MARKET WATCH
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Seventh Annual C-Store MegaStudy Adds New Retailers, Analytics
The seventh annual Convenience Shopper Insights (CSI) MegaStudy from VideoMining Corporation has been expanded to include more convenience store retailers and enhanced analytics.
The recently launched tracking program leverages collaboration with major C-store retailers across the country to deliver a unique perspective into the actual behavior of convenience store shoppers.
This year's CSI program features a 40% expansion of its retailer footprint with Chevron, Shell and Rutter’s joining existing retailers: Circle K, Cumberland Farms, Maverik, am/pm, Thornton’s, RaceTrac, Holiday Station and GetGo. Several analytics features also have been added, including a deeper look into key trip drivers such as varying levels of foodservice, a multi-year trend analysis, the role of mobile phone usage and impact of beer caves.
The yearly channel-specific program generates data and insights from a massive sample of C-store trips and provides reports ranging from store-wide and category benchmarks to deep dives into hot-button areas like Forecourt, Foodservice, Hispanics and Millennials.
“For retailers, a key advantage is the ability to benchmark vs. the panel to see how well their stores are performing and uncover opportunities to improve store layouts, merchandising and operational efficiency,” said Rajeev Sharma, Executive Chairman & Founder of VideoMining, a provider of in-store behavior analytics. “Our manufacturer clients have leveraged the insights to refine strategies across a wide range of areas - from tailoring product positioning to reflect changing need states by day-part to gaining a more complete understanding of consumer decision trees (CDTs) or designing new display concepts.”
The program is powered by VideoMining’s proprietary in-store analytics platform, which uses multiple sensing technologies to deliver a scalable way to understand the behaviors of millions of shoppers. Behavior insights are integrated with basket data and attitudinal learnings from shopper intercepts to provide a complete 360-degree view of the shopper landscape for C-store.
In previous years, the MegaStudy has provided retailers and manufacturers with unique insights and actionable feedback on their shoppers, and has substantially impacted how they approach the channel.
Millennials to Brands: Make Loyalty Programs Fun, Save Us Some Money
Millennials just want to have fun. That’s a crucial insight for loyalty marketers who want their customer rewards programs to be a smash hit with the 80-million-strong U.S. consumer segment accounted for by 18- to 34-year-olds.
In a COLLOQUY-sponsored nationwide survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers, 34% of millennials said the word that best describes their participation in a customer reward program is “fun.” By comparison, 26% of the general population (18 to 65 years and over) chose the word “fun,” meaning millennials scored 24% higher on the loyalty-needs-to-be-fun meter.
In an equally revealing survey outcome, 66% of the general population said “economical” is the word that best describes their loyalty program participation, versus 56% of millennials, a 15% gap.
The fun-versus-economical results are just two highlights from a larger set of survey findings that tell marketers millennials are a different breed when it comes to their engagement with a brand via a rewards program. Here are other survey results that set millennials apart when it comes to loyalty programs:
- 63% of millennials said they had joined a program within the past year, versus 55% of the general population, a 13% difference.
- 25% of millennials said they joined a program in the past year because it offered access to members-only events, versus 16% of the general population, a 36% difference.
- 40% of millennials said they joined a program for access to members-only sales, products and services, versus 33% of the general population, an 18% difference.
- 63% of millennials said it’s important that their loyalty program participation supports lifestyle preferences such as wellness programs, sustainability efforts or a charity, versus 53% of Gen X’ers (35-50) and 46% of baby boomers (51 and over), differences of 16% and 27%, respectively.
COLLOQUY Research Director Jeff Berry said, “Millennials have dramatically different ideas about consumerism and loyalty than other demographics.”
Berry’s tip for loyalty marketers: “Prioritize experiences over economic gains, because millennials love to try new things. And gamify everything.”
In other key findings from the COLLOQUY survey, 49% of millennials stopped using a loyalty program after receiving irrelevant communications, compared to 37% of the general population, a 24% difference; and 18% of millennials stopped participating in a program because it lacked a smartphone app, compared to 13% of the general population, a 33% difference.
Moreover, a little over one-quarter of millennials (27%) continued their participation in a loyalty program because it featured a competitive game, or a social element such as badges, leaderboards or communities. By comparison, just 7% of baby boomers stayed with a program for those reasons, representing a gap of 74%.
Finally, 42% of millennials continue to participate in a program because it has a mobile payment option, while just 15% of baby boomers said the same, a 64% difference.
The survey-based revelations about U.S. millennial attitudes and preferences are part of a larger COLLOQUY report on loyalty program effectiveness. That report, Customer Loyalty in 2015 & Beyond: Are You Wasting Your Money?, is available for a free download. COLLOQUY, operated by LoyaltyOne, is a leading provider of loyalty marketing research, publishing and education.
