New research shows site search is critically important – especially with the upcoming holidays – and retailers leave sales on the table when site search fails
Shop.org Retail’s Digital Summit — Dallas, TX — September 27, 2016 — RichRelevance®, the global leader in omnichannel personalization, today released new research that drills into how U.S. consumers search for and find products online. While site search is critically important to shoppers, the study suggests that many retailers have not evolved site search to meet the demands of an omnichannel world. The result is that frustrated web and mobile shoppers are likely to go elsewhere when retailers don’t get it right.
“This is an important wake-up call for the retail industry,” said Diane Kegley, CMO of RichRelevance. “Site search is tremendously important to shoppers, but under-delivers when it comes to all the channels where consumers shop today. The reality is that there hasn’t been major advances in site search in a decade, and it’s hurting retailers’ bottom lines.”
The study of more than 1,000 American shoppers finds that:
Search Is Critical to Shoppers
- 8 in 10 Americans (83%) say that the search box is extremely important or important when shopping on a retailer’s web or mobile site.
- Less than 1 in 10 (5%) say site search is not at all important. Comparatively, 6 out of 10 (56%) say that the search box is extremely important.
- 3 out of 4 shoppers (76%) always or often use the search box when shopping on a retailer’s site.
- In contrast, a mere 7% say they rarely or never use the search box.
- 3 in 4 Americans (73%) are likely to leave a retail site that doesn’t provide good search results – and 37% say they are not at all likely to return.
Gift Giving Raises The Stakes
- Nearly 4 out of 10 Americans (37%) state site search is ‘more important’ when shopping for gifts than it is otherwise.
- Half of all shoppers (48%) rank the ability to ‘easily search and find products’ as the single most important thing when shopping for gifts on a retailer’s site.
- In contrast, product ratings and reviews (the second most popular features) received 26% of the vote.
- Curated gift ideas, a traditional holiday staple, are far less important to shoppers with only 5% of respondents ranking these as most important when gift shopping.
Room for Omnichannel Improvement
- More than a third of U.S. shoppers (35%) are generally unsatisfied with the search results they receive on a mobile device.
- Nearly 4 in 10 (38%) say they get worse search results when shopping on their mobile device than laptop or desktop.
- Consumers cite ‘irrelevant product results’ (28%) as the #1 frustration with site search.
- More than 1 in 3 (36%) would like to see search results personalized to them based on their previous shopping behavior.
Methodology
The survey of 1,006 U.S. shoppers was conducted online in September 2016.
PRESS CONTACTS
Renee Newby
BPR for RichRelevance
757.651.6554
New study of 1,000+ US shoppers reveals changing consumer sentiment around Christmas Creep, Thanksgiving store hours, Black Friday & special deals
San Francisco, CA — September 19, 2016 — With more than $626 billion in holiday sales at stake, retailers are changing the way they sell during the holiday season – for example, stocking the shelves with holiday merchandise in early Fall and opening their doors on Thanksgiving Day. But these practices raise key questions about what shoppers want, what rubs them the wrong way, how traditional shopping days like Black Friday are evolving, and what retailers like REI gain (or lose) when they reject the trend.
Released today, RichRelevance’s third-annual Holiday Shopping Survey drills into consumer attitudes and preferences around holiday marketing and merchandising to provide new insight into what shoppers want – and when – from omnichannel retail. Key findings include:
Retailers are gaining ground in the Christmas Creep game
Although most Americans are still irritated to see holiday items appear in the store alongside Halloween goodies, attitudes are changing.
- Six out of 10 Americans (63%) are annoyed or very annoyed when holiday items appear in the store before Halloween – down from 71% in 2014.
- Over half of Americans surveyed (55%) are annoyed or very annoyed when stores open on Thanksgiving Day – down from 65% in 2014.
- Many Americans are shopping early: more than 1 in 4 Americans (27%) had already started their holiday shopping by Labor Day.
Goodwill can be gained by bucking the Christmas Creep trend
REI made news last year when it closed stores on both Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Other retailers such as Nordstrom, Dillard’s and H&M made a point of remaining closed on Thanksgiving. When asked about these practices:
- 7 in 10 Americans (73%) said these retailers’ decisions made them like the retailers more.
- Over half (53%) said they are more likely to shop with retailers who remain closed on Thanksgiving Day.
- A comparable amount (48%) stated they are more likely to shop with REI as a result of their decision.
Black Friday is losing ground
Black Friday has traditionally marked the beginning of the holiday shopping season, but consumer sentiments and shopping patterns are changing.
