By Dan Surtees
Outdoor retail has always been experiential by design. It’s what makes the retail sector so thrilling.
Stores like Bass Pro Shops, REI, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Altitude Sports or Camping World deliver immersive shopping experiences with climbing walls, batting cages, aquariums, boats and fully assembled campsites. These are curated spaces designed to engage and inspire.
Yet, beneath the “retailtainment” atmosphere, these outdoor retailers also need to maintain a crucial consumer engagement: omnichannel promotions and incentives. The reality is that one inaccurate promotion can damage a consumer’s loyalty, no matter how much fun they have on the (sometimes literal) carousel.
What Consumers Want in Promotions
XCCommerce released a new shopper study that found consumers expect offers to be accurate, consistent across channels and relevant to their wants and needs. When organizations misfire on those expectations, consumers are less likely to complete a transaction and less likely to engage with future offers.
Results from the study highlight a consumer who desires relevant promotions to keep them engaged, including:
- 75% of respondents said it’s important for offers to be personalized.
- 83% of respondents said valuable savings or rewards is what keeps them loyal to a retailer.
- Half the respondents said they don’t care where they receive offers (in-store, online, or on mobile), but they want them to be consistent across channels.
- Consumers care more about getting a quality deal (80%) than simply the lowest price (58%).
For outdoor retailers to deliver on these expectations, they need a modern strategy and process in place. One that streamlines offers across channels and targets incentives appropriately, no matter what the offer entails and where it’s fielded. Consistency, accuracy and relevancy need to occur.
Why Outdoor Incentives Can’t Be Generic
Outdoor retailers navigate a busy promotional space. Transactions can span low-cost consumables and fishing lures to high-end technical gear and heavily regulated items like guns. Then there are items like kayaks, ATVs and gun safes that require specialized delivery or white glove service. These extras can spruce up an incentive.
The diverse assortment invites retailers to develop innovative promotions to engage shoppers.
What’s more, outdoor consumers aren’t entirely price driven. They’re seeking confidence in an item they’re buying, knowledge from an associate and a strong sense of community from the retailer. Companies should have this deeper relationship in mind when providing incentives for consumers.
Another challenge: outdoor retailing contends with peak traffic in the spring and summer, when consumers make travel plans and get outside. Add in heavy traffic and diverse products and outdoor retailers cannot rely on storewide, one-size-fits-all promotions for the current outdoor consumers.
Personalization Calms the Wild
If outdoor consumers are seeking relevancy over price, then direct, relevant engagement can be very effective. Customized offers also open doors to a variety of incentives, ideal for high summer traffic.
For example, consider a flat, storewide discount on camping gear. Now, consider a bundled offer for complementary products such as sleeping bags, tents and coolers that is all tied to seasonal demand and changing local weather. Which is more impactful? The bundled offer is more appealing to the consumer and can also help the retailer increase the basket size without relying on deep price cuts.
Using shopper data and a precise incentives solution can help retailers target specific camping consumers and make their trip feel intentional. The retailer can further deliver promotions to meet how each consumer prefers to browse and shop, whether it’s online, in-store or via mobile.
However, this relies on a system that can power the promotions pipeline accurately. Promotions teams need a system that allows them to easily set granular rules around personalized offers and how bundled incentives interact. This includes managing exclusions for regulated items, sequencing discounts correctly, and ensuring that high-value purchases do not trigger unintended stacking.
Unified Incentives Protect Loyalty
Without a unified promotions strategy, offers can impede on one another, be susceptible to inaccuracies and cause margin leak. Having a system that supports centralized promotions logic and execution ensures that retailers can deliver customized, complex offers in real time.
Modern consumers expect personalized, relevant offers, and blanket discounts can dilute margin without meaningfully improving conversion.
Antiquated legacy incentives platforms can’t keep up with modern outdoor consumers. There’s too much risk in offers not being executed accurately and an inability to customize at scale.
With precise control over incentives, retailers can confidently experiment with more engaging offers. Gamified promotions, loyalty-based rewards, and personalized discounts become viable because of the underlying rules built into a unified system. Retailers can create experiences that mirror the excitement of the store environment while maintaining compliance and protecting margin.
Dan Surtees serves as VP of strategy at XCCommerce, partnering with top retailers to design and execute promotions and loyalty initiatives that fuel sustainable growth and deepen customer engagement. Since 2020, he has played a key role in advancing competitive positioning through data-driven strategy and innovation. With over two decades in retail, Surtees combines leadership across product, marketing, sales and enterprise technology to deliver measurable impact.
