Judith Reynolds of Sourcing Journal reported on the promotion addiction many retailers struggled with in 2016. DynamicAction's Senior VP of Marketing, Sarah Engel, contributed retail analytics data and insight to the article.

Key excerpt:

"Retailers will need true customer understanding that includes having one view of the customer across channels. Only with this level of insight can an apparel retailer understand what – beyond deep discounts – will motivate the shopper, how to keep her coming back to buy more frequently, and how to increase lifetime value and loyalty.

'Successful retailers will embrace the fact that promotions are the new expectation and find ways to promote more wisely,' Engel said. 'Some of the more successful promotions this season (for both the shopper and the retailer) were those that offered an exclusive service or curated collection as the promotion, or offered low cost, but high perceived value gifts with purchase.'

Engel recommends that retailers keep a close eye on their returns data across channels – return rates, return codes, customer feedback, user generated content – as they are just now headed into the heaviest returns period of the year, with the value of returns already up an average 26 percent during the holiday season 2016 compared to 2015."

The full article is available here (free subscription required).