Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

Exceptional customer service is key to driving long-term customer loyalty — and once again, B&H Photo Video, The Home Depot and Zappos are blazing the path.     For the second year in a row, these three heavy hitters topped the 20th Annual Mystery Shopping Study. The report from Astound Commerce recognized retailers who excel in customer service through an assessment of “must-have” website features and behavior based on engagement with available touchpoints.  

When it comes to shopping for groceries, millennials are apparently no fan of supermarkets.   Nearly two-thirds of millennials shop online weekly for groceries, and this demographic has the potential to transform the retail grocery business, according to new research released by Clavis Insight.  

The year kicks off with a respectable set of retail sales numbers that show continued momentum in the consumer economy. The overall growth rate of 4.9% is a little way above the average monthly growth rate of 3.3% recorded in 2016, something that will give retailers some cheer as they head into 2017.  

Retail sales sizzled in January, beating expectations. Even the struggling department store sector managed to beat the odds.   Retail sales, excluding automobiles and gasoline, grew 0.4% in January, according to the National Retail Federation. (The numbers exclude automobiles, gasoline stations and restaurants)  

Disappointing shopping experiences are costing brick-and-mortar retailers serious money.   Stores left about $150 billion in potential revenue on the table in 2016 by failing to offer shoppers personalized in-store shopping experiences. Shoppers would increase their in-store spending by 4.7% — if they received better, more personalized service from retailers.   

Organizations are throwing away billions of dollars annually on customer loyalty programs that just don’t work like they used to.   This was revealed in the Accenture report, “Seeing Beyond the Loyalty Illusion: It’s Time You Invest More Wisely.” The study gauges the experiences and attitudes of 25,426 consumers around the world about their current loyalty relationship with brands and organizations.  

Remember the memory-erasing Neuralyzer in "Men in Black"? Or more recently, "Ex Machina," the Oscar-winning story of a humanoid robot that uses emotional persuasion to outsmart humans and escape from the secluded home of its creator?  

While supermarket shoppers engage with their primary grocer on one or more digital platforms, social media sites are not a priority.    This was according to the “U.S. Supermarket Shopper Digital Update,” a report from the Retail Feedback Group (RFG). The new study, an offshoot of RFG's “U.S. Supermarket Experience Study,” focuses specifically on the digital aspects of shopper engagement with supermarkets.