- Only 1 in 10 (11%) Americans feel Black Friday has grown in importance, while 4 in 10 (42%) state Black Friday is less important than it was 5 years ago.
- 6 out of 10 Americans (58%) state that special deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday do not impact their shopping behavior.
- However, Cyber Monday is gaining ground with 1 in 3 (33%) of Americans saying Cyber Monday is more important than it was 5 years ago.
Millennials are a bright spot for retailers
The coveted Millennial shopper (age 18- 29) behaves differently than other generations.
- Younger Millennial shoppers are more tolerant of Christmas Creep. Early holiday merchandise only bothers half of these shoppers (51% vs. 63% of overall respondents).
- Millennials are also more responsive to deals. 6 out of 10 (60%) say that special deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday encourage them to shop.
- This digital generation loves Cyber Monday: more than half (52%) think it is more important than it was 5 years ago.
Methodology
This is the third-annual Holiday Shopping survey conducted by RichRelevance to understand consumer shopping patterns and behaviors. The survey of 1,054 U.S. shoppers was conducted in August 2016. Responses were gathered online over a 2-week period.
Relevance Cloud™ platform with Recommend™ and Engage™ presents the most relevant, data-driven content and product recommendations in real time
San Francisco, CA — July 18, 2016 — RichRelevance®, the global leader in omnichannel personalization, today announced that Bay Crew’s Co. Ltd. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo), a leading Japanese omnichannel apparel retailer, has selected RichRelevance to power a personalized shopping experience for customers.
Bay Crew’s strategically adopts leading-edge technologies earlier than its competitors to drive its phenomenal growth in the Japanese apparel industry. The company has chosen RichRelevance’s Relevance Cloud™ platform with Recommend™ and Engage™ to further accelerate this growth and advance its omnichannel initiatives by providing unparalleled real-time personalization across all customer touchpoints.
With the Relevance Cloud, Bay Crew’s gains a powerful personalization platform that makes real-time decisions by leveraging omnichannel information, including data that came into the platform less than a second earlier. RichRelevance Recommend uses more than 150 advanced algorithms to recommend the most relevant products in real-time for each customer based on past purchases, behavior and preferences. Machine learning and deep learning techniques select the best performing algorithm for every shopper interaction.
Similarly, with Engage, RichRelevance’s powerful machine learning engine determines the personalized content best suited to each shopper in real-time – at the moment when the shopper interacts with Bay Crew’s via various omnichannel touch points.
“We believe omnichannel strategies are critical to Bay Crew’s continued business growth,” said Mr. Murata, a board member and executive officer at Bay Crew’s. “To achieve our aggressive growth plans, both online and in the store, we decided that it was very important to adopt the most advanced personalization technology. So we have chosen RichRelevance.”
“RichRelevance successfully supports leading apparel e-commerce sites and omnichannel initiatives in the US and Europe,” Mr. Murata continued. “The company offers unparalleled technology and is already demonstrating impressive results for other e-commerce retailers in Japan. Moving forward, we would like to be recognized as a leading-edge RichRelevance client by realizing real-time omnichannel personalization earlier than our competitors in Japan.”
Additional News Facts
Bay Crew’s Co., Ltd. has rapidly grown its e-commerce business very rapidly, and plans further investments to build its industry leadership. The company has a very strong mobile sales channel, and needed an advanced end-to-end personalization solution – rather than a simple “recommendation tool” – to leverage this advantage and realize true omnichannel personalization across site, mobile and store.
The company selected RichRelevance after a thorough evaluation based on Recommend’s real-time algorithms and machine learning engine, powerful merchandising capabilities and easy-to-use dashboard. RichRelevance also offers a suite of merchandising tools that are important for Bay Crew’s. These provide the control to manually fine-tune recommendation strategies and site placements. RichRelevance also features multivariate and A/B testing strategies and intuitive report to assess status and impact of recommendations within minutes.
“We are continually investing in Japan, including the recent release of our localized platform and the debut of our 12th data center in Tokyo,” said Eduardo Sanchez, President and CEO of RichRelevance. “It is an honor to welcome Bay Crew’s as our newest client in the region, and we’re excited to work together to deliver innovative, effective omnichannel personalization as a valued technology partner of Bay Crew’s.”
About Bay Crew’s Co. Ltd.
Bay Crew’s is a leading apparel company in Japan. The company markets total fashion products for both men and women, including planning and manufacturing through sales at the company’s e-commerce shop and stores. It also operates restaurants and sells furniture as part of its life-style offering.
