The retail world is dominated by sales periods: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Boxing Day Sales and the End of Financial Year. But Pickles Auctions sits outside of that traditional schedule. It cannot continually sell popular products because every single item it auctions is unique. Plus once the gavel drops, that sale is over forever. Navigating that dilemma is not straightforward but there are lessons that every marketer can learn from Pickles.
“I would love to have big moments where it’s Black Friday or Christmas, but we go very quiet in Christmas period because we don’t have a set forecast the calendar. But because our processes and our marketing team work in such a nice sequence, we have a set protocol of communication types and zones that we work in that no matter what is thrown at us, we can manage,” said Oliver Garas, Pickles Auctions’ head of digital marketing at the Online Retailer Conference and Expo.
Brands go all-out on advertising during key events in the retail calendar. But 78 per cent of moments that shape purchasing behaviour are not led by promotions or retail events. They’re driven real by life.
Pickles instead focuses its marcomms efforts on tapping into culture, culture, identity, joy and community to get consumers bidding. This is where the uniqueness of its items plays into the hands of the team at Pickles.
“We have a process with every campaign, and no product is the same. However, some people run their businesses through pickles. They either have a mechanic workshop and they get salvage items, and they can pick apart some of those stuff, or they’re in the industrial space and they need a digger or or a bobcat, whatever,” said Garas.
These customers need these items now. And the immediacy of their need is a powerful motivator for customers to get involved in the auctions.
Garas also touched on how the under-bidder is as valuable as the transactor, because the under bidder is pushing the transactor up. Again, the fear of missing out is another powerful behavioural device that Pickles taps into. User acquisition, then, can become a virtuous circle—boosting the fear of missing out and driving up prices for sellers.
To this end, email has become a vital channel for Pickles.
“We used to send four to five million emails a year. We now send 40 to 55 million emails. It’s not over-communicating, but it’s keeping people at that touch point,” said Garas.
Importantly for Pickles with this massive email reach the team have emphasised the need to continually interact to its subscribers. Continually reminding them of the items they can win at Pickles auctions, without being scared that consumers might unsubscribe as a result of sending too many emails or not sending enough.
“You’ve got them at you’re reach. You want to speak to people more often…. Use it or lose it,” exclaimed Garas.
This is where Pickles flexes its muscles, by relying on its unique and exhilarating product range to keep consumers engaged, even if they are constantly being reached with emails that could drive them away. Pickles takes this as far as not over-personalising emails, which could lead to its customers unsubscribing, which Garas prefaces as something the company is not scared of.
One specific example Garas gave during his keynote at the Sydney conference was how the team will market Lamborghinis and Aston Martins to a customer who is in the market for a Toyota Corolla.
“I think this breaks up a little bit of that cloud or muddiness that they see in their inbox with flames and a Lamborghini. I think that inspires the user to say, ‘you know what, I might open the next Pickles email.'”
