What Channels Are Different Types Of Multichannel Shoppers Using And Why?

Posted on 19 October 2009 by Patrick Flanagan 1 Comment

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Masha Sajdeh of Arc Worldwide presented a great piece of brand new multichannel research at the In-Store Marketing Expo that took place here in Chicago last week. This studies methodology and sample was a solid:

  • 3 countries
  • 5,609 respondents
  • 60 minute online survey
  • 20 categories of products examined
  • 10 unique channels probed

The entire Arc multichannel study is worth a careful read, but due to it’s length (57 pages) we’ll only examine a few portions that pertain to better understand which channel different types of multichannel shoppers are using and why.

For those not familuar with the concept of what multichannel shopping is all about, this is a great visual explanation.

For those not familuar with the concept of what multichannel shopping is all about, this is a great visual explanation.

So first let’s examine a few of the insights uncovered around how much time different multichannel shoppers spend per channel on a monthly basis.  Surprisingly, the circular is the channel that showed the highest usage across all of the different types of mutlichannel shoppers (excluding a retailer’s own web site and store).

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Note how the circular across all types of multichannel shoppers plays a critical role in adding the shopping process.

If we take a closer look at just the medium and heavy mutlichannel shoppers, the picture becomes even more stark. A retailer’s own web site and physical store are used heavily and fairly equally by both types.  However the usage pattern around circulars is very different with heavy multichannel shoppers (arguable the most desirable and profitable type of shopper) using the circulars 95% of the time, which is higher than the retailer’s own web site.  Even the more moderate mutlichannel shoppers are using the circulars at pretty hefty rates of 61%, which when again compared to a retailer’s own web site usage of 69% clearly demonstrates the continued importance of the circular to multichannel shoppers.

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Wow, circulars are nearly as used by heavy multichannel shoppers as a retailers own physical stores!

Finally let’s try to get to the bottom of the ‘why’ – in this case, the ‘why’ is what causes these multichannel shoppers to use which channel when.  Not surprising, circulars are all about saving money.  Catalogs on the other hand are all about providing shoppers with inspiration.

Every single channel has a unique use and value proposition to a multichannel shopper

Every single channel has a unique use and value proposition to a multichannel shopper.

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Categories in this Article:
Circular & Coupon Trends, Industry Trends, Research, Retailer Promotion Trends

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CircularCentral Turns One-Hundred And Five (105) – Complete Site Directory List

Posted on 11 June 2009 by Patrick Flanagan No Comments

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WOW. We finally reached critical mass.  As of yesterday, the CircularCentral team here at ShopLocal has official launched into production one-hundred and five (yes, 105!) co-branded instances of CircularCentral (mainly across the Gannett Digital Network of newspaper and broadcast sites). That’s a lot of web sites to produce, test and migrate in a very short span of about 2 months. But the team did it, on schedule every step of the way.

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105 CircularCentral sites are now live and lots of future growth to go! The orders for new partner site instances for CircularCentral just keep rolling in.

The below directory of CircularCentral sites follows the following format:

  • Publisher or Broadcast Station or Newspaper Partner Name
    • Local Market(s) Served
    • Web site address / URL of the corresponding co-branded instance of CircularCentral

Here is the complete current list of ALL of the CircularCentral network of sites:

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CircularCentral, Press Releases, Press Room, Products, SiteSolutions

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Creating New Metadata Is Fun And Powerful

Posted on 30 April 2009 by Patrick Flanagan No Comments

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Let’s take any given circular / weekly ad page.  Doesn’t matter which retailer, which page, which newspaper.  Any old page will due just fine for this example.

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Example circular page image

Examine the image above careful.  What factual statements would you make?  A few of the more obvious ones may include:

  1. There are a total of seven (7) items advertised on sale
  2. The price range of items on this page spans from $4 all the way up to $249
  3. The allergy OTC medications represent over 75% of the total page area
  4. There are at least four (4) unique sub categories of items represented

What this exercise is essentially causing you to do is create metadata – data about other data. A more exact definition may be that metadata is definitional data that provides information about or documentation of other data managed within an application or environment.

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Example of some image metadata about the pumpkin-thing on the left

In any case, the ShopLocal team just unlocked a new dimension of metadata around the circular pages that we process for most retailers in America. What the team just released allows the back end database systems to compute and create new metadata about each circular page. As of yesterday, for every single circular page processed, the ShopLocal system is computing a number of category “labels” for any given circular page.

