What’s the Story?

Coresight Research conceived the idea of the 10.10 Shopping Festival in June 2020 as a way to bring fun and excitement back to the US retail industry. The inaugural four-day festival was held on October 9–12 and involved two collaborators alongside Coresight Research, almost 100 participating retailers, brands and designers, 12 charity partners and 11 supporting retail partners.

Why It Matters

Coresight Research launched the 10.10 Shopping Festival to bring the excitement of shopping festivals to the US and to help retailers and shoppers address the disruption caused by Covid-19. The festival brought together a large group of retailers, brands, technology innovators and retail innovators that had not previously partnered together in a large-scale event.

In addition, the US-based festival saw its reach extend globally—largely due to the participation of apparel retailer Guess?, Inc.—opening the door for the future expansion of 10.10 and other retail festivals. We discuss such insights below as we present our 10 key takeaways from the event.

The 10.10 Shopping Festival: 10 Key Takeaways

1. Industry Participation and Support Reflects the Success of 10.10

The event’s success was reflected in its widespread support from the retail industry at every level: sponsors, partners, retailers, brands, designers, charities, REITs (real estate investment trusts), influencers and consumers. The event was created to provide consumers with a fun shopping experience and an opportunity to give back this holiday season.

The 10.10 Shopping Festival was inspired by the success of Alibaba’s Singles’ Day, the largest global shopping festival, and so incorporated innovation, influencers, gamification, multichannel retail, promotions, celebrations, and industry partners and sponsors.

The 10.10 Shopping Festival partnered with REITs, physical retailers and brands, and online brands and retailers. Over 200 social media influencers promoted the event throughout the festival weekend.

[caption id="attachment_117784" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: Coresight Research[/caption]  

We think that 10.10 jumpstarted holiday shopping by getting consumers in the spirt of the holidays—including through charitable giving, as we discuss later. Coresight Research would like to thank everyone that participated and contributed to the success of the 10.10 Shopping Festival.

2. The Event Adopts a Multifaceted, Multichannel Approach

A multichannel approach enabled consumers to shop the 10.10 festival promotions both online and in-store for four full days. It also offered flexibility, giving shoppers the choice of venturing outside to visit stores or making purchases digitally from home: In the US, consumers turned to online shopping as the weather transitioned to rainier conditions throughout the weekend—it was the wettest second weekend in October for over 25 years, according to retail weather analytics firm Planalytics. The weather on Columbus Day, October 12, was warmer and wetter on a national level compared to last year. However, regionally, New York City had its coldest Columbus Day since 2012, but San Diego and Seattle experienced the warmest weather that they have had on that day since 2015.

[caption id="attachment_117785" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: Planalytics[/caption]   3. 10.10 Jumpstarts Retailers’ and Brands’ Interest in Shopping Festival Opportunities

In the US, retailers are catching on to the power of festivals. Shopping festivals present immense opportunities for retailers and brands to not just grow their sales but also to increase their brand visibility in existing markets, as well as enter new markets. The 10.10 event was conceived as a way to bring these opportunities to the US, to help retailers amid the disruption of the Covid-19 crisis.

The 10.10 Shopping Holiday drove excitement and awareness about shopping festivals beyond Amazon’s Prime Day (October 13–14 this year), Target Deal Days (October 13–14) and Walmart’s “The Big Save” sale (October 11–15), all of which followed 10.10.

We expect that the scale of shopping festivals will continue to increase and attract more consumers as brands and retailers recognize and leverage the value of festivalization in retail.

4. Participating Retailers and Brands Report Increased Traffic, Brand Awareness and Revenue

The 10.10 Shopping Festival featured almost 100 physical and online retailers, brands and designers—spanning apparel (including adaptive apparel), accessories, baby products, beauty, electronics, footwear, home goods and products featuring sustainable design elements.

Retailers, brands and designers reported that the 10.10 Shopping Festival helped to increase brand awareness and traffic throughout the festival weekend. For example, participating retail partner Tanger Outlets reported that the 10.10 Shopping Festival helped to drive customer traffic to its shopping outlets, with more consumers shopping during the festival weekend.

[caption id="attachment_117786" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Consumers waiting in line
Source: Tanger Outlet, Saks Off Fifth[/caption]  

Grocery retailer Kroger participated in 10.10 to “encourage consumer confidence during unprecedented times and to launch the holiday season.” Through Ship, its online ordering service, Kroger offered promotions and discounts on toys, cooking essentials and home goods, all of which were available with free shipping. The company reported that it received strong consumer inbound traffic during 10.10.

Many of our other partners and participating retailers reported lifts in traffic and conversion rates during the festival weekend.

  5. Charitable Giveback Is a Central Theme of 10.10

The 10.10 Shopping Festival involved the participation of 12 charity partners. Coresight Research’s two collaborators actioned the event’s central theme of charitable giveback: Shopkick allowed consumers to decide if their additional “kicks” (reward points) were spent as donations to charity; and Fashwire donated $0.50 of every app download to charity.

