marketing research

Five retailers are opening stores for every retailer closing stores

New report by IHL Group debunks the retail apocalypse narrative

More than five retail chains are opening stores for every retailer that is closing stores in 2019, according to new research from IHL Group. This is up from 3.7 in 2018. The company also reports that the number of chains adding stores in 2019 has ...

British consumer behavior: ethical and Instagrammable

Report tracking spending across major consumer markets

As Brexit rumbles on, British consumers continue to spend on brands and businesses that successfully tap into the Holy Trinity of current consumer behavior: the ‘experience economy’, the booming health and wellness movement, and the ...

Choosing the right marketplace for your business: A profitable niche product is key

"Platform strategies are critical for success," says Dr. Kai Hudetz of the IFH Cologne (Institute for Trade Research)

Ebay or Amazon, Zalando or Otto? Retailers have many options when it comes to an online marketplace where they can sell their merchandise. Success for retailers hinges on making good choices.Dr. Kai Hudetz, CEO of the IFH Cologne, gives tips on what ...

GfK study: Brick-and-mortar retail in the EU

Highest 2019 growth in Romania and Lithuania

The majority of European consumers are currently subjected to opposing forces. On the one hand, this consists of uncertainty over Brexit, trade conflicts and weaker growth prospects in important export markets such as China. But on the other hand, ...

Rural convenience stores

“Indispensable Hub” for thousands of isolated communities

The Association of Convenience Stores has called on the Government to ensure that there is a level playing field for the UK’s 16,944 rural convenience stores which allows them to keep pace with new technology and continue providing essential ...

Holiday shoppers crave engaging experiences from retailers

42 percent of consumers shop in-store for festive environment

Bazaarvoice, Inc. today released its newest research report, “Unwrap Consumer Insights For Your Best Holiday Season,” highlighting consumer shopping trends during the busiest, highest-spend season of the year. With 2017’s ...

Forecast 2020: Asia’s leading large format retailers

IGD expects sales growth of 3.3 percent a year

Asia’s large format retailers are set to grow 3.3 percent a year to 2022, with Vietnam, India and Philippines forecast to see double-digit growth from large format players over five years, according to global research organisation ...

“Differentiation remains the key to growth”

Poundworld’s failure to differentiate from other discounters led to demise

Poundworld, which is set to disappear from the UK high street by early August 2018, must look to its own failures – and in particular its failure to stand out from other discounters – to explain its demise, says GlobalData, a data and ...

Luxury department stores outperform the market

Investment to create destination appeal pays off

The performance of the luxury and midmarket players has been, and will remain, extremely polarised as the premium/luxury department store retailers continue to invest to retain their appeal and the midmarket players struggle to excite and lure in ...

Private brands make a big comeback

Launch of the examining consumer and business insights in private brands

Private brand performance within the grocery channel dramatically increased in the past year, posting annual sales of $138 billion across multi-outlet plus convenience store retail channels in the United States in 2017, according to new insights ...

Stationary retail grows by 2.1 percent in 2018

GfK study on European retail

GfK anticipates a 2018 nominal turnover growth of +2.1 percent for stationary retail in the 28 EU member states. But trends within the individual countries under review vary widely. While real-value growth is expected for countries such as ...

An easy way to reduce business operating costs

Climate protection is more than an environmental issue

Interview with Lars Reimann, Head of the Environment and Energy Department at HDE (German Retail Federation) Practical, informative and effective: The recently launched “Retail Climate Action Campaign” (“Klimaschutzoffensive des ...

Mountain and electric bicycles leading the pack

Cycling trends ahead of the 2018 Bicycle Leadership Conference

The U.S. cycling market is a $5.9 billion industry, with independent bicycle dealers capturing about 52 percent of those sales and the rest of the market the remaining piece of the pie, according to retail sales data from global information ...

Amazon is now the UK’s fifth largest retailer

The online giant accounted for over four pounds in every 100 pounds spent on retail in 2017

Amazon is now the fifth biggest player in UK retail, as its retail revenue continues to rise at a rapid pace, according to GlobalData a leading data and analytics company. The online pureplay continues to outstrip growth in the UK online channel ...

