As retailers prepare for the holidays they will have to do more to attract shoppers than just offering good deals, according to a new survey by shop.com
The majority of retailers (76%) said their customers are still price sensitive and are shopping for deals, while twenty-four percent say their shoppers are brand loyal, regardless of price.
"We are in a unique position to be in contact with so many top retailers spanning such a wide selection of categories — giving us a very complete picture of shoppers’ spending habits," said Mondy Beller, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Shop.com.
"It’s not surprising to us that many of our merchants, regardless of their offerings, are saying that their customers are still cautious when it comes to their pocketbooks."
When asked what strategies retailers are having the most success with when it came to online advertising, Search Engine Marketing (31%) and email campaigns (31%) were tied. Email performance remains at average levels for most retailers (47%) while many are actually seeing an improvement over last year (36%), and only 10% are seeing a decline in performance compared to 2009.
Nearly half of retailers (49%) said they are seeing an increase in their affiliate marketing programs compared to 2009, and forty-four percent of retailers believe that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies will bring in about 5-20% of their sales, while only 24% believe that they’ll receive 20-50% of sales from SEO.
More than half (59%) of retailers rely on sites like Facebook and Twitter to advertise products and sales, while 64 percent use social media to communicate news, address customer service needs (34%) and provide a forum for discussion (43%).
Facebook is the most popular social media tool with retailers (82%) while Twitter (67%) and blogging (54%) follow. Only nine percent of retailers do not use any social media.