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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)
 

How retailers can stop Christmas becoming a turkey

Men will buy more than half of the UK's turkeys for Christmas 2011, according to a report from Verdict Research and business analytics firm SAS, which found that retailers that want to make the most of the holiday season's sales potential may need to re-examine their ideas about who is doing all the shopping.

More than 10.5 million turkeys will be bought by UK consumers this Christmas. Turkey purchases start in earnest from mid-November while more than 5 million will be bought in the last week with 56.5% purchased by men. The research suggests that women send their partners out with lists to save time as they ready the home, wrap presents, prepare party food and organise decorations, leaving men responsible for the tree, drink, Christmas food and present shopping.

One of the most interesting things to come out of the report is who is doing the Christmas shopping these days, according to Maureen Hinton of Verdict. The survey shows that retailers should be more actively targeting men, for whom Christmas is one of the big shopping opportunities each year.

After a hard year in 2011, many retailers are relying on Christmas to make a profit before being hit by another tough quarter at the start of 2012. Consumers have already made it clear that they will cut back on spending as they try to recover from Christmas spending, and as they face increased utility bills and higher unemployment figures.

The report shows that UK households will spend some £86.5 billion in the run up to Christmas 2011 (a full £1.2 billion more than in Q4 of 2010), but that the volume of purchases will be down by 0.7% on 2010's figures. Although shoppers will be counting their pennies, spending on food, clothing, footwear, and health & beauty will all increase as consumers purchase Christmas gifts.

Spending on food will increase by 3.8% in 2011 (to £33.4 billion), outperforming overall retail growth - but only because of inflation rather than increasing sales. Clothing, footwear, health and beauty will also outperform as they are major gift categories due to their relationship to personal well-being. However, non-food sales will be hit the hardest, shrinking by 0.1% as consumers avoid big ticket items with home related categories expected to shrink by £490 million.

Online sales will fare particularly well due to the convenience, ease of access and ability to compare prices across different websites. Spending online will grow to £9 billion, which represents nearly 10% of total retail spending over the holiday period. This increase can, in part, be attributed to the increase in mobile commerce for price comparisons, ordering and checking stock availability. However, this does not account for the influence that online has on overall spending, with 63% of online shoppers researching online and then buying in-store.

The report detailed the UK's latest retail trends by sector, including:

"The pressure on retailers this Christmas is unlike anything they will have experienced before. The key for maximising sales is about understanding when consumers are looking to purchase items and ensuring that sales prices are optimised accordingly," concluded Cindy Etsell, retail specialist for SAS UK. "Monitoring customer behaviour is critical for this and the information that retailers have about their customers from till receipts, credit and loyalty cards, and even wider unstructured data from sources like social networks can steer their understanding of purchasing patterns and ability to mark down prices at the optimum time to shift stock without losing significant margins."


Sources: SAS; Verdict Research /
The Marketing Factbook.
Copyright © 2011 - 2025 The Marketing Factbook.

    Categorised as:

  • Customer Experience
  • Customer Loyalty
  • Knowing The Customer
  • Marketing Know-How
  • Marketing Technology

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)
 
Copyright © 2001-2025 Peter J. Clark