Workwear and uniform manufacturers leverage e-commerce

The Global Visionary Science Team at Frost & Sullivan reveals in their analysis - North American Workwear and Uniforms Market, Forecast to 2021 - that e-commerce is emerging as a viable and profitable channel for workwear and uniform ...

UK consumers demand better, more detailed answers from brands

94 percent say personalised answers will make them more loyal – with 84 percent switching to competitors if responses disappoint, according to Eptica research

Providing more detailed, personalised answers to consumer questions on their channel of choice is now key to winning and retaining customers – but brands in the UK are failing to meet rising expectations. 91 percent of consumers ...

Serious violence against staff

New retail crime figures by the British Retail Consortium (BRC)

The British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) annual Retail Crime Survey reveals a concerning spike in violence against staff causing injury, with the number of incidents happening at twice the rate of last year’s survey, the previous ...

UK click & collect sales set to soar 55.6 percent to 2022

Click & collect continues to rise rapidly in the UK, outpacing growth in the online retail channel

Click & collect continues to rise rapidly in the UK, outpacing growth in the online retail channel, with click & collect sales forecast to account for 13.9 percent of total online spend in 2022, 1.9 percentage points higher than in ...

Some glitter but no gold for Christmas

In December, UK retail sales increased by 0.6 percent on a like-for-like basis from December 2016

In December, UK retail sales increased by 0.6 percent on a like-for-like basis from December 2016, when they had increased 1.0 percent from the preceding year. On a total basis, sales rose 1.4 percent in December, against a growth of 1.7 ...

Toys "R" Us: "Our results for the quarter were disappointing"

The company reports results for third quarter 2017

Toys "R" Us, Inc. ("the Company") reported financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2017, which ended October 28, 2017. "Our results for the quarter were disappointing.  They not only reflect the broad ...

Report shows not-so-smart holiday shopping habits

We're heavily inclined to make impulse purchases, but we aren't very likely to be as careful about what it is we're buying

A recent survey of consumer buying habits by Breakthrough Research reveals the contradictory nature of the American buying public. Right before winter holidays is the most common time of year for impulse buying, and consumers are half as likely to ...

Business model of Takko Fashion optimized for future growth

The smart discounter intends to expand its footprint, with more than one hundred new openings planned for the coming business year

Takko Fashion ("The Group"), a leading European apparel retail group operating over 1,850 stores across 16 countries in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, today announces its results for Q3 17/18 (August - October 2017). Net ...

Reducing food waste starts at the grocery store

New statistics show that making a difference might be easier than we think

Americans waste a shocking amount of food every year—up to 40 percent of all food produced in the U.S. goes uneaten, according to the USDA. Yet, a recent survey sponsored by Plastics Make it Possible® indicates that ...

Organized retail crime on the rise

Organized retail crime is continuing to grow, with 67 percent of retailers surveyed reporting an increase in the past year

The 13th annual ORC study released  by the National Retail Federation found that 96 percent of responding companies had experienced ORC in the past year. Losses averaged $726,351 per $1 billion in sales, an increase from $700,259 last ...

Retail jobs jumped nearly 13,000 in November

Retail industry employment increased by an unusually high 12,900 jobs in November over October

The number excludes automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants. Overall, the economy added 228,000 jobs, the Labor Department said. “This was one of the strongest gains we’ve seen all year,” NRF Chief Economist Jack ...

Book sales bright for the holidays

Book sales are expected to grow 5 percent in the final weeks of the 2017 holiday shopping season after a flat 2016

While the annual unit sales growth of print books is expected to be slightly weaker this year than in the previous two years, global information company The NPD Group predicts a strong holiday season with five percent unit sales growth in ...

Promotions just as important to UK customers as product quality

Study finds that promotions are a key factor in customers’ purchasing decisions when buying home and kitchen appliances

When it comes to buying home and kitchen appliances, British consumers admit that the right reward is just as important to them as quality of product. The independent study of 2,000 British adults, commissioned by 360insights, found that 17 ...

The chancellor needs to deliver a budget for shoppers

Business and consumers are looking to the Chancellor’s upcoming Budget for action to support consumer spending

In a submission entitled Helping Shoppers Budget, sent to the Chancellor last week, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) proposes a series of targeted measures to support the retail industry in maximising its future contribution to the ...

