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Retail circular advertising trends, March 2016
Market Track compared retail circular advertising in March 2016 vs. March 2015 and noted trends occurring across top retail chains.
Lowe’s Home Improvement had denser March print circulars with twice the ads per page and nearly 80 additional ads per drop. Lowe’s shifted the Spring Black Friday sale to the 3/31 drop; up from first week of May 2015.
Home depot did not counter this shift through print, but promoted Spring Black Friday on their website.
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Consumers prefer traditional payment cards
Shoppers may be using EMV-compliant, chip-enabled payment cards, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they like them.
Business research firm Field Agent recently conducted an audit of 100 chip processing systems at leading retailers Costco, CVS Health, Home Depot, Kroger, Lowes, Target, Walgreens and Walmart. It also undertook a survey of 300 consumers who use chip cards. In the survey, only 37% of the respondents reported a preference for EMV cards over the swiping variety; 63% said they would rather swipe a card than insert a chip card.