The COLLOQUY survey results are based on an online survey in August 2015 of 1,000 American consumers. The margin of error is +/- 5% at the 90% confidence level.
IRI Leverages ‘Research Now’ Panel
One million of Research Now’s consumer panelists have been appended with IRI ProScores for a broadly expanded capability to select consumers and shoppers based on their predicted purchase behavior. Through this capability, CPG marketers will gain expanded profiles of high-propensity shoppers with new and unique insights into their motivations, psychographics, life stage and lifestyle characteristics, shopping behavior and media habits.
IRI ProScores, the purchase-based, predictive shopper insights solution, enables CPG manufacturers and retailers and their marketing agencies to identify shoppers with the highest-dollar opportunity and precisely engage them to collect insights into their behavior and understand the influences of that behavior across the new path to purchase. Leveraging cutting-edge analytical techniques and rich data assets, including purchase data from the IRI Consumer Network, IRI estimates all 125 million U.S. households’ propensity to purchase across a broad set of CPG categories, subcategories, brands and stores. Leveraging IRI ProScores predictive models, marketers can directly identify and engage their most valuable consumers and shoppers based on actual dollars spent in a category, on a brand and in a specific store.
With this new integrated dataset, CPG marketers will have access to:
- Deep profiling of high-propensity shoppers and hard-to-find segments for sample selection and marketing plan activation
- Purchase- and segment-based targeting for qualitative and quantitative research, especially new product concept testing
- More granular survey results, which demonstrate marketing impact on either high- or low-propensity shoppers
- Large samples of emerging and rapidly growing consumer segments for deeper insights, achieved by also linking Research Now’s consumer panel to IRI’s industry-leading MillenniaLink and SPINS NaturaLink segmentations to identify key millennial and “natural/organic” consumers.
“By connecting IRI’s proprietary segmentations and granular (all-outlet) purchase data from the IRI Consumer Network to an expansive, flexible and highly regarded research panel like Research Now, the CPG industry will be able to uncover new insights into what drives purchase behavior,” said Robert I. Tomei, president, Consumer & Shopper Marketing, IRI. “Marketers also will have a new tool to uncover white space and innovation opportunities with enhanced product and concept testing.”
By appending IRI ProScores to the Research Now panel, IRI will be able to provide new and expanded survey-based research insights that complement and go well beyond current capabilities already available through the IRI Consumer Network.
Clavis Insight Receives $20 Million Growth Equity Investment
Clavis Insight, provider of eCommerce store analytics to consumer goods companies, has received a $20 million growth equity investment from Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity investment firm and existing investors.
The investment will be used to support the Clavis’ strategic growth initiatives. This includes expanding sales and customer support efforts in United States, Europe and China, as well as continuing to innovate its eCommerce Intelligence platform used by the world’'s top 10 consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies and half of the next 100 CPG or fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies.
“Today, Clavis monitors online retailers across more than 20 countries for our customers,” said Garry Moroney, chief executive officer, Clavis Insight. “The investment partnership with Accel-KKR allows Clavis to effectively capitalize on the growth opportunities ahead of the business, significantly broaden its leadership position in the industry and better support our consumer goods customer base.”
For a video with information on Clavis Insight’s solution, visit: http://clavisinsight.com/?s=video.
Shoppers Warming Up to Online Grocery Shopping: Study
More shoppers are receptive to online grocery shopping, says a new study, which gives grocers more reason to latch on to this fast-growing opportunity.
Online grocery is one of the largest sources of growth for retailers and consumer product manufacturers with sales growing five or six times greater than conventional channels, according to the study, “Capturing the Online Grocery Opportunity,” by A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm.
“Online grocery is at an inflection point as nearly a third of U.S. primary grocery shoppers having tried it at least once,” said Randy Burt, a co-author of the study and a partner in the retail practice of A.T. Kearney. “We expect the category to grow 15-18 percent over the next decade, making it a key source of growth for both retailers and consumer packaged goods manufacturers.
Highlights of the study include:
- While all age groups are embracing online grocery, buyers in the 25-34 age groups (37 percent) have the greatest percentage of shoppers who say they have bought groceries online.
- Online shoppers use both websites and apps to shop for groceries.
- Many customers say they still avoid online grocery because they think the costs are higher.
- Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents say they would shop more online if they were offered convenient checkout and could quickly reorder items.
- Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents say they would buy more groceries online if they could guarantee the quality and freshness of products.
“As availability expands and shoppers gain experience shopping for groceries online, traditional barriers such as concerns about freshness of perishables are eroding,” Burt said.
The study concluded that successful grocery retailers will balance traditional and online capabilities, segment and penetrate the most attractive marketing opportunities, and deliver a “seamless consumer proposition that meaningfully engages shoppers.”
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