Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

A Florida-based supermarket company tops J.D. Power’s 2016 U.S. Pharmacy Study.   Publix Pharmacy, the in-store pharmacy at Publix Super Markets, came out on top in the J.D. Power report, a customer satisfaction benchmark study that provides pharmacy-specific performance comparisons among brick-and-mortar pharmacies.  

Amazon knows Thanksgiving weekend shoppers are typically bargain hunters, yet the company became increasingly less price dynamic as the weekend wore on.    That’s according to an infographic from 360pi, which examined the promotional and pricing strategies of Amazon, Walmart and Target, among others, during Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.   

While mobile commerce flexed its muscle during Cyber Week, desktop shoppers keep representing this holiday season — and in a strong way.  

Holiday 2016 is proving to be both an opportunity and a challenge for retailers, as they’re faced with catering to the behaviors and preferences of multiple generations of shoppers. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Generation Z (children ages 10-17) consumers have a significant and growing influence on household spending. And as a result, new trends are emerging this holiday season, including the record mobile app purchases we saw on Black Friday/Thanksgiving weekend.  

It’s a draw.   Dollar General and Walmart tied for the least expensive overall basket, at $27 each, in Kantar Retail's Opening Price Point Study, which seeks to determine how select retailers meet the grocery and consumable needs of shoppers looking for the lowest absolute shelf prices.     

Beliefs that online shopping has replaced brick-and-mortar shopping are exaggerated, especially when it comes cosmetic and grooming purchases, according to a new The Harris Poll.  

There is one trend from the past couple of years shows no signs of stopping anytime soon: the movement of online-only retailers to the physical space. If anything, it’s gaining more momentum.      According to JLL’s Screens to Stores report, even more online retailers will experiment with physical locations in the next five years.    

Automated interaction is increasingly preferred by digital shoppers — and demand is increasing.   Specifically, 44% of shoppers said that if a company could get it right, they would prefer to use a chatbot or an automated assistant for customer service interaction — up four points from the 2015 survey. Half of them said that they would rather conduct all brand interaction via text/messaging, with 39% saying the digital-first methods are more effective than talking.