So refer back to the example circular page image above. If we apply this logic of category label creation to this image, one would come out with the following ranked ordered list of descriptive category labels:

  1. Four (4) over the counter (OTC) drug items (which these individual items were all categorized under the following structure Grocery & Essentials (L1) -> Health (L2))
  2. Three (3) homeware items (which these individual items are categorized under the following structures: Home (L1) ->Vacuums (L2), Home (L1) -> Bed and Home (L2) -> Home Improvement (L2))

From this simple assessment, ShopLocal would be able to label (or ‘tag’) this circular page image as being first and foremost a Grocery & Essentials circular page with a secondary label of Home being applied.  We actual look at the overall category percentage density at the level 1 category level and assign a ranking – needless to say, it offers very accurately category labeling. From this point forward, the fun really begins.

A few examples application that uses and requires this type of circular page category label metadata would be:

  • As a marketer, image you are trying to create a link from your weekly newsletter that drives users to the place within the online circular site that best represents the on sale electronics category items. This marketer does NOT know which exact circular page contains the most electronic items, especially week-to-week, version-to-version
  • As a marketer, you want to offer your users a new way of browsing the weekly ad items by category. Rather than using the typical gridded results sets manner that most category / search result pages do, you as the marketer still want to keep your users within the circular page context. Imagine browsing the online circular in the page-by-page mode, but ONLY viewing those page(s) that are relevant to a specific category.  In this example, this would mean that since the user was trying to view electronics content, only circular pages 14, 3, 27 and 11 would be shown as those are the only pages that contain electronics items.  Even the ranked density order is maintained which is why the odd, non-linear order is created since page 14 has more electronics items that page 11.
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Circular & Coupon Trends, Products, Research, SmartCircular, SmartCircular Trends, Technology

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Go Green. Go Virtual. Go To Online Only Print Ads

Posted on 30 December 2008 by Patrick Flanagan No Comments

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When looking at local print as a advertising medium that can be extended online for additional distribution, why hold onto all of the typical limitations that a circular / FSI type promotion places such as:

  • The non-reactive time line (most circulars are created month(s) in advance) of typical print ad production which limits the competitive responsiveness of product assortment and pricing
  • Mistakes that sneak into the print ads require huge costs and processes for managing
  • The limited physical space which prevents many promotions and deals from every being included in the advertisement
  • The ever rising costs of printing and transportation
  • The ever declining distribution options due to the decline in newspaper circulation
By going virtual with store based promotions, many of the constraints that print imposes disappear

By going virtual with store based promotions, many of the constraints that print imposes disappear

By utilizing digital publishing for the benefits that it affords and doing virtual store-based promotions, one could expect to now realize:

  • An unlimited number of pages, deals and items can be included and promoted
  • Substantial savings over print ads as all of the paper, ink, printing, transportation and newspaper insertion fees no longer apply
  • Near real time product assortment and pricing updates are possible so one will no longer to be forced into honoring misprints, errors, etc
  • Distribution of this highly localized in store promotions across every possible digital medium including paid search, rich media display ads, widgets, mobile and much more
  • Using your local in-store advertising (eg virtual promotions) to help mange down end-of-life cycle items, stock shortages, inventory surpluses, new product introductions, etc

Below is a overview presentation that is rich with graphical examples of leading retailers such as The Home Depot, Whole Foods, Target and Sears that are blazing a trail in this area.  Not all paths have lead to immediate success, with the biggest hurdle being how to get an equivalent amount of local distribution for less money than print costs, but in all cases the business goal was the same. How to look beyond the day where print circulars are no longer the primary method of localized in-store advertising.

The learnings each retailer has generated have been immense and very insightful, with the most successful to date (Target) not giving up after the first try but rather continually evaluating and adjusting their web only exclusive content strategies.  For reference, included in the presentation are five different versions of virtual pages that Target has run over the years.  It’s fun to see them all in chronological order (from most recent to oldest) as one can really see the progress in integration, messaging, branding and positioning.

Finally here are some related documents that provide great insight and details on this initiative: Virtual Pages Discussion Guide and Virtual Pages Feature Guide

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Industry News, Research, SmartCircular

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