Category Trend Tracker
Consumer outlook improving
The consumer’s outlook is improving, according to the January Consumer Reports Index, a measure of overall consumer financial health. The study reports that stress levels have diminished, financial difficulties have moderated compared to past months, and the strong retail performance of the holiday season is an important marker that Americans may be willing to engage and spend once again.
The Consumer Reports Index captures respondents’ attitudes, asking if they are feeling better or worse off than a year ago. When the index is greater than 50, more consumers are feeling positive about their situation. When it is below 50, more consumers are feeling worse. The Sentiment Index can vary from a high of 100 to a low of 0.
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Trend Tracker on January 23rd, 2012
Retailers Tagging Social and Mobile as 2012 Targets
According to the report, “Surviving the Current Market Mania with a Solid 2012 Plan,” by Bronto Software, while traditional digital channels such as search and email continue to dominate retailer marketing spending, social and mobile channels are growing in importance.
| Use of Mobile and Social Marketing Tools (% of Respondents; November 2011) | ||
| Tool | In Use Now | Plan to Use in Next 6 Months |
| Facebook fan page and/or shopping | 87% | 8 |
| Twitter publishing | 82 | 8 |
| M-commerce site | 29 | 42 |
| Bar, codes, QR codes in traditional advertising | 38 | 31 |
| Mobile application | 19 | 27 |
| Collecting SMS opt-in (all channels) | 14 | 29 |
| Texting marketing messages | 7 | 29 |
| Texting transactional support messages | 6 | 26 |
| Source: The E-tailing Group, November 2011 | ||
Marketers are also seeking to improve data analytics capabilities to identify the most profitable channels and design the optimal marketing mix for driving engagement and sales. Important tactics include:
| Planned Improved Tactics | ||
| % of Respondents | ||
| Tactic | Critical | Very Important |
| Capturing phone numbers during call center transaction | 13% | 15% |
| Capturing phone numbers during online transaction | 10 | 16 |
| Capturing phone numbers during retail transaction | 3 | 12 |
| Executing email campaigns with SMS opt-in objectives | 5 | 9 |
| Executing traditional marketing or advertising campaigns with SMS opt-in objectives | 1 | 9 |
| Source: The E-tailing Group, November 2011 | ||
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Trend Tracker on December 8th, 2011
Free necklaces and shipping for holiday shoppers?
Retailers are so desperate this holiday season that they’re willing to lose money to get you to spend yours.Take online jeweler Stauer. It’s offering a $249 amethyst necklace for free — provided customers pay the $24.95 it costs to ship it. Stauer will lose money on the deal, but it hopes to reel in new customers who will buy other jewelry.
“In this economy, you have to be outrageous in your offers,” said Michael Bisceglia, the president of Stauer who found that more than a third of customers who took advantage of a similar deal on a $179 pearl necklace in 2009 bought additional items. “You have to shake up the world a bit.”
Not every retailer will go as far as giving away merchandise during the holidays, but many will offer profit-busting incentives. It’s a critical time of year for merchants, which can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue in November and December. And they’re so worried that Americans are spooked by the weak economy that they’re willing to sacrifice profit for sales.
Nordstrom, for instance, is one of the first retailers to offer free shipping on most orders, no matter how small, even though it could wind up paying $3 to ship a $7 pair of socks. Furniture chain Raymour & Flanigan is allowing customers to go four years without paying interest on their purchases — the longest period it has ever offered — even though it will have to help cover a chunk of those charges itself. And Sears is not only offering to match the cheapest prices customers find online, but the department store chain is giving them an additional 10 percent off the difference.
“You may be making a $1 profit instead of a $3 profit,” Fiona Dias, chief strategy officer of members-only shopping service ShopRunner.com, said about retailers. “But you’re not losing a sale.”
Retailers are nervous about holiday sales because many Americans are cutting back on spending as they grow increasingly concerned about the stubbornly high unemployment rate, stock market turmoil and an overall fragile U.S. economy. In fact, a recent Gallup poll found that eight of 10 Americans think the country is in a second recession.
“Retailers are now scared because some believe they’re in a second recession,” said C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group. “And the second recession is hitting them in the biggest shopping season of the year.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Advertising, Marketing, Trend Tracker on October 19th, 2011
“Greenbacks” more valuable than green products – Few will pay extra for green products
| Global Online Consumers | |
| Position | % of Respondents |
| Important for companies to have environmental products | 83% |
| Raw materials influence decisions on where to shop and what to buy | 76% |
| Will pay more for eco-friendly products | 22% |
| Source: Nielsen, Global Online Survey, Q1 2011 | |
Willingness to pay extra for environmentally-friendly goods is highest in the Middle East/Africa, where one-third of consumers are willing and lowest in North America, where only 12% of both Canadians and Americans say they will pay extra for eco-friendly products.
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Customer Centric, Trend Tracker on September 14th, 2011
Lift, from Obvious Corp., a social network for ‘human potential’
The Obvious Corp. has announced Lift, its first start-up, and its not obvious as to what exactly Lift is.
Obvious — a San Francisco incubator started just about two months ago by Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, and former head of product at Twitter Jason Goldman — unveiled the new project in a blog post Wednesday.
Lift, Stone wrote in the post, is an “interesting new application for unlocking human potential through positive reinforcement. We love this software for what it does, and because we’ve tried it and it works. Our plan is to build something extraordinary together.”
How will Lift positively reinforce, uplift, encourage, give an ego boost to its users? For now, Obvious and Lift aren’t saying.
The application is in a private alpha stage and “a long way from opening the doors,” said a separate blog post from Tony Stubblebine, who co-founded Lift with Jon Crosby.
Stubblebine is a former employee of Odeo, the podcasting company that eventually shifted gears to become Twitter after its side-project Twttr started taking off, and about a decade ago worked with Crosby. Crosby too has worked for various San Francisco start-ups, most notably Dave Morin’s social network Path.
Obvious, Stone said, is helping Lift with “strategy, design, funding, recruiting — in general, we’ll be helpful wherever possible. In exchange, Obvious will own some equity in Lift.”
The blog ReadWriteWeb reported that Lift is actually a revamp of a project that Stubblebine, Crosby and their one employee, student programmer Connor Montgomery, were working on earlier this year called Mibbles.
Mibbles, ReadWriteWeb said, looked and worked a lot like Twitter with users sending short messages to each other through an online social network.
“Back when it was called Mibbles, users joined multiple groups with names like Happydog (as in “I want to keep my dog happy”), Love or Home,” ReadWriteWeb said. “Then they gave themselves Awards when they achieved accomplishment leading towards the goals around which they were grouped around.
“The Mibbles team has been working with Obvious all Summer and the service itself appears to have been under active development since at least the spring. The website underwent a dramatic redesign to take on its snazzy new look just a few weeks ago, by which time it was already renamed as Lift.”
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Guest Contributors, Social Media, Trend Tracker on August 25th, 2011