Category Archives: Factbrowser

Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Showrooming: 21 Facts to Know

Posted by

0

So, you survived Black Friday. According to trends, that’s probably because you skipped the malls in favor of microwaved left-overs and a shopping plan centered more on eCommerce than early lines.  Regardless of your strategy, there are a lot of forces at play this year in the holiday shopping season. The mobile and technological developments, economic influences, and cultural shifts that shape  the way we research and buy items reaches a new scale in the pre-holiday rush. Here are a handful of facts to keep in mind.

Online shopping continues to be a major force

46% of consumers plan to increase their online shopping during the 2012 holiday season, compared to the 8% who plan to increase in-store shopping (@Hybris_software) Tweet this stat

23% of holiday 2012 shoppers in the US will spend more online than offline (@Deloitte) Tweet this stat

70% of online holiday buyers say they purchased online instead of in stores because deals online were better (@Forrester) Tweet this stat

In 2011, Cyber Monday online spending increased by 33% over 2010 (@Mediative) Tweet this stat

48% of holiday 2012 shoppers in the US will use social media (@Deloitte) Tweet this stat

20% of US online adults consider Google most helpful when researching products or services, followed by 19% for Amazon and 12% for retail stores (@forrester) Tweet this stat

57% of app users in the US say they would consider purchasing their holiday gifts on a mobile device (@Apigee) Tweet this stat

By 2016 more than half of the dollars spent in US retail will be influenced by the Web (@Forrester) Tweet this stat

Online purchasing was rated the “Overall favorite” by 59% of Americans, as well as the “Easiest” (68%) and “Most convenient” (68%) versus in-store and mobile (@NielsenWire)

The increasing role of Showrooming

Showrooming is the consumer practice of browsing for products in-store before opting to compare prices and buy online.  Browsing in-stores enables shoppers to examine the products, try them on, and even benefit from talking with in-store sales representatives.  Showrooming with mobile phones provides shoppers with all of those benefits but also gives them the ability to find the lowest price, whether it be on the retailer’s website or a competitors like Amazon.

48M shoppers (~20% of the US adult population) will “showroom” during holiday 2012, a 134% increase from 2011 when 20.5M shoppers showroomed (@IDC) Tweet this stat

28% of smartphone- or tablet-owning adult holiday shoppers plan to shop with their devices on Thanksgiving Day, up from 16% in 2011 (@Digitas) Tweet this stat

74% of mobile Boomers use their phone while shopping (@inmobi) Tweet this stat

29% of shoppers that used a retail store as a showroom ended up buying from the retailer’s own website (@Vibes_Media) Tweet this stat

Of the shoppers that showroom, 25% leave the store and make a purchase from a competitor (representing 6% of all shoppers) (@Vibes_Media) Tweet this stat

Optimizing the in-store experience

So what are stores to do in the face of  increasing showrooming?  While some stores are blocking wifi and hiding bar codes, others are working with consumer behavior and finding ways to leverage showrooming in their in-store experience.  In an interview with Wired Magazine, Walmart.com President and CEO Joel Anderson explained, “You’ve got to go where the customer wants you to go. We live in the age of the customer. We’re embracing showrooming.”  Acknowledging that shoppers use their phones to research and compare products in store, some stores are adapting to provide shoppers with the information they need, offer price-matching, and store-only perks.  The following research underscores some of the opportunities that exist for stores to leverage consumers’ use of phones and showrooming while shopping.

44% of U.S. consumers who purchased consumer electronics during the 2011 holiday season had sales associates recommend specific products, and 85% of those purchased it (@Marketforce) Tweet this stat

51% of shoppers will research online and then visit the store to purchase during holiday 2012, while 17% will visit a store first and then purchase online (@Google) Tweet this stat

More than 62% of moms with smartphones use a shopping app, and 46% want to receive information on their mobile device while inside a store (@Mojiva) Tweet this stat

Two weeks after Walmart launched “in-store mode” in its mobile app, ~60% of shoppers using its app opted to use it (@Walmart) Tweet this stat

30% of online shoppers research a product on Amazon before they purchase (@Forrester) Tweet this stat

And a partridge in a pear tree

We couldn’t leave you with just 19 facts for your holiday weekend.  This stuff is way too interesting.  Here are a couple of bonus facts on holiday shoppers before you go.

59.2% of US shoppers plan to buy gift cards during holiday 2012 (@Nrfnews) tweet this stat

Display ads running on Black Friday through Cyber Monday have a 32.6% higher engagement rate than the average (@RhythmNewMedia) Tweet this stat

Alright, now we’ve worked off all of our Thanksgiving stuffing.  Thanks for reading.  You can find countless other facts on holiday shopping, ecommerce, marketing and other fields over at www.factbrowser.com. Here are a few categories you may like:

eCommerce Facts

Holiday Shopping Facts

Showrooming Facts

Marketing Facts

Mobile Shopping Facts

Black Friday Shoppers

Black Friday Image by Beth Rankin

7 Essential Categories of Facts and How You Should Be Using Them

Posted by

0

Many kinds of stats can be revealing, but it’s good to understand what each is telling you and when to use them. Understanding what kind of a fact you have helps in interpreting the implications of it.  For example, just because 31% of smartphone owners say they plan to make more purchases on their devices in the future (@eDRtweet), doesn’t mean you they will.  They might, but there’s a difference between attitude, which is what that stat represents, and behavior.   Below you’ll find the seven most essential categories of facts and statistics and some hints on when to use each one.

