Consumer Analytics

Westlake Village, Calif. – Consumers show unique online shopping patterns on Cyber Monday. According to figures released by integrated online marketing company ValueClick, while most online shopping activity occurs between 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. local time on a typical weekday, the heaviest volume shifts to 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. local time on Cyber Monday, peaking at 8 p.m.

Kirkland, Wash. -- Consumers actually favor ease-of-use more than the latest device specifications, with many intimidated by jargon and technical data, when choosing a new smartphone.

A new survey from WDS, a Xerox company, also shows that a physical retail store remains the most popular destination for purchasing a new smartphone. Sixty-seven percent of consumers treat it as their primary destination while only 19% of buyers older 60 would buy their device online.

Other notable findings include: 

San Francisco – Seventy-three percent of consumers think that companies are paying more attention to generating sales across multiple channels than they are in delivering a seamless customer service experience across those same channels, according to a global survey of 7,000 consumers in seven countries. Meanwhile, when consumers can’t get an answer or fast response elsewhere, they are falling back to phone support as their primary contact method.

By Andrew Kokes, global VP, marketing & product management, Sitel

One of the most significant trends in customer engagement over the past several years is the rise of social media outside marketing and inside customer service. Social media is moving beyond contacts and interactions to a culture of community and collaboration for the most engaged and customer-centric companies.

Fortified by growing e-commerce sales and time spent across digital channels, the U.S. retail industry will grow its digital ad spending more rapidly this year than in 2012, according to new figures from eMarketer.

By the end of this year, eMarketer predicts, U.S. retailers will have increased digital ad budgets by 15.7% to $9.50 billion, following growth of 14.5% last year.

Walmart’s opponents are a creative lot when it comes to thinking up new ways to vilify the company. The most recent example involves data collection and Walmart’s use of personal information which is designed to feed into the real and imagined concerns American’s have regarding the NSA’s spying on American citizens.

Reston, Va. -- For the holiday season-to-date (Nov. 1 - 24), $18.9 billion has been spent online using desktop computers, up 14% versus the corresponding days last year, according to comScore. Tuesday, November 19 was the heaviest online spending day of the season to date at $963 million. Two other shopping days – Thursday, Nov. 14 and Sunday, Nov. 24 – have also seen at least $900 million in online retail spending.

Minneapolis -- Target.com’s coupon distribution page — coupons.target.com - achieved the highest total average daily visits through the first half of 2013, according to an analysis by Kantar Media Marx. This is almost double the number of average daily visits to other key retail websites tracked by Kantar Media Marx.

Armonk, N.Y. – Online sales on Monday, Nov. 26 were up nearly 12% from the equivalent Monday a year earlier. Data from the IBM Digital Analytics Holiday Benchmark shows that mobile traffic accounted for nearly 32% of all online traffic, up 42% compared to the same period last year.   

An increase in third-quarter net sales was not enough to bolster Chico’s FAS’s net income, which took a hit from its Boston Proper business.

The company reported net income of $35.8 million, down 15% from $42 million in the same period a year earlier.