As director of Truth Serum, Lainie McMinn is responsible for delivering insight led solutions using innovative new approaches to market research that build relevant, motivating and distinctive brand strategies and campaigns. Lainie believes in the power of conversation (and so do we!!) to uncover rich actionable insights.
This week, Lainie is our guest blogger and she is going to take us inside the head of an Australian shopper, explaining the research around “path to purchase” & why retailers need to mindful of emerging consumer mindsets. Over to you Lainie!
The bargain hunter mindset was stronger than ever this Christmas in 2011, compared to 12 months ago. It seems many Australians have adopted a budget conscious mindset to their Christmas shopping, driven by higher cost of living expenses as well as consumers ability to compare prices and shop around with internet at their fingertips and group buying sites driving this trend. Consumers adopted a number of tactics to save money whilst shopping for Christmas gifts and items in 2011 including 1) Looking at items on sale before non-sale items, 2) Buying fewer items this Christmas compared to last to save money 3) Buying from a shopping list so additional items aren’t purchased to save money and 4) Researching and purchasing gifts online to save money.
57% of Australian found it more important this Xmas period to look at items on sale before non-sale items when shopping for Christmas gifts and Christmas items. The female ‘bargain hunter’ mindset was significantly stronger than males with 65% of females placing more importance on looking at sale items before non-sale items, compared to 48% of males.
48% of Australians agreed it was more important this Christmas to buy fewer gifts and items to save money, compared to last Christmas. Again Females were significantly more likely to cut back on the number of gifts purchased in order to save money, with 53% of Females finding it more important this Christmas to buy fewer gifts compared to 43% of Males.
41% of Australians placed more importance this Christmas period to buy from a shopping list so they didn’t buy things they didn’t need in order to save money.
Internet shopping and researching purchases online before shopping for Christmas gifts and items was significantly more important to consumers this Christmas period compared to last Christmas 12 months ago, again in shoppers effort to save money and find a great deal. 48% of Australians found it more important this Christmas, compared to last to research their purchases online before shopping. Again it seems females are spending more time researching purchases online before they hit the shops with 51% of Females claiming to have spent time researching online before shopping, compared to 42% of Males.
Purchasing Christmas gifts and items online was significantly more important this Christmas period compared to 12 months ago, with 42% of all people agreeing that they found it more important this Christmas period to shop online in an effort to save money compared to 12 months ago. Females placed more importance on internet shopping for Christmas gifts with 49% agreeing it was more important to buy items and gifts online to save money this Christmas compared to last, compared to 36% of Males.
More than ever Australian shoppers are placing more importance on finding a ‘great deal’ and have become more savvy shoppers, researching gifts online before hitting the stores and making more transactions online this Christmas in their efforts to save money. This highlights the importance for brands and retailers to not only understand their customer’s changing path to purchase online & offline, but also deliver relevant & distinctive content and communication that engages consumers in order to drive the conversion of browsers to buyers.
With consumers changing how they shop, where they shop, how they hear about brands and how they engage with brands every day, there is an increasing need to stay close to your ever evolving customer.
This report by Truth-Serum, polled a representative sample of 676 people aged 18+ across Australian between January 12th – 16th 2012. Fieldwork was conducted by ilnk the exclusive online fieldwork and research technology partner of Truth-Serum.
Lainie McMinn, Director, Truth-Serum Research & Insight Generation
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