The clearest data of the year is coming. Turn it into offers you run with intention
If you plan promotions for an Australian retailer, your peak season plan was locked weeks ago. The catalogue is with the printer, offers are loaded and the stock is on order.
Then the questions start arriving. A supplier wants to change their funding. A cost price has moved. Someone asks which version of the calendar is the right one, and the answer is in three different spreadsheets.
These next few weeks will also show you, more clearly than any other time of year, what your promotions process does well and where it needs work. Use what you learn, and your next cycle can look very different.
In this article, Zooss Solution Architect and Retail Promotions Planning Specialist Timothy Kirby looks at what peak season reveals about your promotions process, and how to plan your next cycle with intention.
- Why the big sale days don’t always line up with when shoppers spend, or with where the profit is
- Where a spreadsheet-and-email process costs you most in peak season, from late changes to pricing mistakes and empty shelves
- What your next promotions cycle could look like: more sales, protected margin and less stock left over
- How Retail Promo Planner lets you start with promotions without a large IT project, and grow from there
Are your promotions timed right?
Deloitte’s Retail Report 2026 shows the tension in two numbers. Retailers expect Click Frenzy, Black Friday and Cyber Monday to bring in 52% of holiday revenue. But shoppers expect to do 45% of their holiday spending in early December – after those events have passed.
The big sale days aren’t always the profitable ones, either. Only 59% of retailers rate Cyber Monday as profitable, compared with 86% for Christmas. Promote too hard, too early and you give away margin before shoppers are ready to spend. Hold back too long and you’re left with stock to mark down in January.
Where the pressure shows
Peak season is when a spreadsheet-and-email process costs the most. A late change goes out by email and doesn’t reach everyone. A price change clashes with a promotion nobody remembered. Supplier funding doesn’t match what was agreed, and nobody spots it until the claim.
Pricing mistakes are easier to make too: with hundreds of offers loaded in a few weeks, a “was” price can be wrong, or a new line can go on promotion before its regular price is set.
Then there’s the simplest problem of all: you can’t sell what isn’t on the shelf. A promoted line that sells out on day two looks like a weak offer in the results, even when the price and timing were right.
Come January, the review starts. Which promotions made money? Which ran out of stock? Which gave margin away? Too often the honest answer is “we’re not sure”, and the next calendar ends up looking a lot like the last one.
Better planning, better bottom line
Now picture your next promotional cycle, joining the dots between suppliers, category, supply and marketing. Every promotion has a clear reason to run, a sales and margin target, and one agreed measure of success, so you can compare promotions like for like.
- More sales. Promoted lines are forecast from your own sales history and checked for stock before launch, so they’re on the shelf when shoppers come looking.
- Margin protected. Pricing, funding and overlapping offers are checked before anything goes live, and a cost price change triggers an alert straight away.
- Supplier funding captured. Every offer and its funding sit together in one traceable record the whole team can see.
- Less stock left over. Fewer, sharper promotions mean fewer markdowns once the rush is over.
- Lower compliance risk. Was/now and reference prices are checked against your price history before launch, and a new line can’t be promoted until its regular price is established.
“Peak season tells you exactly where your promotions plan is working and where it isn’t. You don’t need to wait a year to act on it. If every promotion has a clear target, and you know the stock and margin are there to back it, you can start seeing the difference from your next cycle.”
– Timothy Kirby, Solution Architect & Retail Promotions Planning Specialist, Zooss Consulting
Start with promotions, grow from there
The Zooss team has deep experience in planning for retail and consumer goods businesses, from promotions and demand forecasting to merchandise and financial planning. We start with how your team plans and trades, and then design the tools to fit.
Retail Promo Planner is how we put that into practice. It’s built on existing IP already live at a leading Australian health and beauty retailer, and it starts with promotions, without a large IT project.
Retail Promo Planner can run in Anaplan or the planning software that suits you, connected to your existing ERP and POS systems, and extends into demand and merchandise planning when you’re ready.
“Retailers are still running promotions through dozens of manual steps, spreadsheets and email chains. With Retail Promo Planner, we can bring that into one shared process that gives hours back every week to spend on better offers and better supplier deals, with pricing, funding and stock checked before anything goes live.”
– Timothy Kirby, Solution Architect & Retail Promotions Planning Specialist, Zooss Consulting
Plan with intention, perform with confidence
About the author
Timothy Kirby is a Solution Architect at Zooss Consulting. He led the solution design of a new promotions planning platform for a leading health and beauty retailer. The platform brings offer planning, supplier submissions, forecasting and pricing checks into one connected process. Since 2019, Timothy has designed and delivered planning solutions across finance, sales operations and analytics, including setting up a global planning centre of excellence for a multinational pharmaceutical company. With a master’s in economics and a background in business process analysis, he starts with how teams plan and trade, then designs the tools to fit.
Find out more
- Retail Promo Planner – Plan with intention, perform with confidence
- Retail & Consumer Goods Planning – Our solutions
- Planning Transformation in Practice – Making the case for change
- Ready to transform your planning? Contact us.
Better Planning. Better Planet.