PRESS CONTACTS
Renee Newby
BPR for RichRelevance
757.651.6554
Dinos replaces their existing in-house system with Relevance Cloud™ and Recommend™ to present the most relevant, data-driven product recommendations to customers
San Francisco, CA — July 18, 2016 — RichRelevance®, the global leader in omnichannel personalization, announced that Dinos Cecile Co. Ltd., a leading Japanese catalog and television shopping company, is using RichRelevance to power an innovative and personalized online shopping experience. Through RichRelevance, Dinos can now tap into real-time data to present highly relevant content and product recommendations that help shoppers find what they need—quickly and easily—as they shop online.
“RichRelevance provides the real-time personalization platform that we need to grow our business,” said Yoichi Uzu, Executive Officer and a Director of the board at Dinos Cecile. “Their technology and expertise ensures we are providing a relevant and meaningful shopping experience for our customers. Our ultimate vision is to extend content and product personalization across our site, call centers and TV programs, and RichRelevance is the right partner to help us get there.”
Dinos has replaced their existing in-house system with RichRelevance’s powerful Relevance Cloud™ platform and Recommend™ solution. The Relevance Cloud gives Dinos access to all the core personalization capabilities required to deliver a winning customer experience. This, combined with RichRelevance’s Recommend product, allows Dinos to collect all data and apply a powerful machine learning engine to select the most relevant product recommendations for each customer interaction. RichRelevance also offers a powerful suite of merchandising tools that allows Dinos to easily fine-tune recommendation strategies, execute multivariate and A/B testing, and assess the impact of recommendations within minutes.
“RichRelevance is focused on delivering bottom line results. They significantly increase overall sales, as well as optimize the total Revenue Per Session (RPS),“ said Hiroyuki Kikuchi, Marketing Manager of Dinos Cecile and who leads the team which implemented RichRelevance at the company. “The RichRelevance personalization platform and machine learning engine allows us to serve the most appropriate content and product recommendations in real-time. These unique differentiators are not found in other competitive solutions and were a deciding factor in choosing them as our long-term personalization partner.”
“We are continually investing in Japan, including the recent release of our localized platform and the debut of our 12th data center in Tokyo,” said Eduardo Sanchez, President and CEO of RichRelevance. “It is an honor to welcome Dinos Cecile as our newest client in the region, and we’re excited to work together to help them deliver the most relevant and meaningful customer experience possible.”
About Dinos Cecile Co. Ltd.
Dinos Cecile is the leading e-commerce, catalogue shopping and TV shopping retailer in Japan. In July 2013, Dinos K.K. and Cecile K.K. were merged into Dinos Cecile. Dinos and Cecile are two independent brands, and each brand runs business around apparel, home furnishing, cosmetic/beauty and other wide variety of consumer goods. Besides the EC, catalogue and TV shopping businesses, it also operates corporate sales, events, insurance business and international businesses.
PRESS CONTACTS
Renee Newby
BPR for RichRelevance
757.651.6554
5th July 2016 – RichRelevance, the global leader in omnichannel personalisation, today releases its second annual ‘Creepy or Cool’ study, revealing consumer attitudes towards digital enhancements to the in-store shopping experience.
The survey asked over 2,000 consumers on both sides of the Atlantic about how technology can impact their in-store shopping experience, highlighting a difference between what shoppers thought was ‘cool’ and ‘creepy’.
The findings show that consumers are happy when technology is used to enhance their decision making processes when purchasing in-store. This includes technologies such as fingerprint scanning to pay for goods and smart mirrors in changing rooms that would allow the user to virtually change outfits.
Despite being open to new things, UK shoppers are less comfortable with more invasive technologies such a facial recognition software that would identify them to a staff member once in-store.
Matthieu Chouard, VP and General Manager at RichRelevance, commented: “Retailers walk a fine line when innovating with in-store technology. Clearly UK consumers are looking for a more seamless personalised experience that helps them with their decision making progress. However, this can be taken too far – more invasive technologies are seen as ‘creepy’ by UK shoppers and this could have an adverse effect on buying behaviour.”