Sponsors of the 10.10 Shopping Festival helped to drive charitable donations and promotion of the event. Supporting partners—which included retail technology innovators, retail real estate industry leaders and nonprofit organizations—also made donations to charities. The festival provided consumers with an easy way to give back while they shopped.

Charitable giveback will continue beyond 10.10, as consumers are able to donate through the holidays via participating websites. Coresight Research is also receiving requests every day to add new charities.

  6. 10.10 Pulls Forward Holiday Spending, Alleviating Supply Chain Pressures

The 10.10 Shopping Festival gave consumers a reason to shop holiday promotions early and so helped to alleviate concerns around holiday shopping—namely, that online orders will not arrive in time for the holidays.

The 10.10 Shopping Festival also provided a new platform for retailers to reach consumers, gain insights into their demands and desires, and ramp up holiday campaigns before November, the typical start to the holiday season: Last year, consumers spent $16.8 billion on Black Friday and Cyber Monday alone.

This year, supply chain pressures caused by Covid-19 will make it more challenging and more expensive for retailers to deliver holiday purchases on time. The 10.10 Shopping Festival helped retailers and brands to spread out holiday traffic and thus improve inventory management and timely delivery.

7. 10.10 Gamifies the Shopping Experience Using Kicks and Swipes

The festival offered consumers a gamified shopping experience, providing an incentive for them to shop with the scores of brands and retailers participating on a gamified shopping platform with an added element of charity giveback.

The 10.10 Shopping Festival aimed to make shopping fun. Through Shopkick, consumers were able to earn “kicks” when they walked into a store, scanned select products, viewed offers or made purchases, whether in-store or online. These reward points could then be redeemed for gift cards or donated to participating charitable organizations, as we outlined earlier.

Fashwire’s web- and app-based global fashion discovery platform and shopping marketplace brought many designers to the 10.10 Shopping Festival. Fashwire’s gamified experience engaged the consumer with its swipe technology; for the 10.10 Shopping Festival, consumers could swipe and vote on designers’ collections. This helped to influence tomorrow’s fashion trends, and consumers were rewarded for their time spent on the app.

8. The Entire Retail Ecosystem Benefits from Peaked Consumer Interest in Festival Shopping

The 10.10 Shopping Festival helped to support the entire retail ecosystem by building consumer excitement in shopping; the event kicked off the holiday shopping season and energized shoppers.

Retail festivals are catching consumers’ attention: Over 40% of consumers surveyed before the event reported that they intended to participate in the 10.10 Shopping Festival, with other major shopping festivals in October 2020 also garnering high interest (see Figure 5).

[caption id="attachment_117789" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Base: 416 respondents aged 18+, surveyed on October 6, 2020
Source: Coresight Research[/caption]   9. 10.10 Goes Global

The 10.10 Shopping Festival reached beyond the US. Helped by the participation of apparel retailer Guess?, Inc., Europe, the Middle East and Africa participated in the inaugural festival, making the 10.10 Shopping Festival global. Coresight Research believes that this precedent opens the door for the future expansion of 10.10 and other retail festivals.

10. What’s Next?

In the near term, we are continuing to onboard charities onto the Shopkick app ahead of the holiday season to allow consumers to participate in charitable giving; current charity links will be active through the holiday.

Coresight Research has already received interest from industry leaders across all of retail—from major retailers and brands, REITs, technology partners and charities—to host another major shopping festival. Please contact Coresight Research if you are interested in participating in our next shopping festival in any capacity: as a partner, sponsor, technology provider, retailer, brand, designer, charity or influencer. We welcome ideas and look forward to collaborating!

What We Think

The 10.10 Shopping Festival kicked off 2020 holiday shopping as the first major shopping festival of the season, running October 9–12. The festival involved almost 100 retailers, brands and designers spanning major retail categories including apparel (including adaptive apparel), accessories, baby products, beauty, electronics, footwear, home goods and products featuring sustainable design elements.

Coresight Research launched the festival in partnership with shopping rewards app Shopkick and online fashion marketplace Fashwire.

• 10.10 was created as a way to engage consumers, drive brand awareness and revitalize retail.
• Participating retailers, brands and designers reported that they saw an increase in brand awareness, customer traffic and revenue over the 10.10 Shopping Festival weekend.
• The event amplified charitable giving, providing a way for consumers to donate to charities using their shopping rewards.
• 10.10’s multifaceted, multichannel approach drove its success. The festival incorporated elements of Alibaba’s Singles’ Day—innovation, influencers, gamification, multichannel retail, promotions, celebrations, and industry partners and sponsors. The 10.10 Shopping Festival even added a charitable-giving element.
• Due to outreach from industry, Coresight Research is planning its next shopping festival. Please contact us if you are interested in participating as a partner, sponsor, charity or retailer.

Thank you to everyone who made the 10.10 Shopping Festival a success.