The ShopLocal Retail Index was up 23 percent for the month of November compared to the same period last year. The Index registered at 764 (benchmarked at 100 for January 2006), setting an all-time record.
Retailers generated this strong growth by launching their holiday promotions earlier in November, offering 16% more deals than last year in their online circulars during the first 23 days of November, and accurately predicting consumers’ desire to plan their holiday shopping early. Even though 50% of holiday shoppers plan to spend less this year than last, retailers were able to generate a 0.9% increase in sales on Black Friday and Saturday. As shoppers look more and more to the web for information to guide them in planning their in-store shopping – Google reports a 20% increase in searches for Black Friday and a 50% increase in searches for Black Friday ads – retailers are using the online circulars to reach more shoppers and reach them earlier.
November 2009 ShopLocal Index highlights include:
- The ShopLocal Index is up 23 percent in November year-over-year, with 1,029 million page views (adjusted), versus 863 million last year. This marks the first time that ShopLocal has served more than 1 billion page views in a single month.
- The Other (Specialty) segment led the way with 85 percent growth, followed closely by the Home & Garden segment with 78 percent growth, and by the Consumer Electronics & Office Supplies segment with 60 percent growth.
- The Department Stores and Mass Merchandiser segment showed the least growth, unchanged from a year ago.
- Consumer page views per visit on a per retailer basis averaged 14.4 for the month of November, up 7% from a year ago.
The ShopLocal Index is the advertising industry’s first market indicator designed to track the influence of the Internet on in-store shopping. Updated monthly, the Index is based on the online activity of more than 25 million monthly consumer visits to in-store local promotions that are presented on the sites of more than 50 major U.S. retailers, including JCPenney, Target, Best Buy, Walgreens and Home Depot. These retailers cover all major retail segments including computers, consumer electronics, office supplies, home improvement, department stores, mass merchants, grocery, drug and various specialty stores. The retailers’ online circular sites are powered by ShopLocal’s SmartCircular technology.
Posted on 25 November 2009 by Loch Rose
Loading ...
November has shown an unusual level of deals compared to the usual relative quiet during the run-up to Black Friday. In fact, retailers have extended an average of 16% more offers during November 1-23:
Consumers are responding, with 23% more visits to the online circulars hosted by ShopLocal:
Page views on the online circular have increased even more, running a remarkable 44% above 2008:
Clearly the retailers are extending the holiday shopping season, and consumers are responding. Historically, visits to the online circular have been a strong predictor of in-store sales, and if that holds true, retailers should see strong sales in the pre-Thanksgiving period.
However, the implications for sales on Black Friday are less clear. Certainly consumers are engaged, which is a good sign for sales on Black Friday and for November as a whole, but they may have taken advantage of the early offers to complete much of their holiday shopping already. The most likely outcome is solid but not exceptional store traffic and sales on Black Friday itself, while retail sales for the month as a whole are stronger than predicted.
The ShopLocal Retail Index was up 37 percent for the month of October compared to the same period last year. The Index registered at 290 (benchmarked at 100 for January 2006), the second highest reading ever for a non-holiday month.
As the run-up to the holidays begins, consumers remain wary, with lower spending plans for 2009 than 2008. They plan to save money via online comparison shopping (70%, compared to 38% last year), and by starting their holiday shopping in October (22%) or even earlier (another 30%). Savvy retailers took advantage of these trends by offering more deals than ever in October – ShopLocal’s data showed a 16% increase in offers per retailer in October 2009 compared to October 2008 – and showcasing them in their online and print circulars.
October 2009 ShopLocal Index highlights include:
- The ShopLocal Index is up 37 percent in October year-over-year, with 382 million page views (adjusted), versus 295 million last year.
- The Other (Specialty) segment led the way with 79 percent growth, followed by the Home & Garden segment with 53 percent growth. The remaining segments all showed 20-30 percent growth.
- Consumer page views per visit on a per retailer basis averaged 13.1 for the month of October, up 5% from a year ago.
The ShopLocal Index is the advertising industry’s first market indicator designed to track the influence of the Internet on in-store shopping. Updated monthly, the Index is based on the online activity of more than 25 million monthly consumer visits to in-store local promotions that are presented on the sites of more than 50 major U.S. retailers, including JCPenney, Target, Best Buy, Walgreens and Home Depot. These retailers cover all major retail segments including computers, consumer electronics, office supplies, home improvement, department stores, mass merchants, grocery, drug and various specialty stores. The retailers’ online circular sites are powered by ShopLocal’s SmartCircular technology.
As more people become comfortable with the concept of social media they begin to venture into the social media waters. At first it may be a little usage of LinkedIn for business connections, then a little dabling with Facebook and before they know it they are full blown social junkies with tweets and re-tweets on Twitter.
Pew Internet recently released it’s social networking report Twitter and Status Updating, Fall 2009. They found that there are three primary groups of internet users that are driving the growth of social media: social network website users, mobile/smart phone users, and users under the age of 44.
Perhaps the most exciting piece of information in the study is the average age of social network users. The release of the Pew Internet study set the internet abuzz, and spawned the Twitter trending topics of “Facebook 33″ “Twitter 31″ and “Myspace 26.” Twitter users commented on the topic and re-tweeted “The average age of social media users are as follows: Linkedln 39; Twitter 31; MySpace 26; Facebook 33.”
For more in-depth information I’ll refer you to Sarah Perez’s article at Read Write Web.
Within the Deal$ area of the search engine Ask.com, a new beta area called ‘Local Only’ is appearing that is currently nearly exclusively powered by the localized what’s on sale content that ShopLocal houses in it’s many SmartCircular sites.
Lots of SmartCircular retailer clients are showing up within the search results of this Ask.com beta area like Office Depot, Best Buy, Kmart and Target to name a few. Luckily this local content is not siloed, as it is woven back into the overall Deal$ result set, as I am guessing not many users make it into this specific beta area. One of the coolest things that Ask.com is doing in this beta site is calculating the percentage savings from the original price to the sale price.
Example results page for "Digital Cameras" within the Local Only Beta area of Ask.com's Deal$ part of their search index.
However the only current down side to the Ask.com beta implementation is that the landing page URLs are 100% generic and are not product or deal specific, which leaves plenty to be desired on the user landing page experience. So a user that is looking a specific digital camera within the beta area of Ask.com that clicks off is routed to the main “home” landing page. It also appears that the store filter doesn’t account for all retailers that are included within the results set.
Comments: None