Consumer Analytics

New York -- J.Crew ranked No. 1 overall in customer service in September for the third consecutive month, in a monthly survey by StellaService, the independent ratings provider that ranks online retailers according to their customer service. StellaService measures companies monthly across four service areas: phone, email, shipping and returns.

Here is a look at the top finishers in the four individual categories:

Palo Alto, Calif. – HP Autonomy is releasing the HP Digital Marketing Hub, a new solution that enables marketers to deliver personalized experiences based on real-time analysis of diverse and massive volumes of information across multiple customer touchpoints. HP Digital Marketing Hub combines technologies from HP Autonomy, HP Vertica and HP Labs and leverages the HP Converged Cloud to provide advanced marketing analytics.

Washington, D.C. - Consumers will take a conservative approach to spending this holiday season. According to NRF’s holiday consumer spending survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, the average holiday shopper will spend $737.95 on gifts, décor, greeting cards and more, 2% less than the $752.24 they actually spent last year.  Despite this reduction in individual holiday budgets, NRF is forecasting holiday sales will increase 3.9% to $602.1 billion.

Shoppers responding to a recent National Retail Federation survey said they expect to spend slightly less this holiday season in contrast to an earlier economic forecast by the trade group which indicated spending during November and December would rise by 3.9%.

San Francisco -- Cardfree, a mobile commerce provider to large merchants, announced that quick-service restaurant chain Checkers/Rally’s will leverage its full commerce platform to provide consumers with a complete mobile experience.

New York — More than half (54%) of shoppers who used a coupon during purchase would not have made the purchase without the deal; in addition, 55% of these shoppers were inspired to shop because they received a coupon. Those are some of takeaways from a recent survey by Tada.com, which offers deals and coupons from more than 5,000 retailers.

Bay Shore, N.Y. - One in three shoppers have walked out of a store without buying the goods they intended to because of a bad experience with a self-service checkout, according to a new survey from queue management company Tensator. With 84% of respondents admitting to needing staff assistance when using a self-service, nearly 60% of customers actually prefer using more traditional staffed checkouts, the company said.

Other survey findings include:

St. Louis – Famous Footwear free app for iPhone and Android. The new app offers shoppers instant access to savings they can earn through Famous Footwear’s Rewards program, as well as exclusive mobile discounts and offers. The app allows users to plan, shop and track their purchases, and redeem their Rewards points from their mobile device.

Atlanta -- VeriFone Systems announced that Holiday Oil of West Valley, Utah, has completed a chain wide rollout of its in-store marketing solution, LiftRetail.

The solution uses POS-connected digital screens to engage each shopper with relevant offers and coupons. Additionally, it analyzes each item in a shopper’s basket in real-time to make the right offer to the right shopper at the right time. The result is a proven increase in sales, delighted shoppers, and empowered cashiers.
 

Famous Footwear has unveiled a free app for iPhone and Android that offers shoppers instant access to savings they can earn through Famous Footwear’s rewards program, as well as exclusive mobile discounts and offers. The app allows users to plan, shop and track their purchases, and redeem their rewards points from their mobile device.