Market Track: December 2012
In December, the retailers that increased their page counts were balanced out by those that decreased their page counts. However, of those retailers that did reduce their page counts, only two also reduced the number of inserts distributed by more than 2%.
Keeping with their November strategy, Walmart continued its aggressive promotions this month, and has shown a significant increase in both drop of flyer and pages per flyer. They showed the highest growth compared to other advertisers in page counts, and the second highest growth in number of flyers.
CVS, Safeway and Staples marginally increased number of pages, but displayed visible increases in the number of flyers when compared to the same period last year.
Kroger showed a noticeable increase in size of flyers, but maintained the almost the same number of flyers released to market.
Kmart, Best Buy and Lowes witnessed a decline in pages per flyer, but showed a significant increase in their inserts per market, at +25.8%, +26.6%, +33.3% respectively. Target saw nominal increases in page counts but spread those pages across a greater number of flyers with an additional 2, 3 or more flyers in 80% of their markets.
Among advertisers showing a decline in both areas, JC Penny showed the highest decline YOY. This can be attributed to the fact that it reduced its drop count to 2more than half in the first week of this year (reduced from an average of 5.5 flyers per market to 2), while also reducing the size of flyers for 4 weeks out of 5 in this year.
It’s important to note a number of factors that should be considered when examining the number of inserts and pages retailers send into the marketplace. Market Track’s granular level of data reflects regional versioning and market specific differences. This is accomplished through an extensive collections process, including physically obtaining the ads from the various markets in which they are distributed. In the instance that retailers send additional circulars to a limited number of markets, Market Track’s information reflects these nuances through numbers with decimals (for average number of inserts per market) and odd numbers (for average number of pages).
About Market Track:
Market Track is a market intelligence firm dedicated to increasing customers’ returns on their promotional investments. Through innovative technology and marketplace expertise, they monitor and analyze over 200 U.S. and Canadian markets for every channel of trade in order provide retailers and manufacturers with superior tools to monitor promotional activity, support dynamic decision making and turn information into market intelligence. For more information, contact Market Track at 1.800.235.3781 or e-mail [email protected].