Thursday, June 28, 2007

The Power Of Online + Offline Media = Print + Web

Within the top 25 US markets (eg NYC, LA, Chicago, etc..) and looking at a target audience segment of people that are over the age of 18 years old, print + online reaches about 47.5 million people in total. By including online in this total reach calculation, the advertiser is able to reach an additional 16% (or about 6.6 mill). So here is the big money question of the day. Why are not all print buys augmented by an additional 16% that is earmarked for online spending?

The Aggregated Power Of Local Online Sites

This simple chart from ComScore MediaMetrix (April 2007) really struck me. Out of all of the super large publishers on the web, local publishers (as an aggregate) are the 7th largest online audience. It's fun to be part of a bigger movement. I'm proud to be driving this local publisher rank.

Some Insights Into The Total Size Of The Local Online Advertising Business

Here is a small tidbit that Borrell Associates, Inc. released in 2007...



A
nd from the same firm and study, here is the forward looking outlook as it relates to local online advertising growth rates, extending out until 2010...

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Comparrisons Between US & Europe Consumer Multi-Channel Behavior

Here is a nice summary that one of our great analyst here at ShopLocal put together (thanks Chris!) of the recent Forrester teleconference that was held on Monday June 25, 2007. The topic was The State of MultiChannel Shoppers in The US and Europe and it was lead by Tamara Mendelsohn.

  • European consumers are making the move to multichannel shopping
    • By 2011, 54% European consumers (16 and older) will shop online
  • Consumers using the internet for their shopping
    • 79% of US online consumers researched products online during the past 3 months
    • 87% of European online consumers researched products online during the past 3 months
    • 57% of US online consumers purchased products online during the same period
    • 53% of European online consumers purchased products online during the same period
  • Online Consumer Demographics
    • European
      • Females now 50% of market from 37% more than 4 years ago
      • Younger than the US counterpart; down from 39 to 37
      • 62% are using broadband
    • US
      • 55% female from 47% over 4 years ago
      • Average age has climbed from 43 to 45
      • 55% are using broadband
  • Web shoppers in Europe tend to be newer to the internet than the US counterpart.
    • 53% of EU web buyers have been purchasing online less than 2 years
    • 28% of US web buyers have been purchasing online less than 2 years
  • 51% of US online consumers are cross-channel shoppers (research online purchase offline last 3 months)
  • 57% of EU online consumers are cross-channel shoppers (research online purchase offline last 3 months)
  • Consumer electronics is the top cross-channel category in the US (ranked by purchases)
  • Apparel is the top cross-channel category in the EU; CE is the 3rd category
  • www.Argos.co.uk has taken several of the successful US tactics and applied it to their retail site
  • Recommendations
    • Cross-channel trends both in US and EU continue to prove a need for the SL business model
      • Eventual entrance into the EU market seems to be the next logical step
    • Inventory management is growing increasingly more important to cross-channel shoppers
    • The potential up-sell when cross-channel consumers purchase offline averages over $150/shopping trip
      • Retailers would rely on CSE’s or Local players to drive in-store traffic both here and abroad

Monday, June 25, 2007

Updates On Walmart's Site To Store (S2S) Program

Here are a few quick facts that were 'published' at the Internet Retailer 2007 expo by a top Wal-Mart exec...
  1. 2/3 of all (web) site to store shoppers were already in a (physical) Wal-Mart store weekly.
  2. Sales through this program have doubled since it's introduciton in March 2007.
  3. By driving people back into a phyiscal store, these same shoppers have been found on average to spend an additional $60 in the store while there to pick up their original order. Therefore this program has been found to drive additional sales (larger basket size) and more frequent store trips.
  4. There is already a program in place to start bringing in-store stock availability to the web site. Currently in phase #1, Wal-Mart is bringing in 600 SKUs of inventory status, all within the electronics category (for major ticket items)

Quick Fact Pact - Some More Multi-Channel Research To Support Your Cross-Channel Marketing Efforts

Several recent studies suggest that:
  1. In the 90 days before making a purchase, 87% of adults research
    the product online. (Source: BigResearch CIA, June 2006)
  2. Multichannel shoppers might be more attractive to retailers than single-channel customers. A study by DoubleClick found that 65% of consumers were multichannel shoppers and their size was increasing at about 16%.
  3. Forrester Research found that more than two-thirds of the consumers search products online, but make a purchase offline.
  4. A study by JC Penney found that its customers who use all three channels (store, catalog and the Web) spent $887 per year compared to $150, $195 and $201 spent by customers who only use the Web, store, and catalog, respectively.
  5. Another study by McKinsey & Company found that, on average, retail customers using multiple channels spent about 20-30% more than customers using a single channel.

Is There A Market For Grocery Services Online?

Two quick thoughts on this topic of bringing more local grocery information to the web, which has been greatly discussed around here at ShopLocal. According to Forrester Research...

1. A lack of access to online grocery services is a major reason that 90% of web shoppers don't purchase groceries online.


2. Over the next five (5) years, grocery is predicted to be the fastest growing category in which the web directly influences in-store (and for that matter multi-channel) sales.


Thursday, June 14, 2007

How MobileTools Will Be Driving Multi Channel Shopping In The Future

Friday, June 01, 2007

Platinum Guild International Uses the Internet to Bring Customers Into Their Store

Here is yet another "case study" of another "store" that has realized the importance of having a web site presence that focuses on research and information, as a way of preparing and driving people into local stores at a later point. On an interesting side note, it was great so see that the presenter of this 'case study' (Jenny Luker, PGI senior vice president) actually used and referenced some of the ShopLocal W2S research that we published in the past.

To read the whole news story, go to: http://www.jckonline.com/article/CA6448208.html