Stats about consumers

  • Demographics tell you who belongs to a particular population or customer segment. They focus on characteristics like age, gender, income, education level, and background. Consider using demographic data to explain who belongs to the population you’re describing and highlight distinctions between different segments.
  • Attitudes are values, beliefs, or expectations that a consumer holds. Attitudes can give you a sense of what a group of consumers thinks (or would like to think), but they don’t always reflect the reality of how they’ll actually behave. When responding to surveys, people often respond as they want to be seen—not as they are.  You might use attitudinal data to make points about how people feel about a topic, what they expect to happen, or what values and beliefs are important to them.
  • Behavioral data clarifies how a population is actually acting. Instead of answering “Would you?” questions, behavioral data answers “Have you” and “Do you?” questions. “Observational” data gleaned from methods like tracking sales or online behavior is often more reliable than self-reported data.

Stats about industries, markets, and companies

  • Market structure data explains how big a market is, how fast it’s growing or projected to grow, and which companies (or types of companies) have what market share. Use it to make points about how large or fast-growing a market is or how consolidated or fragmented it is.
  • Business model data explains details about how a company’s business is structured. What business units or product lines account for what share of the company’s revenue or earnings? Use it to describe the relative importance of different parts of a company’s business.

 

Stats about technologies and marketing channels 

  • Reach or penetration rate is one of the fundamental types of stats about technologies and marketing channels. How many people (or what percentage of the population) own and use the technology? Use these stats to show how widely adopted a channel is.
  • Strategy stats explain what companies and leaders are doing with technologies or marketing channels (as opposed to consumers). Use them to benchmark how different companies are investing in or executing in different areas.

When you’re looking for a stat to support your argument, first take a look at what you’re trying to build a commentary.  Is it about the business, a given technology, or the consumers (current or future).  Then figure out what you’re trying to say about that focus area.  Is it about growth or adoption possibilities or the current state of affairs?  Make sure that the research you choose speaks to those focus areas and traits.  The good news is: Factbrowser has established categories for each of these types of statistics, so you’ll always know if you’re using the right stat for your argument.  Just look under topic, then format.   Happy browsing!

The 2-Minute Guide to Factbrowser – Your New Secret Weapon

Posted by

2

Our Factbrowser readership has been growing steadily since we launched a month or so back.  So we thought it’d be helpful to deconstruct the site a bit and provide some ideas on how to use it for fast research.  We want you to have the information you need at the drop of a hat. In short, we want you to be the MacGyver of market research and useful stats.

Search

One of the easiest way to find a fact you need it to search for it using the search box in the upper right.  The best way to search is to use one or two defining terms, for example:  social media and china.

Browse

Here is the anatomy of a basic fact on Factbrowser. Each fact links to an original source page, the original report, similarly tagged facts and social sharing options.

A Factbrowser Fact

Click to enlarge

Tags

Clicking on a tag will bring you to a topic page.  Topic  pages aggregate all of the facts we have on a given subject, for example – mobile, millenials, or France.  Here’s an example of a topic page on teens.  Once on the page, you can narrow down to more specific topics within the tag group – like “teens and mobile”.

Original Source Page:

Clicking on the name of the source will bring you to a page of all facts Factbrowser has from that source.  These facts could be on any topic but all share the same source-author.

Source PAge

The header on a source page shows you their contact information, twitter account, and the topics they tend to report on. Click on a topic tag to narrow in on a source’s areas of expertise.

Original Source Report

Clicking on the original source report will take you away from Factbrowser and to the website of the original source.  IMPORTANT NOTE:  When you’re using facts that you find on Factbrowser, it’s important to link back to the original report and not to the Factbrowser page so that the researcher who conducted the study gets properly credited.

Share

Use the social sharing buttons on the right side of each post to easily post the fact to your Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin accounts. Factbrowser will automatically add the original source report and include their twitter handle if you’re sharing on Twitter.

Subscribe

There are two ways to keep you informed about the latest research and statistics. You can subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest facts delivered straight to your inbox or you can subscribe to the RSS feed of a particular topic or page. Our newsletter brings you all of the facts and none of the fluff. Here’s what it looks like:

Newsletter

That’s your user’s guide to Factbrowser.  As the site grows, we’ll be incorporating more of your ideas and pieces of feedback.  We’ll try to keep you updated to all of the changes here on this blog. We love feedback, so keep it coming in the comments section below.