The following is guest contributed post by Deidre Bakker-Riches, owner of a boutique marketing firm and consultancy, Twlv31 Marketing, and the Head of Communications for Las Vegas advertising agency, Up All Day Creative Solutions (originally published by Mobile Leaders Alliance).
Over the past decade, retail stores have seemingly experienced a significant decline in customer traffic due the ease and convenience of online shopping. However, there appears to be great news on the horizon for retail brands when it comes to shopping this holiday season according to UberMedia.
UberMedia, a leading independent mobile advertising platform that uses real-time optimization to improve performance, recently utilized mobile behavioral analysis to unveil real-world Black Friday holiday shopping behavior demonstrating that retail brand loyalty is in fact not dead after all. The company revealed proprietary data surrounding an in-depth look at holiday shopping behavior, which was gathered from analyzing a sample of approximately 1.7 million U.S. shoppers who visited 13,000 retail locations during the Black Friday shopping weekend.
Utilizing Mobile Behavioral Analysis, UberMedia discovered one fascinating key fact — although Black Friday holiday shoppers visited multiple stores, these early bird shoppers overwhelmingly visited the same retail locations that they normally do on non-holiday shopping weekends. This finding displays that shoppers are still maintaining their brand loyalty despite the allure of all of the various holiday sales and promotions from retailers across the shopping spectrum.
Michael Hayes, the Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer at UberMedia stated that as the competition for holiday shoppers heats up, one thing is very clear, holiday shoppers are still religiously visiting their favorite stores. He added that this seems to indicate that the retail experience matters and that brand loyalty trumps ‘door buster’ deals from competitors trying to gain market share. And, there is no better way to track this shopping behavior then by utilizing the one thing that we always carry around with us, our smart phones.
“As consumers, our mobile devices are always on, always connected, and always with us. UberMedia helps marketers understand the mobile clues that help identify their customer. These mobile digital breadcrumbs are powerful signals of interest and intent that if analyzed can reveal powerful insights for retailers in understanding the heart of their holiday consumer and their shopping journey,” said Hayes.
In addition, UberMedia’s team of data scientists analyzed mobile behavior patterns of U.S. consumers who visited an assortment of retailers, including Walmart, Target, Macy’s, Nordstrom, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other national stores. Based on consumer visits to these retail locations, UberMedia uncovered interesting similarities and differences between Black Friday “Deal Seekers” versus shoppers on a typical weekend. Some of those findings included:
- Thanksgiving day openings and overnight deals bring in a different crowd than the typical customer. These early-bird deal seekers tend to be less affluent (up to 4% lower median income and 9% less median house value).
- By Sunday of the Black Friday holiday weekend, more affluent customers started their shopping. This could reflect the desire to stay home for the Thanksgiving holiday, but still get a jump on the shopping season before the weekend is over.
- Black Friday shoppers are willing to travel farther for deals; the median travel distance increased 16% from a typical weekend.
- JCPenney and Target shoppers had the largest increase in travel distance (15%), while Walmart and Home Depot shoppers had the smallest increase in travel distance (2%) when comparing Black Friday holiday weekend versus a typical weekend.
- UberMedia’s cross shopping affinity analysis revealed that Target customers are four times more likely to shop at Kohl’s than Nordstrom, and Macy’s customers are twice as likely to visit JCPenney than Kohl’s, as revealed in UberMedia’s market charts below.
Although there has still been a substantial shift from consumers shopping in-stores to making their purchases online, UberMedia’s shopping analysis can certainly give retailers a little more confidence about the power of brand loyalty — and that is certainly is a wonderful gift to receive this holiday season.