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Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

  • Study: Shrink costs U.S. retailers $42 billion; employee theft tops shoplifting

    Thorofare, N.J. -- Shrink—including shoplifting, employee or supplier fraud and administrative errors—cost the global retail industry more than $128 billion last year, with $42 billion lost in the United States alone, according to the latest Global Retail Theft Barometer study. This represents 1.29% of retail sales, on average.   
  • Tensator study: Retailers need to improve in-store experience

    Bay Shore, N.Y. -- Consumers are growing disenchanted by the physical shopping experience, with 63% admitting they prefer to shop online, according to a study by Tensator Group.    Eighty-percent of shoppers have used a store to view a product before purchasing online, the report found. And 68% admitted to using their phone to check the price of an item online before deciding whether to purchase in-store.  
  • BDO USA: Retailers bullish on holiday, cautious on inventory; jobs top concern

    Chicago -- The marketing chiefs of U.S. retailers are optimistic about the upcoming holiday season, forecasting a solid 4.1% increase in overall holiday store sales, according to a recent BDO USA survey. The projection is in line with the National Retail Federation’s 4.1% expected holiday sales increase, and is a full percentage point higher than actual retail sales gains in the 2013 season.
  • Study: Electronic gift cards gain popularity

    New York –- Six in 10 (59%) gift cards are now offered electronically, up 18 percentage points from 2010. According to a new Bankrate.com study, part of the reason may be that Millennials are more than twice as likely to lose traditional plastic gift cards than older adults.  
  • SAP: Consumers say “shared values" drive brand loyalty

    Walldorf, Germany -- Nearly one-third of consumers say "shared values" as a reason they are loyal to a brand. According to an SAP survey of 3,000 American consumers age 18 and older, while email was cited as the most popular way to communicate with companies, almost half of customers (48%) said they had problems with delayed or no responses to email More than half of those surveyed (54%) would like, or may like, an offer of help before they have to ask for it.
  • Yelp: Eight in 10 Americans will shop local during holidays

    San Francisco -- Eight in ten Americans are likely to shop at local businesses during the upcoming holiday season, according to a 2014 nationwide Nielsen survey commissioned by Yelp. Nearly half (47%) plan to spend more than $100 at local businesses.  
  • Report: Call them “MALLENNIALS”

    The younger generation appears to be more brick-and-mortar than anyone expected.  They may live and breathe online, but come the holidays, they are going to the mall, says the new “2014 Holiday Shopping Behavior Survey” from Simon, a global retail real estate leader. 

    89% of respondents between the ages of 18 and 33 who plan to buy one or more gifts said that they intended to shop at the mall this holiday season.

  • Nielsen: North American consumer confidence up in Q3

    New York -- Consumer confidence in the North America region improved four points to 107 on the Nielsen Consumer Confidence Index for the third quarter of 2014. Consumer confidence levels above and below a baseline of 100 indicate degrees of optimism and pessimism, respectively, with the latest results reflecting an outlook of cautious optimism.  
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