Eye-catching labels stigmatize many healthy foods

Study finds that labels such as organic, fair-trade and cage free can impact consumer behavior

When customers walk down aisles of grocery stores, they are inundated with labels such as organic, fair-trade and cage free, just to name a few. Labels such as these may be eye-catching but are often free of any scientific basis and stigmatize many ...

Online shoppers plan to spend more than in-store shoppers this holiday

The rivalry between online and traditional retail will heat up during the 2017 holiday season

On average, U.S. consumers anticipate doing nearly 40 percent of their 2017 holiday shopping online, up from one-third just two years ago. According to NPD’s 2017 Holiday Purchase Intentions Survey, consumers who will be holiday shopping ...

"Mobile payment can fail due to lack of knowledge and enthusiasm of checkout personnel"

Interview with Professor Ludwig Hierl of the DHBW Heilbronn

Out in the field, new technologies hinge on whether the people who use them also accept and adopt them. In this conversation with iXtenso, Professor Ludwig Hierl points out that things are still amiss when it comes to mobile and contactless payment ...

Smart store technologies to generate over 78 billion dollars

Invisible payments & other connected technologies to boost retail revenues as omnichannel strategies move in-store

Amazon Go and other ‘invisible payment’ technologies, aimed at reducing or removing physical checkouts from the retail experience, will process over 78 billion dollars in transactions by 2022, up from an expected 9.8 billion dollars this ...

72 per cent of UK consumers frustrated by shopping

The figures show an improvement on last year’s measures

Year-long research shows that despite a seven per cent decline in frustration-levels over the last 12 months, many areas of omni-channel operation still fail to meet consumer expectations 72 percent of consumers say the experience of shopping in ...

Dinner is served

Germans eat more fresh food than people in France

Contrary to a German proverb about eating like God in France, a consumer survey about fresh food now reveals that people in Germany averagely spend less money for fresh food than in France while eating more of it than their neighbors. The ...

BRC announces winner of 2017 Cyber Security Challenge

The importance of cyber security: More than half of the fraud in the retail industry happens online

The latest BRC Annual Retail Crime Survey revealed that an estimated 53 percent of reported fraud in the retail industry is cyber-enabled, which represents a total direct cost of around £100 million. UK retailers already have some of the most ...

“Urban-suburban” submarkets could reel in office users

Suburban office markets provide an urban-like live-work-play environment

According to a new report from CBRE, urban-suburban submarkets are well positioned to capture strong demand from office users. Among the most common attributes of so-called “urban-suburban” submarkets are the presence of abundant retail, ...

Forecast to 2023 for the global cloud storage market

Challenges, key vendors, drivers and trends for the next five years

The global cloud storage market is expected to grow at approximately 104 billion US dollars by 2023, at 25 percent of CAGR between 2017 and 2023. Major key players are Amazon Web Services, IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, VMware Inc., HP ...

75 percent of British adults admit purchase decisions changed by rewards

Study finds point of sale decisions can be swayed by right incentive

75 percent of British consumers admit that the right reward or incentive could shift their final purchase decision to buy from a competing brand at the point of sale. The independent study of 1,000 British adults, commissioned by 360insights, also ...

Research examines benefits of promoting competing retail websites

In-store advertising by competitors is a common practice across the web and can be advantageous for both retailers

A few years ago, Dr. Mohammad Zia PhD was checking flight prices on Expedia when he was puzzled by a section of the website that prompted him to run the same search on competing travel websites, including Priceline and Orbitz. "Instead of ...

New internationalization study

E-commerce retailers in the USA want to expand into Europe

"Europe is one of the largest and most dynamic e-commerce markets in the world", emphasizes Frank Schirrmeister, CEO at Arvato SCM Solutions. "US brands, therefore, need to actively improve their reputations in Europe." Hence, ...

UK smartphone shopping to overtake tablet spend by 2018

Spend via smartphones will outperform spend via tablets, accounting for 51.5 percent of the UK mobile and tablet market in 2018, says research

According to the company’s latest report, sales of tablet devices are declining as consumers choose to spend more time on smartphones. Consequently, spend via these devices is set to grow 112 percent in the next five years. Key sectors aiding ...