shopping habits

“You are what you wear.”

Phillip Nones Advertising, Demographics, Economics, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research, Sales, Social Commentary , , , , , , , ,

Research from Duke University suggests that people who are dressed up buy more and spend more than their casually dressed counterparts.

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, people have been “dressing down” more than ever.  But recent consumer research suggests that for buying more and spending more, retailers do much better when their customers are dressing sharp.

Researchers at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business analyzed the shopping habits of two different groups of consumers.  Smartly dressed shoppers — as in wearing dresses or blazers — put more items in their carts and spent more money compared to casual dressers (as in wearing T-shirts and flip-flops).

The difference among the two groups’ shopping behaviors were significant, too:  18% more items purchased and 6% more money spent by the sharp dressers.

The Duke University research findings were written up in a paper titled “The Aesthetics We Wear: How Attire Influences What We Buy,” which was published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.

According to Keisha Cutright, a Duke University professor of marketing and a co-author of the report, when people are dressed up they tend to have more social confidence, which in turn reduces the anxiety people may feel about making certain purchasing decisions:

“We focus on how your dress affects your own perceptions.  When you’re dressed formally, you believe that people are looking at you more favorably and they believe you are more competent.  If you feel competent, you can buy whatever you want without worrying what other people think, or whether they will be judging you negatively.”

Parallel Duke research also found that retailers can actually prompt would-be shoppers to wear nicer outfits when shopping at their stores by featuring nicely dressed models in their advertising.  “So, there are some practical implications from the research for retailers,” Cutright says.

How about you? What sort of dynamics are in play regarding how you’re dressed and what you buy as a result?  Is there a correlation between what you’re wearing and how you’re shopping?  Please share your observations with other readers here.

Online shopping insights: Why is the in-store pick-up option so popular?

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Marketing Research , , , , , , , , ,

With online shopping so popular these days, why are consumers electing to pick up the merchandise they’ve ordered at the store?

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While it isn’t a pervasive practice, a study published recently by consumer analytics firm Connexity/Bizrate Insights finds that more than 30% of online shoppers have used in-store pick-up at least once during the past 12 months.

Even more surprising, perhaps, is that ~13% of respondents reported that they had considered abandoning a purchase because in-store pick-up wasn’t offered as an option.

As it turns out, people choose the in-store pick-up option for four major reasons:

  • To avoid paying shipping charges: ~55% cited
  • For the convenience: ~43%
  • Need to receive the order quickly: ~36%
  • Shopping online to ensure the item is available: ~29%

At first blush, I wouldn’t think that “convenience” means having to drive to a store versus having the product delivered right to the house. But perhaps “convenience” in this sense is related to product availability – avoiding a fruitless trip to the store only to find out after-the-fact that the desired product isn’t in stock.

But the other reasons cited make good sense, too. Everyone understands the desire to save money – if not on the product itself, then by avoiding shipping charges.  And if a quick drive to the store gets you the items compared to waiting a few days for the shipment to arrive, that’s understandable as well.

The Connexity findings underscore how important it is for retailers to align their e-commerce setups to allow for in-store pick-up – especially if the economics don’t allow them to offer a free shipping option. There’s simply too much competition from online-only retailers to afford losing sale to them based on any of the four factors listed above.

Holiday Sales: “Many Happy Returns”

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Research, Sales , , , , , ,

retHere’s an interesting statistic coming out of the holiday season this year: Nearly one in four consumers has returned at least one of the gifts they received.

For gifts purchased online, returns are an even bigger part of the equation – as in one third of all online gift purchases being returned.

It’s part of a trend that’s growing at a pretty swift pace. In 2014, a total of $285 billion worth of merchandise was returned in the U.S., a 6% increase over the previous year and more than double the growth rate of retail sales as a whole.

Industry observers are expecting higher figures again for 2015 once the stats are fully tallied.

Which holiday gift items tend to be returned most often? In a survey of ~500 U.S. consumers conducted between December 28 and 31, 2015 by mobile app shopping circular developer Retale, the following gift categories were cited most frequently by respondents:

  • Jewelry: ~32%
  • Electronic products: ~29%
  • Gift cards: ~27%
  • Clothes/apparel: ~26%
  • Home décor/home improvement items: ~23%

Consumers may have gravitated to online shopping big-time this past holiday season, but as for the gift return “experience,” it’s pretty clear that consumers continue to prefer making a return at the store (~64%) rather than online (~12%).

Evidently, the “hassle factor” of shipping merchandise back to the seller – not to mention the cost of return shipping if that isn’t offered free of charge – is more onerous than getting in the car and driving to the store outlet.

As for the mountains of merchandise that retailers are having to deal with, it’s caused the growth of an entirely new business niche: reverse logistics firms.

These companies input information on each returned item and determine the most lucrative way for the retailer to dispose of it – which can include sending it to a wholesaler, selling it to a liquidator for scrap, or sending it to a distribution center to be repaired and resold.  Online “refurbished products” stores on Amazon and eBay enable retailers realize up to 70% of an item’s worth by selling those items directly to value-conscious consumers, compared to recouping only 20% or 30% in the past.

It’s part of the action –> reaction aspects of retail that pretty much define this industry.

What Will Retail Look Like in Five Years?

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Economics, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

retailIt’s a question many people are asking:  To what extent is the digital revolution fundamentally changing shopping habits? 

A new report from Forrester Research titled “U.S. Cross-Channel Retail Forecast, 2012 to 2017” attempts to answer this question.

Its prediction:  just over 10% of total U.S. retail sales will be online purchase in five years’ time.

By comparison, in 2012, e-commerce accounted for about 5% of total U.S. retail spending, so Forrester is projecting a doubling of e-commerce volume.

Forrester also projects that by 2017, ~60% of retail sales in the United States will involve the Internet – either as a direct commercial transaction or as part of buyers’ pre-purchase research on laptops, tablets or smartphones.

The sectors most likely to be influenced by online research are grocery, apparel, home improvement and consumer electronics – no doubt abetted by the ability to access customer reviews and comparison prices during shopping excursions, Forrester reports.

These findings and more are included in Forrester’s report which can be found here (it’s a for-purchase study).