INTERVIEW Stuart McClure of Love the Sales on the importance of getting the right price – Marketplaces

Image: Screenshot from Lovethesales.com

Stuart McClure, Co-Founder and Marketing Director of Love the Sales
Stuart McClure co-founded Love the Sales in 2014, when he was looking for products to buy for his young family on a budget. Today, he says the market is still focused on selling branded products that buyers really want to buy – at the right price.
âLove the Sales consumers are looking for ambitious branded products at a reduced price,â says McClure, director of marketing at LovetheSales.com. âTo this end, premium brands are the most popular on our site. Our AI marketplace understands every detail of a retail partner’s excess inventory and uses those attributes to match them to the millions of consumers who are most likely to make a purchase.
More than three quarters (77%) of the products for sale on the market belong to the fashion and beauty category. The rest includes electronics, home and garden. Love the Sales works with brands ranging from high-end luxury brands to major brands. McClure says the most popular branded offerings on the site come from names like Barbour, Clarks, Nike and Hugo Boss.
Stand out from the crowd
Retailers and retail brands that partner with LovetheSales.com can quickly log into the site, with sales inventory being displayed in less than a day. But with hundreds of sales on the site, it’s also important to stay away from the crowds. McClure says, âTo put the right selling product in front of the right customer, there has to be an element of automation to sort and display millions of different products. Products for sale are categorized on the site through our machine learning technology, Minerva. Attributes like description, price, discount, and color, along with many more, are analyzed by Minerva’s AI and then presented to the right consumer based on their preferences and site behavior, in order to to maximize sales for our business partners.
McClure says the market works closely with brands to sell their overstock items and uses tools like PR, CRM and social media, as well as its Fashion Ambassador influencer network to spread awareness of the latest offerings. .
Brands can also keep an eye on their progress – and how their delivery strategy is functioning – via a real-time dashboard. âThis allows retailers to see what discounted stock is selling in the market and at what percentage,â says McClure. âFor example, at the height of the first UK foreclosure in April 2020, we followed a huge increase in shopping searches on LovetheSales.com for sweatshirts and joggers (177% and 116% increase year-to-year demand respectively). This data helps retailers plan future seasonal campaigns and, in the short term, more effectively inform their pricing strategy on loungewear lines. “
Standing out on the site isn’t just about getting the right images – McClure says high-quality images have a “huge” impact on conversion, as shoppers want to be able to browse a range of images while deciding what to buy. It’s also about making sure the delivery strategy works. âWe differentiate our sales market by offering consumers the largest selection of real-time discounts on clothing for the current season. Seasonal discounts work extremely well on our site and buyers are much happier to get a current season deal at 30% off than an off-season item with a 70% discount. In fact, customers save an average of 35% on their first order with LovetheSales.com. That’s why we encourage brands to consider smarter discounts earlier in the product lifecycle, instead of having to apply unsustainable discounts later in the product lifecycle.
This interview first appeared in the RetailX Brands and Marketplaces 2021 report. Click here to download and further explore the report.