Consumer Analytics

LOS ANGELES -- Costco has engaged Creative Channel Services' CyberScholar Retail Network to increase in-store product knowledge and enhance shopper experiences, the company reported.  The warehouse retailer has integrated CCS' CyberScholar portal into its U.S. employee development strategies for consumer electronics (CE) product lines.

Berwyn, Pa. -- Planalytics announced that Sonic Corp. has subscribed to its Business Weather Intelligence Platform. Sonic is utilizing Planalytics' Consumer InsightsSM service to analyze, quantify and manage the weather's impact on restaurant traffic and demand for certain products such as fountain drinks, frozen treats and entrees.

"Planalytics will help us better understand the impact of weather in each of our key markets," stated Barbra Castleberry, manager of marketing analysis for Sonic, which has more than 3,500 locations nationwide.

By Eric White, Doug Reynolds and Michael Rozin

Retail is an evolving business that must constantly adapt to changing consumer demands, technologies and economic and demographic trends. Retailers are extremely adept at this, and are perpetually reinventing the way they do business, both in terms of interactions with consumers and also how they streamline operations. This is a requirement for successful retailers because, like it or not, everything impacts retail: technology, weather, politics and even terrorism. 

A lack of disclosure among retailers regarding their online operations makes it challenging to understand what went on online this past holiday season. While comScore reported it was a record year from a sales perspective with November and December sales advancing 12% to $32.6 billion, data from the online measurement firm also showed that most major retailers saw fewer unique visitors to their websites in December 2010 than during the same month the prior year.

Washington — U.S. consumer spending rose more than expected in December as Americans spent at the fastest pace in three years. The Commerce Department reported that spending rose 0.7% in December, the sixth straight monthly increase.

For all of 2010, consumers boosted spending 3.5%, the best performance since pre-recession 2007, when spending rose 5.2%. The government reported that consumer spending rose at a 4.4% rate in the final three months of 2010.

Interesting data points emerged this week that offer potential insight into Walmart’s holiday sales, as Kantar Retail and comScore released reports showing that when compared with the prior year Walmart was less of a destination for gifts and its Web traffic had declined.

Atlanta -- First Data has entered into an agreement with Kohl’s Department Stores to provide payment processing services for the company’s private brand credit-card accounts.

The multi-year agreement calls for First Data to provide Kohl’s with credit-card processing, customer analytics, risk management services and automated customer service workflow tools. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

New York City -- Mobile technology ranked as the most important priority for retail in 2011, according to a recent online poll by Retail U. The respondents were asked to base their results on their key takeaways from the National Retail Federation’s 100th Annual Convention & Expo, in New York City.

Washington, D.C. -- The Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index reached its highest level in eight months as Americans grew more optimistic about the job market.

The Index climbed to 60.6 this month, up from 53.3 in December. While that reading surpassed expectations, it still falls short of the 90 level that indicates a healthy consumer mindset.

The January figure was the highest since last May's 62.7, and hasn’t been above 90 since the recession began in December 2007.

Online sales soared to new heights this past holiday season even though major retailers had a tough time attracting traffic during December. For example, Target.com during December had 37.3 million unique visitors which sounds like a lot and was enough to earn it the 30th ranking on comScore’s top 50 Web properties report released this week.