Posted on 9 January 2009 by Loch Rose
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ShopLocal has launched Circular Central, a distributable multi-retailer shopping site that contains the online circulars for many top retailers, on Yahoo! Deals and on the IndyStar.com newspaper site. The sites are still relatively new, but it is already clear that shoppers see value in finding all of the circulars in one place, and in the flash-based presentation that invites them to browse.
Some visitors to Circular Central see the first page and leave, which is not surprising in such a new product: it wasn’t what they were expecting, so they exit immediately. But about 50% of the time, the visitor goes on to view 2 or more pages, which then constitutes a “multi-page visit”. The chart below shows just how many pages the visitors have been viewing during these multi-page visits, and how it varies by the day of the week:
No, that’s not an error: multi-page visitors viewed an average of 55 circular pages apiece on the IndyStar.com site this past Sunday. Since January 1st, 7% of visitors have viewed 100 pages or more during their visit, and that increased to 15% of visitors on Sunday January 4th.
It’s also interesting to see that the number of pages per multi-page visit on IndyStar.com peaks on Sunday then drops over the course of the week. This is consistent with our past findings on The Purchase Funnel in Online Circulars: Sunday is the day on which traffic to the circulars is highest, and is also the day on which shoppers do most of their shopping across circulars. Circular Central is of course a big time-saver for shoppers who want to view multiple circulars as they plan their shopping for the upcoming week, so seeing the highest level of page views per visit on Sunday makes perfect sense. As the week continues, shoppers have already made most of their purchase decisions and no longer need to search across circulars, so the average number of page views per visit drops.
The average page views per visit in the Yahoo site is much lower – why is that? We believe that there are two main reasons. The first is shopper expectations: visitors to IndyStar.com are often newspaper readers who are accustomed to reading the circulars delivered in their newspaper on Sunday, so now they are simply doing the same thing online. However, a lower proportion of Yahoo visitors will be accustomed to doing the same, so we don’t see the same lift on Sundays on Yahoo. The other reason is that at present Yahoo is displaying only 4 retailer circulars, compared to 22 retailers on IndyStar.com, so there are many fewer pages to browse on Yahoo:
In fact, in the current week the Yahoo site contains just 66 circular pages from 4 retailers. The selection on IndyStar.com is much larger (22 retailers with 400 circular pages):
It is clear that shoppers are finding value in the Circular Central concept, and we expect that some will become loyal and frequent users. As shoppers become accustomed to Circular Central and the percentage of return visits increases, we should see average page views/visit increase as well. Traffic will increase, encouraging more retailers to participate, which in turn will increase Circular Central’s value to shoppers and thus their loyalty and engagement.
Posted on 24 December 2008 by Loch Rose
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ShopLocal hosts the online circulars for many top retailers, and can track the behavior of the shoppers who visit those circulars to plan their shopping expeditions. In particular, we can track the shoppers as they:
- Interact with the circulars, in particular by clicking on individual offers, thus showing interest in those particular offers. We measure this behavior in the form of a clickthrough rate
- Visit multiple circulars, i.e. the circulars for different retailers. We measure this behavior as the % of visitors that cross-shop.
We have reported on both the clickthrough rate measure and the cross-shopping measure in previous posts. Both show pronounced patterns by day of week. When both are converted to an index, and plotted on the same chart, we can see that they represent a perfect purchase funnel:
(Chart is based on 5 weeks of data during the holiday period of 2008, excluding the week of Thanksgiving.)
Online circulars typically go live on a Sunday and run for 1 week, so this chart follows the behavior of shoppers as they interact with the circulars during that week.
- On Sunday, shoppers come to check out the new retailer offers (traffic peaks). However, they come to browse and compare more than to buy: they view the most listings, but are least likely to click on them for additional information, while 1/6 of all shoppers visit the circulars of two or more retailers, nearly twice as many as on any other day.
- For the rest of the week, shoppers gradually become more focused: traffic is down, but clickthrough rates increase and cross-shopping decreases, as they zero in on their purchases.
