I spent the first half of this week at the National Retail Federation’s BIG show, in New York City. About 25,000 people were in attendance, including representatives from most major retailers and companies trying to sell solutions to these retailers. I managed to attend a few presentations, including a keynote by Bill Clinton, and culled some interesting points:
- 90% of buyers would use buy-online & pick-up-in-store later, if available, says @NCR
I’m not sure if “buyers” is an important distinction vs. shoppers. - 95% of all retailers have only a single store, says @EliseDG90
I wonder what percentage of retail stores are part of a single location retailer though - 90% of people trust brand recommendations from friends, says @HubSpot
… which explains why people are optimistic about social shopping. Interestingly, a number of other presenters suggested shopping was only a semi-social activity (vs. shopping at the mall today with friends) because you all have separate screens, even if you share some limited information - Mashable reported that consumers don’t like to shop on branded apps, and instead shop online. I’m not sure where applications like RedLaser fall here, however–it isn’t a branded app (like Walmart’s app), but it certainly isn’t browser based shopping either.
- PayPal’s Sebastian Taveau (@frogtwitt) noted that 25% of shoppers searched for retailer information , 10% compare prices and review … but 78% actually buy online. How can we get consumers doing more research online? How much of this is because people go directly to destinations sites (like Amazon)?
