumers start to go out more. ⁸
- Retro ‘80s: Ladies are ready to party like it’s 1984. Bright and metallic colors and sequins for occasionwear (and even NFL linebacker-inspired shoulderpads) are recreating a fun, indulgent ’80s vibe. ⁹
Brands’ secret weapon for a competitive advantage

For successful Mother’s Day campaigns, more fashion and beauty brands will use digital shelf analytics for marketing decisions that maximize their ROI and e-commerce sales.

To ensure online shoppers discover Mother’s Day products with ease, brands are using Share of Search insights to measure their share of digital shelf. These DataWeave analytics tell brands which keywords perform best. Brands can also benchmark their search and navigation visibility against rivals’ rankings across e-commerce categories, websites and geographic regions.

Using Content Audit insights tells brands how their content is performing. They can discover and fill content gaps so their products show up more prominently. Optimizing content (like keywords, product page titles, descriptions, ads and sponsored space) and images to align with the retailers’ search algorithms ensures a consistent brand experience across all online channels. Improving content helps brands connect to consumers with marketing that resonates and inspires them to buy.
Brands also use

Pricing and Promotions insights to measure the effectiveness of their online promotions and secure sales. Brands can stay competitive by ensuring their pricing and promotions are in line with rivals’ offers, such as identifying first movers and rivals with the deepest discounts across retailers and SKUs. Brands can even determine how imitating rivals’ pricing and promotional moves could impact revenue and sales volume.

Help shoppers make Mom’s day

Since Mother’s Day is almost here, beauty and fashion brands can apply these data insights to connect consumers with a variety of products moms will love. Digital shelf analytics from DataWeave can help brands deliver timely campaigns, improve their return on digital marketing spend and make effective marketing decisions to drive e-commerce sales.

^{1 Howland, Daphne. Wells Fargo sees permanent behavior shifts from the pandemic. Retail Dive. March 29, 2021.
2 Droesch, Blake. US Ecommerce by Category 2021. eMarketer. April 27, 2021.
3 Wood, Dana. Is Makeup Dead? The Robin Report. April 18, 2021.
4 Larson, Kristin. Fragrance Sales Pick Up As Consumers Reengage With The Outside World. Forbes. April 27, 2021.
5 What Can Brands Learn About Sustainability From Green Beauty Consumers? Beauty Business Journal. June 15, 2020.
6 Howland, Daphne. Wells Fargo sees permanent behavior shifts from the pandemic. Retail Dive. March 29, 2021.
7 Ibid.
8 Bhattarai, Abha. Americans are starting to buy real clothes again. The Washington Post. March 18, 2021.
9 Warren, Liz. Loose Denim and Bold Occasionwear on Full Display for Fall 2021. Sourcing Journal. April 2, 2021.}
May 6, 2021