Have you seen How To SELL Anything?

This incredible sales handbook distils an expert's lifetime of sales and marketing experience and hands it to you on a platter, in a simple, easy-to-follow format. With existing customers being the most valuable source of income for any business, this book will teach you how to increase your return business and make more profit from your most loyal customers - and even how to reduce the costs of dealing with your least profitable customers.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)

Shoppers are now prioritizing convenience and value

More of us are turning to dollar stores and e-commerce

In the full report, entitled 'Channel Trends in CPG Today', IRI analyzes how this shift is affecting consumer shopping channel preferences and in-store behaviors. Joan Driggs, IRI's vice president of Content and Thought Leadership, explained: "Despite an atmosphere of economic uncertainty, consumer confidence and outlook remain favorable. The optimism we recorded in our Consumer Connect survey is likely to have a positive effect on sales in the CPG industry, which we expect to continue growing incrementally through 2020, and exceed $886 billion by 2021."

That said, certain channels - such as dollar stores and e-commerce - provide stronger value propositions to customers, and are gaining shopper visits, while more traditional retail channels, such as mass market, supercenters, drug and grocery show declining visits. This suggests that, despite their confidence in the future, consumers are still focused on finding new ways to save.

The index monitors the current financial health and outlook of consumers, differentiating between the sentiments of various income groups, races and generations. The Q4 report revealed that overall consumer confidence has increased by nearly 1% since the Q4 2018 report, and 1.5% against the data from last quarter, overcoming the threat of recession. Fifty-seven percent of consumers reported that they feel good about their financial health, and 73% expressed confidence that their households' economic well-being would improve within the next six months.

IRI observed the most widespread feeling of financial stability among older generations and high-income households, as well as Asian and non-Hispanic consumers. Millennials and African Americans reported the most widespread confidence that their financial health would improve in the near future.

Shift Toward Convenience and Value
The study observed that consumer demand for convenience and value is increasingly influential in persuading a consumer to shop through a specific channel and at a specific store. Value retailers, which include dollar stores and e-commerce, have seen 1.4 and 6-point increases in penetration, respectively, since 2016.

While consumers still favour traditional channels such as grocery, drug and mass, the penetration in those channels has decreased over the same period, suggesting that they are losing shoppers to other channels. The IRI study also found that, when deciding where to shop, consumers weigh in-store experiential concepts and easy navigation services, as well as price, as heavy motivations for their choices.

"Consumers across the board cited time and cost savings as key drivers of where they choose to shop, which is causing a shift away from the channels that we are used to seeing dominate the CPG space," continued Driggs. "In particular, we found that heavy shoppers are being attracted to dollar retailers over competing channels, likely because they are looking for ways to save. We expect this will continue to negatively impact sectors like grocery and pharmacy, which have lost their ability to protect and cultivate their core shopper base."

The ease and value of the dollar channel led consumers to increase the frequency of trips per month and per-trip spending compared to a year ago, relative to competing channels. E-commerce platforms also experienced a greater number of trips, but saw average basket size decrease, as shoppers got more comfortable with the platform and the expectation of quick delivery.

Have you seen How To SELL Anything?

This incredible sales handbook distils an expert's lifetime of sales and marketing experience and hands it to you on a platter, in a simple, easy-to-follow format.

With existing customers being the most valuable source of income for any business, this book will teach you how to increase your return business and make more profit from your most loyal customers - and even how to reduce the costs of dealing with your least profitable customers.

You'll learn to sell yourself, sell your products, and sell your brand on the internet, writing high-conversion landing pages, social media posts, and more. You'll start attracting customers you didn’t even know existed, and learn the top trade secrets for customer retention.

You'll become a lean, mean selling machine. See how the experts do it and learn to adapt what they've done for your own profit. You'll learn to write strong, powerful, effective sales copy, whether it's for a sales script, sales letter, flyer, insert, advert or just about anything else.

You'll learn how to sell whether you're selling by telephone, by mail, or even meeting prospects face-to-face. You'll find out how to size them up, present yourself, nail down their true needs, close the sale, and learn to tackle the tricky ones.

You'll discover the biggest secrets of successful direct mail sellers, sales letter writers, and how to segment and choose the right prospects for each campaign.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)