Do Power Players Rule?

A power player is any U.S. retailer with sales equal to or greater than 10 percent of those of the category leader. 1. Department Stores Department stores have survived the rise of sectors specializ­ing in narrower product ranges, as well as the challenges of discount stores and other off-price retailers, and finally E-com­merce. Gerald

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Will the Favorites of Today Remain Popular?

While competition constantly shifts, the top tier of consum­ers’ favorite online retailers is stable. There was little move­ment among the top 10 in a 2015 consumer survey by Prosper Insights & Analytics; the full list includes only six relative new­comers. This allows for greater insights about what motivates shoppers, where they like to shop,

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Omnichannel Strategies of Top Retailers

It’s no longer bricks-and-mortar versus E-commerce— omnichannel is the path to success. Consumers have myriad ways to shop, and retailers must keep up. “New [technology] tools transform the way consumers want to shop,” says Anne Zybowski, a vice-president at Kantar Retail. In response, retail­ers are re-thinking operations, from infrastructure and inventory systems to delivery

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Omnichannel Food Retailing Still Needs Work

Grocery buying is changing due to the emergence of omnichan­nel retailing. Consumers want options, and grocers need to be ready to provide them. Thus, experts say retailers will have to deal with selling price, venue, payment, and customer experi­ence in all transactional channels. Doing so effectively is easier said than done, however. One who

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What Are Consumers Finding Expendable?

Beyond an online connection and a way to access it from the palm of their hands, consumers are proving to be a relatively agnostic bunch. Hyperinformed, price-savvy, and emboldened by a post-recessionary survivor attitude, consumers assert that things like a new pair of jeans, dining in upscale restaurants, and buying high-end cosmetics or a

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Ongoing Recovery

“Year over year, the changes have been slim, but when you com­pare the December 2015 survey to data compiled in December 2008, it’s evident that consumer attitudes toward spending are heading in the right direction,” says Chrissy Wissinger, director of communications at Prosper. “Communication trumps just about everything else for today’s consumer. They don’t

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Mash-Up

It is generally acknowledged that consumers’ propensity to spend varies by age, as do the types of products they purchase. Age-wise, Millennials are on the cusp of what experts deem to be the sweet-spot for spending—setting up homes, starting a family, and so on—but that’s just not typically been the reality. Burdened by student

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Older and Wiser?

Baby Boomers and beyond are obviously in a somewhat dif­ferent frame of mind when it comes to determining what’s expendable and untouchable. Having spent years amassing stuff, they’d prefer to spend money on an experience. Organic and gourmet foods are off the table for the 55 and older crowd, with 87 and 93 percent

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Tracking Trends

Digging into the research by household income and gender yields interesting insights. Among consumers with a house­hold income of $150,000 or more, 53 percent indicate that hav­ing their hair cut or colored is an untouchable item—a greater percentage than any other income or age group; 21 percent say maid service is untouchable; and 22

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Gender Trends

The differences between men’s and women’s perception of what’s expendable or untouchable are generally not dramatic, but they can be eye-opening: 16 percent of men consider gour­met food untouchable; only 11 percent of women feel the same way. Then again, it would be interesting to determine how each defines “gourmet.” Nearly 40 percent of

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Retail Consumer Demographics and Lifestyles

Demographics are objective, quantifiable, easily identifiable, and measurable population data. Lifestyles are ways in which individual consumers and families (households) live and spend time and money. Visit our Web site (www.bermanevansretail.com) for posts on these topics. 1. Consumer Demographics Consumers, both as groups and as individuals, can be identified by such demographics as gender,

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Retail Consumer Needs and Desires

When deriving a target market profile, a retailer should identify key consumer needs and desires. To a retailer, needs are a person’s basic shopping requirements consistent with his or her present demographics and lifestyle. Desires are discretionary shopping goals that affect attitudes and behav­ior. A person may need a new car to get to

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Shopping Attitudes and Behavior of Retail Consumers

In this section, we look at people’s attitudes toward shopping, where they shop, and the way in which they make purchase decisions. The top of Table 7-3 shows how shoppers around the world say they would change their retail behavior if they needed to reduce their spending; the bottom of the table indicates how

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Retailer Actions

As noted in Chapter 3, in mass marketing, a firm such as a supermarket or a drugstore sells to a broad spectrum of consumers; it does not really focus efforts on any one kind of customer. In concentrated marketing, a retailer tailors its strategy to the needs of one distinct consumer group, such as

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Environmental Factors Affecting Retail Consumers

Several environmental factors influence shopping attitudes and behavior, including: State of the economy Consumer confidence about the future Country of residence (industrialized versus developing) Cost of living in the person’s region or city of residence Rate of inflation (how quickly prices are rising) Infrastructure where people shop, such as traffic congestion, the crime rate,

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Information Flows in a Retail Distribution Channel

In an effective retail distribution channel, information flows freely and efficiently among the three main parties: supplier (manufacturer and/or wholesaler), retailer, and consumer. This enables the parties to better anticipate and address each other’s performance expectations. We highlight the flows in Figure 8-2 and describe the information needs of the parties next. A supplier

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Avoiding Retail Strategies Based on Inadequate Information

Retailers may rely on nonsystematic or incomplete ways of gathering information due to time and costs, as well as a lack of research skills. But the results can be devastating. For example: Using intuition. A movie theater charges $10 for tickets at all times. The manager feels that because all patrons are seeing the

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The Retail Information System

Data gathering and analysis should not be regarded as a one-shot resolution of a single retailing issue. They should be part of an ongoing, integrated process. A retail information system (RIS) anticipates the information needs of retail managers; collects, organizes, and stores relevant data on a continuous basis; and directs the flow of information

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The Retail Marketing Research Process

Marketing research in retailing entails the collection and analysis of information relating to specific issues or problems facing a retailer. At farsighted firms, marketing research is just one element in a retail information system. At others, marketing research may be the only type of data gathering and processing. The marketing research process embodies a

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Eating Patterns in America

Household changes will shape the future of eating for years to come. The “typical” U.S. consumer and the households in which they live are very different from those of 20 years ago. The changes are reflected across the spectrum of eating patterns today—who, what, when, where, how, and why. Single-person U.S. households are 38

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