Coupons/ Rebates/ Pricing

Watch out Walmart — discount grocer Aldi is beating you in one crucial area.    Aldi’s prices are 21% lower than its lowest-priced rivals, including Walmart, CEO Jason Hart told Reuters. And he plans to maintain that gap going forward.   The fast-growing Aldi, which recently entered California, operates some 1,600 stores in the United States, with 400 new locations planned by the end of 2018.  

Shoppers may notice digital ads, but they are not necessarily clicking on, or responding to, them.   That’s according to a new study by Valassis, “Motivating the Dynamic Shopper: Purchase Decisions In-Progress,” which analyzes how digital ads best engage and then motivate customers to take action. Three groups were studied; parents, millennials and Gen X.   

The nation’s largest retailer is introducing special financing for its credit cards that comes with an appealing hook.    The new offer provides no-interest financing plans for the Walmart Credit Card and the Walmart Mastercard Credit Card, with plans extending across either six months or 12 months on purchases. Similar to most plans, customers don’t pay any interest during the promotional period. But the Walmart offer is different from most others in that the interest also does not accrue during the promotional period.

Rent the Runway, a disruptor in traditional formal wear category, is now a leader in the paid search advertising category.  

Non-traditional grocery shopping methods are on the rise, but traditional supermarkets still are tops with consumers.   

Facebook is proving social media does in fact influence brick-and-mortar sales.   The social media giant offers a feature that enables users to scan a personalized QR code to nab discounts when they buy something at specific brick-and-mortar locations, reported TechCrunch.    The Rewards feature, which is discretely tucked away under the More tab of Facebook’s mobile app, has been in test mode for a few months, according to the report.  

Not only is coupon app usage increasing, but discounts received via mobile devices are influencing where consumers decide to shop.    Mobile coupon usage has increased 42% from 2016, while in-store shopping rewards app usage has increased 34% during the same time period. More importantly, the discounts received via smartphone or other mobile devices are influencing where 67% of consumers decide to shop.   

There is clearly a “generation gap” when it comes to how — and where — different customer segments choose to shop.   This was according to a recent study from Dealspotr, a crowdsourcing platform for savings. The firm launched an online survey among respondents across age groups, including Generation Z (20 and under), Millennial (21 to 35), Generation X (36 to 52), and Baby Boomers (53 and above), and monitored their visits to fashion-related areas across the Dealspotr website.