Many retailers stock specialty products that, while not core to their primary business model, are popular with their customer base. These items might be private label, seasonal, or custom, but in general the common thread is that they are high-margin and worth the shelf space. An example of this is the sportswear and related products at Hartig Drug, an independent drug store based in Dubuque, IA.
Football is big in Big 10 country, and the Iowa Hawkeyes are a big favorite with Hartig customers. Besides jerseys, Hartig sells about anything that can be emblazoned with the Hawkeye’s logo. Additionally, Hartig sells t-shirts and jerseys for local high school football teams in their three-state footprint, which includes Wisconsin and Illinois.
Working with nData, Hartig wanted to capture some of that Midwestern football frenzy. An AI (8112) Universal Coupon (UC) was created for a $5 discount on a $10 sports-themed product spend. Almost every item in the category was well over $10 and offered a high-gross margin, making it an attractive offer for consumer and retailer alike.
The offer also allowed the parties to test the flexibility of both the AI (8112) UC and consumer uptake by channel strategy. Hartig focused on social media channels, creating a clever promotional video, and publishing it to Facebook and Instagram. The only other promotion was via in-aisle shelf talkers. The sportswear and product catalog is large - 1800 UPCs - so the test was to see how well AI (8112) handled such a large item file. nData bundled those 1800 UPCs into a single AI (8112) UC offer to be presented via the Coupon24 mobile wallet at the POS. The redemptions were adjudicated and processed efficiently with no latency.
The program proved to be very popular. It ran for less than two weeks and did over 50 redemptions with a clip-to-redeem ratio of 59%. The ability of the AI (8112) infrastructure to handle large item file offers was confirmed. This opens the door for retailers, CPGs, and manufacturers to use AI (8112) UCs for a wide variety of offers, be it across a brand, private label, food service, or specialty items like seasonal and sports.
*AI: Application Identifier is a GS1 identification number.
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