Budgets/Spending/Market Size

Despite plummeting fuel prices, the ranks of convenience stores swelled to a record level last year.

The U.S. convenience store count increased to 154,195 stores as of Dec. 31, a 0.9% increase (1,401 stores) from the year prior, according to the 2016 NACS/Nielsen Convenience Industry Store Count.

Slowly but surely, consumers are becoming open to the idea of switching from leather wallets to an electronic version.

According to the new “Let’s Get Digital” consumer survey from Citi Retail Services, digital wallet usage has increased by 20% in the past two years. Thirty-five percent of consumers used digital wallets at the end of 2014, and that figure rose to 55% by the end of the year 2015.

Impulse buying is alive and well in the United States.

Consumer interest in wearables is booming for reasons that retailers should find encouraging.
 
New research from Mintel reveals that the U.S. wearable technology market is experiencing unprecedented growth, with estimated sales increasing 186% from 2014-2015, reaching $7 billion in 2015.
 
And despite just one in 10 consumers owning a fitness tracker (12%) or smartwatch (7%), 16% of consumers said they planned to purchase a fitness tracker or smartwatch in the final three months of 2015.
 

Consumer interest in wearables is booming for reasons that retailers should find encouraging.

New research from Mintel reveals that the U.S. wearable technology market is experiencing unprecedented growth, with estimated sales increasing 186% from 2014-2015, reaching $7 billion in 2015.

And despite just one in 10 consumers owning a fitness tracker (12%) or smartwatch (7%), 16% of consumers said they planned to purchase a fitness tracker or smartwatch in the final three months of 2015.

Some major retailers sharply reduced their use of printed free standing inserts (FSIs) last year but the total dollar value of FSIs still grew to a record $515 billion.

The value of free standing insert (FSI) coupons increased 3.7% in 2015 to $515 billion, according to Kantar Media. However, the number of FSI pages distributed fell 8.1% as marketers cut back on pages that didn’t include a coupon. The number of coupons circulated increased nominally versus the prior year, and combined with higher face value led to growth in dollars circulated.

Consumers are increasing their use of apps for a specific purpose that should make retailers happy.

According to a new survey of U.S. adults conducted by KRC Research for Verizon, 56% of consumers made a product purchase with a smartphone app in 2015. This figure includes 23% of smartphone owners who purchased a product with an app for the first time.

By age group, 70% of millennials age 18-34 made a product purchase using an app in 2015, an 85% increase from 2014. This led 66% of Gen Xers and 39% of Baby Boomers who did so.

When providing the BDO retail IPO outlook for 2015 at the beginning of this year, we asked: Will consumer businesses face a potential Alibaba hangover in 2015?