Getting People In The Store: Driving trips—week to week variability

With all of the new technology available to consumers enabling online shopping, how do you continue to drive store traffic and purchases? Brands and retailers need to consider the role trip drivers play in their overall strategy. Trip drivers are frequently based around key events and vary seasonally, but they can also switch as often as week-to-week. Market Track’s Shopper Insight Series survey asked 1,200 consumers which products would bring them to the store if they were promoted or on sale, both on a typical week and during holidays. In spite of increased focus on digital, circular promotions still have a significant impact on consumers—82% of shoppers said that they look at print circulars for deals on groceries at least once a week.

Driving traffic on a normal week: The top figure on the right shows the top ten trip drivers during a non-holiday week. Respondents indicated which categories out of 115 would cause them to make a trip to the store if they saw the category on promotion. Compare that to the bottom representation of trip drivers for the summer holidays—there is only one category that is the same on a regular week versus the holiday week.

Page placement matters: While promoting trip drivers is important, where they are placed in the circular is also key. Nearly 80% of shoppers indicated they would not look beyond the front page if the offers were not compelling. Consider the example in the figure on the right, which analyzes the page positioning of competitive circular promotions for fresh vegetables. The figure highlights increased front page presence compared to the previous year for select vegetables, indicating a shift to more front page exposure.

Honing in on holiday opportunity: Consider the frequency your competitors are promoting holiday trip drivers as well as the average price points and ad placement. Capturing the attention of deal savvy shoppers through well timed promotions can be the difference between winning and losing larger holiday shopping trips to the store.

Fresh Vegetable Promotions 2015 vs. 2016