Request a demo at: http://infegy.com The State of Retail August 2014 Authors: Tiffany Tran / Rion Martin Infegy A high-level analysis of consumer perceptions of the 15 most talked about retailers that explores market positioning, age and gender distribution, family purchasing behavior, seasonal changes, conversation drivers, and increasing disillusionment with Black Friday.
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The State of Retail - Infegy...Introduction 3 Key Findings • Consumers are becoming increasingly more negative in regards to Black Friday. • Nordstrom Rack only retailer to excel
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Request a demo at: http://infegy.com
The State of RetailAugust 2014Authors: Tiffany Tran / Rion Martin
Infegy
A high-level analysis of consumer perceptions of the 15 most talked about retailers that explores market positioning, age and gender distribution, family purchasing behavior, seasonal changes, conversation drivers, and increasing disillusionment with Black Friday.
• Consumers are becoming increasingly more negative in regards to Black Friday.
• Nordstrom Rack only retailer to excel at garnering high levels of interest from 25-34 age group.
• Seasonal activity has shifted for all retailers to the Fall season.
• Nordstrom brands excelling at increasing e-commerce activity.
Request a demo at: http://infegy.com
The retail industry has been significantly transformed by technologies that enable consumers to discover, research, and purchase goods outside of the brick-and-mortar experience, regardless of time or location. !
In response, many brands have embraced digital and mobile marketing strategies while also pivoting towards omni-channel retailing. Combined, these three elements are enabling retailers to play a significant role in the modern buyer journey. !
To further tailor the unique journey of each customer and create seamless transitions between channels, retailers are becoming more adept at mining the wealth of data available. This report looks at just one of those data sources, social media, to establish a high-level understanding of consumer perceptions of the 15 most talked about retailers.
Our research began with over 50 U.S. retail department stores discussed on blogs, forums and social channels within the last 2 years. Out of the 50 retail department stores, 18 department stores met our threshold of online presence and were included in the research. In this analysis consumer research excluded posts from brands themselves, while brand research focused specifically on content created by the brands. Analysis of major retail stores that also offered groceries and household goods was restricted to clothing to maintain consistent comparisons between the other major retailers. !
Organizationally, retailers were sorted into four different tiers: luxury, mid-range, budget and discount. With retailers separated into tiers, we identified consumer profiles, brand health, seasonal preferences and seasonal drivers.
Consumer Gender DistributionAcross all conversations for the 18 stores analyzed in this report, women accounted for 68% of all posts. The brands in which a wide variance from the average was recognized were JCPenney, Target, Walmart, and Burlington Coat Factory, all of which realized greater than 40% of posts from men.
Seasonal Preference 2012Conversations amongst consumers were fairly evenly split across the seasons, with Spring having the overall lowest conversation volume, and Fall the highest. As can be seen on the next page, the concentration of conversations shifts dramatically between 2012 and 2013.
Seasonal Preference 2013Aggressive couponing and promotion, as well as increased discussion of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, dramatically changed the concentration of conversations, shifting the majority of conversations to the Fall season. These changes significantly impacted consumer focus on retailers in all three other seasons. The trend lines on the subsequent two pages further demonstrate this change in behavior.
• Just as with Mid-Range tier, the Budget retailers also realized a dramatic shift in consumer focus.
• Breaking from a relatively even distribution of conversations throughout the year in 2012, the majority of attention was re-focused on Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2013.
Seasonal Digital Advertising 2012In 2012, communications from brand owned social media channels engaged online to the greatest degree during the Winter and Summer. Neiman Marcus, Saks, JCP, Target, Walmart, Nordstrom Rack and Burlington focused the majority of their digital advertising to the Winter with more than 40% overall. As witnessed on the following page, brand communication on their owned media changed dramatically from 2012 to 2013.
Seasonal Digital Advertising 2013In 2013, brand online presence shifted away from the Winter season to the Fall. Every retailer analyzed, with the exception of Neiman Marcus, had the least digital presence during the Winter season. Burlington Coat Factory was the only retailer that focused the majority of their digital advertising during the Spring.
Black Friday BurnoutBlack Friday related conversations skyrocketed from 10.5m in 2012 to 28.5 million in 2013. Unfortunately, a large portion of the increase came not from consumers and brands themselves but from sources focused on re-sharing ads and coupons.
To separate the signal from the noise, a consumer segment comprised of 50,162 adults was compiled. Focusing analysis just on this cohort, there were noticeable changes in perceptions of Black Friday from 2012 to 2013.
Although the total number of conversations about Black Friday within the social universe increased 171%, for consumers within this cohort, volume increased by only 5%. In this same comparison, negative sentiment increased from 31% to 37%, expressions of anger rose very slightly from 1% to 1.1%, statements indicating plans to purchase fell from 6.2% to 3.6%, and comments about making purchases declined from 4.7% to 2.1%.
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Key Findings
• Large swath of content contributing to volume increase from 2012 to 2013 was related to sources focused on re-sharing ads and coupons.
• Within a cohort of 50k adults, consumer perceptions increased in negativity, while purchase related statements significantly decreased.
There were very noticeable changes both for consumers and brands moving from 2012 to 2013. The most noticeable was decreased focus on multiple sales events throughout the year, instead focusing the majority of attention on Black Friday. However, while conversations about Black Friday have increased within the social universe, everyday consumers seem to be falling out of love with the allure of the sales event. It will be important for brands moving forward to avoid burning out consumers with ads and offers and instead come up with more creative ways to connect during this heightened time of spending.
What we’re predicting for 2014: • The largest year yet of online conversations around Black Friday yet stalled in-store sales growth. • The best technologically integrated brands will increase focus on Cyber Monday in order to grow through e-
commerce sales. • Burlington Coat Factory will continue to see decline in earned media due to lack of clear digital strategy.
Find out more at: http://infegy.com or connect with us at [email protected]
This report was generated using data and insights from Infegy Atlas, a social media intelligence tool that helps demanding researchers get to the heart of what consumers think, discuss, and how they feel about topics and brands through almost instant analysis of millions of social conversations.