- The trend peaks on Friday, when shoppers finalize plans for their Saturday shopping expeditions: traffic is the second highest of the week, yet clickthrough rates are the highest, and cross-shopping is the lowest. These are highly committed shoppers.
Some conclusions:
- Sunday is a very important day because it starts customers down the purchase funnel, even if many of them don’t actually purchase that day.
- Friday is also an extremely important day, because that is the day on which many customers are making the transition from shopper to buyer.
- One key reason that the online circular is a successful merchandising tool for retailers is that it remains equally accessible to customers throughout their purchase cycle, unlike the print circular which is most visible and accessible when it arrives in the Sunday paper.
Posted on 23 December 2008 by Loch Rose
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Consumers cross-shop, i.e. visit the online circulars of multiple retailers, to a significantly greater extent during the holidays. The chart below shows that the weekly cross-shopping pattern for the last two years has been very similar, peaking during the week of Black Friday both times, with 2008 peaking just a little lower:
Evidently, shoppers responded to the economic news by cross-shopping a little less, probably because their shopping lists were shorter. Still, the pattern is remarkably similar. The next chart is a rolling 7-day average of daily cross-shopping starting November 2007:
The November peaks are offset because Black Friday fell later in 2008. Also worth noting:
- 2008 is distinctly though not dramatically lower than 2007
- Daily cross-shopping is not much lower than weekly cross-shopping: most consumers who cross-shop do so when they first visit the online circulars
A plot of the daily data shows that there is a strong day-of-week pattern in cross-shopping:
A plot by day of week shows that cross-shopping peaks on Sunday, when most circulars launch, and falls off rapidly to a low on Friday:
Most shoppers are making their cross-retailer comparisons early on, and return later to confirm their choice rather than to reevaluate.
Despite historically high levels of retailer promotions, consumers remained if anything more loyal to their primary retailers in 2008 than in 2007. This gives retailers a good chance to capture a large portion of the holiday spending by consumers who are influenced by deals to come to the store, and should increase the overall effectiveness of the retailers’ promotions.
The Pulse of the Shopper continues to strengthen and moved to its best level this holiday shopping season in the week after Black Friday.
The latest reading, which was based on a survey of 3,132 in-market shoppers, is UP from last week and substantially UP from the beginning of November. Specifically:
- 42% expect to spend less than last year; this was 45% last week and 60% in early November
- 9% expect to spend more than last year; this was 8% last week and only 4% in early November
The trend is borne out by retail results:
- Black Friday sales were up 3% vs last year according to ShopperTrak
- Excluding auto sales and gas station sales, all other retailers saw sales climb, rising 0.3% in November according to the Commerce Department. That was the largest increase since June and the first since July. Sales last month rose 0.2% at furniture retailers; 0.8% at clothing stores; 2.8% at electronic stores; 0.2% at eating and drinking places; 2.8% at sporting goods, hobby and book stores; 1.2% at general merchandise stores; 0.3% at food and beverage stores; and 1.0% at health and personal care stores.
- According to comScore, sales were up 7% during the first week since Cyber Monday (December 1 – December 7) for a total of $4.45 billion.
Shoppers planning to Spend Less than last year still outnumbered those planning to Spend More by 4.5 to 1 (chart below). However, the trend seems more and more to suggest that, while it is a tough season, the consumer may be taking advantage of the great values being presented by retailers.
Pulse of the Shopper: Holiday Spending Intent Compared to Spending in 2007
Check back again next week to see what the shopper is telling you.
The Pulse of the Shopper continues to strengthen and moved to its best level this holiday shopping season in the week of Black Friday. This appears to be borne out by the relatively strong results reported for the Black Friday shopping weekend.
The latest reading, which was based on a survey of 18,000 in-market shoppers, showed substantial improvement from the beginning of November, specifically:
- 45% expect to spend less than last year, versus the 60% that expected to do so four weeks ago
- 8% expect to spend more than last year, versus the 4% that expected to do so four weeks ago
However, shoppers planning to Spend Less than last year still outnumbered those planning to Spend More by 5 to 1 (chart below).
Pulse of the Shopper: Holiday Spending Intent Compared to Spending in 2007
Check back again next week to see if the trend continues to be positive.
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