Consumer Analytics

Cyber Monday may just as well be an official holiday considering  findings of a new study that show how little work actually gets done.

Reston, Va. - For the holiday season-to-date, $17.5 billion has been spent online using desktop computers, an 11% increase versus the corresponding days last year, according to comScore.  Friday, November 21 has been the heaviest online spending day of the season to date at $914 million in desktop spending. Two other individual shopping days (Wednesday, Nov. 12 and Wednesday, Nov. 19) have also surpassed the $900 million threshold.  

Recent trends bode well for consumer spending    

Blue skies and cool breezes. That’s the economic forecast as the calendar turns for a new year.

When Macy's kicks off the holiday shopping season with its traditional parade on Thanksgiving Day, the retailer will also be deploying social media to complement its holiday push.

The company earlier this year was one of the first retailers to launch Facebook video ads. On Thursday evening, Macy’s will roll out its next round of video ads, this time to coincide with its Black Friday weekend campaign.

Armonk, N.Y. - Online sales were up 18.7% the weekend before Thanksgiving (Nov. 22-23) compared to the same two-day period in 2013. According to IBM Digital Benchmark analysis, mobile traffic accounted for 48.8% of all online traffic, an increase of 24.4% year-over-year.

In addition, mobile sales accounted for 26.6% of all online sales, an increase of 23.9% year-over-year.

By: David Kidd,  Peak 10
 
Data privacy and security remain top concerns for retailers. There is good reason for that.  The Target breach compromised approximately 70 million records. The Home Depot breach potentially impacted another 60 million consumers. As I write this article, reports are being made public about a breach involving the office supply retailer Staples. We can no longer deny that cybercrime is a real and growing threat to the retail sector.

Los Angeles – Online coupon/deals site Savings.com, is launching the PriceJump mobile application for iOS. The new app leverages real-time pricing data from more than 5,000 online retailers, local stores and Amazon.com to find shoppers the lowest price on any item they want to buy.

By Laura Klepacki   
 On the site of a former gas station in West Haven,  Connecticut., CVS Health has unveiled its most environmentally progressive and energy efficient store so far.
For starters, the LEED Platinum-certified drug store boasts day lighting, a landscape design that doesn’t require irrigation, super-efficient HVAC units and LED-lit coolers that light up when approached. (Platinum is the highest distinction in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.)

Austin, Texas - Three in four Americans have made an impulse purchase. According to a new CreditCards.com report, nearly 90% of millennials said they had made an impulse purchase, compared to just 56% of seniors. And in an interesting finding,  men were nearly three times more likely than women to impulse buy while “intoxicated,” while women were twice as likely as men to impulse buy while “sad.”   The most common emotions at the time of purchase? “Excited” and “bored.”