Heading into the holiday shopping season, retailers are buried under $731B in excess inventory–a surplus that catalyzed earlier holiday promotions in an effort to recoup profits. While a shift in consumer behavior has played a major role in the oversupply (for example, buyers emerging from lockdowns preferring to spend more on services and experiences over retail and luxury goods), many retailers are also experiencing a ripple effect from supply chain issues earlier this year.

Simultaneously, consumers are adjusting their spending habits as a result of economic uncertainty including inflation and a pending fear of recession. They’re cutting back on discretionary spending as well as tightening purse strings when it comes to the essentials with 82% of consumers looking for sales and less expensive ways to shop.

Marketers faced with the challenge of disburdening themselves of excess inventory while enticing budget-conscious audiences with their holiday promotions should lean into the partnership channel for its ability to find and convert target audiences at scale. Specific to Partnerize, the platform’s end-to-end partner activation and optimization toolset lets marketers automate dynamic payments for a cost-controlled way to push excess inventory.

Partnerize makes it easy for marketers to easily implement partner optimizations to move excess inventory: 

1. 1. Adjust commission rates on high-inventory items. Partnerize’s sophisticated reward structures give marketers the ability to commission on limitless data points including individual products SKUs, categories or product attributes. With the platform’s commission rule builder, you can easily set up custom commission rates to deploy higher payouts to partners for unique attributes of surplus SKUs (think: size, color or material)–flexibility that incents partners to share your specific products with their audiences. Alternatively, you can lower commission rates on deeply discounted items to protect your profit margins. 
   2. Activate deal-focused partners. Ensure that your partner makeup includes deal or coupon-focused partners that can easily promote excess inventory or best-of-web offers to their user base. Discover, the Partnerize platform’s recruitment and activation engine, lets you recruit from a limitless selection of right-fit partners from the platform and from the broader digital ecosystem. Leverage precision filtering functionality to locate best-match partners or search by partner vertical to diversify your program–results that can be easily evaluated using Discover’s partner profiles for granular insight into audience, reach and demographic. 
   3. Negotiate with loyalty partners to offer higher cash back rates. Incent consumer demand by increasing cash back rates on high-inventory products using the platform’s commission rule builder. Get started by reaching out to loyalty partners (their contact information is easily accessible through Discover’s Manage Partners) and negotiate higher cash back rates for consumers in exchange for increased commission. Then, assign unique commission rates to individual partners or groups of loyalty partners–exclusive cash back rates that incent consumers to convert.
   4. Provide partners with exclusive codes. Interested in deeply discounting an item but can’t risk it going viral in the partner channel? Assign an individual partner with an Exclusive Code which ensures that they are the only partner rewarded for each redemption–a reward structure that inhibits other partners from promoting this content.
   5. Work with conversion optimization partners  to push onsite messaging regarding inventory. The Partnerize Tag is a solution that not only future-proofs tracking amidst ongoing browser changes, but also enables rapid-deployment of  remarketing and retargeting partners such as Cybba, RevLifter and UpSellit. Easily integrate and activate these partners through the Partnerize Tag  to maximize onsite promotion and messaging about surplus inventory.
   6. Collaborate with content partners. Connect with influencers and content creators to discuss opportunities they have for gift guides, styled posts and giveaways. By securing features for your brand and products in their curated content, you’re reaching their highly-engaged audiences and increasing propensity to convert.
   7. Share updates with your partners. Easily deploy newsletter communications to your entire partner base, groups or individual partners to make them aware of your commission structures, promotional schedule, product discounts and more. By putting your marketing message directly in your partners’ inbox, you’re keeping them in the know when it comes to the most relevant content to share with their audiences.

Ready to learn more about how Partnerize can help you overcome macro-level challenges this holiday shopping season? Get in touch at contact@partnerize.com.