Holiday deals are hitting nice and early this year, and some experts see the heavy promotional environment as a sign that retailers are trying to drive volume in response to falling prices.

“Promotions is obviously one of the fastest ways to drive unit volume, and it’s a way that you can do it in a controlled setting where you’re not adjusting your everyday price,” Matt Pavich, pricing expert at Revionics and a former manager of merchandising and systems development at Target, told Retail Brew.

In the first two weeks of October alone, Amazon held its two-day Prime Day event, which saw heavy discounting across categories, and both Target and Walmart held week-long sales events offering lower prices on thousands of products, including toys and other gift items.

These sales events appear to be just the latest in an industry-wide effort to boost volume after multiple years of drawing profits from inflated prices in the wake of the pandemic, Pavich explained. As inflation has slowed or even reversed into deflation in certain categories, the question of how to drive volume has become a priority for major retailers.

Keep reading here.—AV

Poshmark is undergoing a major fee structure shakeup.

The online resale platform is walking back fee changes announced on Oct. 2, after speculation of seller backlash from merchants that sell on its platform.

Poshmark is dropping the fee structure in which sellers had to pay an additional $1, $2, or $3 depending on the total order amount, after Poshmark CEO and Founder Manish Chandra admitted it led to a drop in sales.

“Over the past few weeks we have seen that shoppers spent less on purchases as they shifted their spending from orders to fees, leaving our sellers with less cash in their pockets—despite the seller fee reduction,” Chandra wrote in an email to sellers.

The company is also ditching its buyer protection fee, where shoppers had to pay $1, $2, or $3 based on the order price.

Keep reading here.—VC

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Emily Schwartz is head of content and communications at Haus, a marketing science platform working with brands like Jones Road, Magic Spoon, and Sonos.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? It’s helpful to think of my job spearheading content and communications at Haus almost like being the GM of a media company, but for a brand. I help define our narrative and distribution channels so we can reach the right audiences with the right message at the right time—including many customers and community-members in retail, DTC, and e-commerce.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? It’s super cross-functional. It’s impossible to lead content and communications well in a silo. I’m working with partners in customer success, product, marketing, sales, and science nearly every day.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? I loved helping drive PR for a recent fundraise announcement and new product launch. It’s so satisfying to pour in the work and see it pay off.

Which emerging retail trend are you most excited about right now, and why? There’s a transformation happening in retail marketing measurement right now around incrementality.

Keep reading here.—EC