So, what’s creepy and what’s cool? Here are the key findings that show what consumers think ‘Creepy or Cool’:
What shoppers think is ‘cool’
- Almost half (47.5%) thought fingerprint technology that would allow them to pay for goods and get automatic home delivery would be ‘cool’
- 62 per cent of shoppers want to be able to scan a product on their device to see product reviews and recommendations for other items they may like
- 52 per cent of shoppers are open to receiving pop up offers on their mobile device, triggered when they enter a store
- A third of shoppers want would like to see product recommendations included on print or email receipts that relates to their purchase
- 43 per cent would like to receive a digital coupon for a product they looked at but didn’t buy after leaving the store
- 42 per cent would like to see interactive changing room mirrors that model potential outfits on their image
What shoppers think is ‘creepy’
- 75 per cent of shoppers thought that facial recognition software that would allow them to be targeted in-store with relevant offers was a step too far. However, this figure was down slightly from 2015 (77%) which may indicate changing attitudes as this technology becomes more prevalent
- 75 per cent of shoppers thought it ‘creepy’ for a sales assistant to greet them by name in store, if their mobile phone or tablet device had signalled their presence
Matthieu Chouard, continued: “The changing room is one element of the high street shopping experience for fashion retailers that has seen a real dearth of innovation. Smart changing rooms tend to be trialled in far-flung pilot stores, but clearly there is now a real appetite for more ambitious interactive technologies in-store .There’s no reason why the personalised recommendations being given to shoppers via tablet devices on the shop floor can’t be translated to enhance the changing room experience too. By ignoring this changing room, retailers are missing an opportunity to better serve customers and ultimately, sell more product.”
– ENDS –
For more information please contact:
Erin Healey or Raheema Khan, richrelevance@threepipe.co.uk, +44(0) 0207 632 4800
Note to editors
The statistics are taken from a survey of 1,045 UK consumer s aged 18 and over in June 2016. To see last year’s survey results click here: https://richrelevance.com/blog/2015/07/creepy-cool-uk/
The US statistics are taken from a survey of 1,018 US consumers in May 2016.
Survey of US consumers finds ‘cool’ features blend digital and physical to provide shoppers with relevant product information and suggestions – on their own terms
Future Stores Conference, Seattle, WA — June 21, 2016 — It’s an omnichannel world for consumers and retailers, but not all capabilities are created equal. RichRelevance®, the global leader in omnichannel personalization, today released its second annual “Creepy or Cool” survey of US consumers. The 2016 study finds that while American consumers expect to use their mobile phones as part of the store experience, they are most open to mobile and digital innovations that allow them to choose when and how to engage. In contrast, technologies such as facial recognition that are used to track and target customers remain unpopular with consumers.
“For the second year in the row, the study finds that shoppers think it is cool to get digital help finding relevant products and information – on their own terms when they choose to engage,” said Diane Kegley, CMO of RichRelevance. “However, they are creeped out by digital capabilities that identify and track without a clear value offered in return.”
Creepy or Cool 2016: Key Findings
The new survey finds that the mobile phone ranks #1 for shopping. More than two-thirds (67%) of American consumers use their mobile phone to shop. Not surprisingly, mobile usage skews even higher for the coveted younger Millennial demographic (ages 18-29), with nearly 8 out of 10 (79%) shopping on their mobile phone.
Mobile shopping now extends into the physical store. Nearly 3 in 4 consumers (73%) use their mobile phone while they are shopping in the aisles, and 1 in 4 (23%) use it frequently while shopping. Here again, Millennials are more likely to turn to their mobile phones. More than 8 out of 10 (84%) use their mobile phone in the store, and 1 in 3 (35%) use it frequently.
As retailers rush to deliver a store experience that merges digital technologies, mobile phone and the physical aisle, they must walk a fine line between an elevated – or an eerie – experience. There is no one-size-fits all approach, and consumer comfort levels vary depending on where and how technology is deployed. Age is also a major factor, with Millennials expressing stronger opinions on both creepy and cool features. Comparative survey data includes:
Coolest
You can scan a product on your mobile device to see product reviews and recommendations for other items you might like.
Overall: 79% cool; Millennials: 84% cool
Soon after you leave the store, you receive a digital coupon for a product you looked at but didn’t purchase.
Overall: 52% cool; Millennials: 60% cool
When you check out, your print or email receipt includes product recommendations selected just for you.
Overall: 50% cool; Millennials: 59% cool
Cool
Your location in the store triggers personalized product information, relevant content, recommendations and discounts to pop up on your mobile device as you walk the aisles.
Overall: 40% cool; Millennials: 49% cool
Digital screens in each dressing room show products that complement the item that you are trying on.
Overall: 41% cool; Millennials: 49% cool
A salesperson makes more helpful suggestions because they can see what you’ve previously browsed and bought on their site and in the store.
Overall: 32% cool; Millennials: 45% cool
Creepy
Facial recognition technology identifies you as a high value shopper and relays this information to a salesperson.
Overall: 67% creepy; Millennials: 71% creepy
A salesperson greets you by name on the store floor because your mobile phone or app signals your presence.
Overall: 64% creepy; Millennials: 64% creepy
The survey of 1,018 US consumers was conducted by RichRelevance in May 2016.