Holiday Hot Sheet. Weekly insights for the holiday marketer

Transcription

1 Holiday Hot Sheet Weekly insights for the holiday marketer January 8, 2015

2 Over the past several months, Experian Marketing Services has presented the Holiday Hot Sheet series to provide a weekly recap of trends for the 2014 holiday season: how consumers are shopping, what they are searching for and how marketing campaigns can be optimised to maximise rewards for both consumers and brands. This week concludes our series for the 2014 holiday season. What s hot this week The holiday season ended with a 17.5 percent increase in yearover-year volume and a 7.4 percent increase in total revenue. (Page 3) There was a 35 percent year-over-year increase in the percent of clicks received on mobile devices during the peak of the holiday season. (Page 6) Tuesdays and Wednesday are now almost as busy as Mondays as far as online shopping goes. (Page 7) Websites that had the biggest gains in visits on Christmas Day included those for top gifted items, movie/cinema sites and retailers. (Page 12) Trends to note Seven of the top 10 transaction days this season occurred between the day before Thanksgiving and two days after Cyber Monday. (Page 5) Retail sites continue to get more visits from mobile devices with a third of the top sites now getting a majority of traffic from smartphones and tablets. (Page 9) Nintendo gaming platforms Wii U and 3DS grew in popularity this holiday compared to 2013 while Sony s PlayStation 4 fell. (Page 11) Download all of this season s Hot Sheets and register to receive the latest holiday insights throughout the year. Register here Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 2

3 by the numbers The 2014 holiday season ended with a 17.5 percent year-over-year all industry increase in volume. Multi-channel retailers had the largest volume increase, sending 25 percent more holiday s in volume variance: 2014 compared to 2013 Industry Year-over-year by week: 12/20 12/31 Season-to-date: 9/28 12/31 All industry average 12.5% 17.5% Business products and services 49.1% 20.5% Catalogers 43.1% -2.2% Consumer products and services 16.1% 10.9% Media and entertainment -43.8% 0.3% Multi-channel retailers 17.9% 25.0% Publishers 1.5% 4.8% Travel -6.0% -3.6% performance metrics While there was a slight decline in transaction rates this year, overall revenue actually increased by 7.4 percent, likely driven by the increases in volume. Industry Season-to-date performance variances: 9/28 12/31/2014 compared to 2013 Unique opens variance Unique clicks variance Transaction variance Revenue per variance Average order variance All industry average 4.5% 2.0% -4.9% -12.5% -6.1% Business products and services 7.9% 22.0% Catalogers -4.7% -11.0% -11.7% -7.9% -4.3% Consumer products and services 5.2% -12.8% -8.6% 3.9% 2.9% Media and entertainment -1.4% -14.3% Multi-channel retailers 0.8% 1.4% -4.4% -17.1% -5.4% Publishers 8.2% 5.8% Travel 15.0% 46.4% Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 3

4 Season-to-date performance metrics: 9/28 12/31/2014 compared to 2013 Industry Unique opens 2013 Unique opens 2014 Unique clicks 2013 Unique clicks 2014 Transaction rates 2013 Transaction rates 2014 Revenue per Revenue per Average order 2013 Average order 2014 All industry average 15.8% 16.5% 2.1% 2.2% 0.05% 0.05% $0.07 $0.06 $184 $173 Business products and services 16.7% 18.0% 2.0% 2.5% Catalogers 10.3% 9.8% 1.3% 1.1% 0.07% 0.06% $0.07 $0.06 $143 $137 Consumer products and services Media and entertainment 15.6% 16.4% 1.9% 1.6% 0.06% 0.06% $0.06 $0.07 $114 $ % 16.9% 1.9% 1.7% Multi-channel retailers 15.5% 15.6% 2.2% 2.2% 0.05% 0.04% $0.07 $0.06 $188 $178 Publishers 16.4% 17.7% 2.9% 3.0% Travel 17.6% 20.2% 2.0% 2.9% volume and performance metrics are based on analysis of 350 current brands that also mailed during the 2013 Holiday season. All data is viewed at three days from sent. Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 4

5 highlights and trends: Top transaction days This season, seven of the top 10 transaction days occurred between the day before Thanksgiving and two days after Cyber Monday. The remaining top days were all in December. This is a change from last year, in which two of the top days occurred in early November. The Sunday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday had the third highest number of transactions, but was 13th in volume sent. As Cyber Monday sales seem to start earlier each year, there may be opportunity to mail more on this particular Sunday. Top 10 Transaction Days 2014 Holiday Season Date Event Day Transaction Rank Volume Rank 12/1/2014 Cyber Monday Monday /28/2014 Black Friday Friday /30/2014 Sunday after Black Friday Sunday /27/2014 Thanksgiving Thursday /26/ /2/ /8/ /16/ /10/ /3/2014 Day before Thanksgiving Day after Cyber Monday 17 days until Christmas 9 days until Christmas 15 days until Christmas 2 days after Cyber Monday Wednesday 5 7 Tuesday 6 8 Monday 7 6 Tuesday 8 19 Wednesday 9 10 Wednesday Looking at the top 10 transaction days for the past four years, Experian Marketing Services observed that the pattern that has emerged in 2014 is similar to what occurred in 2011 and 2012, with only 2013 having any top shopping days before the end of November. Top 10 Transaction Days Holiday Seasons Event Transaction Rank by Year Cyber Monday Black Friday Thanksgiving Sunday after Black Friday Day before Thanksgiving Day after Cyber Monday Saturday after Black Friday 6 November 8th 7 November 15th 5 7 Days until Christmas 10 8 Days until Christmas 10 9 Days until Christmas Days until Christmas 5 12 Days until Christmas 8 13 Days until Christmas 7 15 Days until Christmas Days until Christmas 7 19 Days until Christmas 7 22 Days until Christmas Days until Christmas Days until Christmas 9 Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 5

6 Mobile clicks are increasing As in 2013, Experian Marketing Services analysts looked at clicks by platform for the peak holiday season days of November 22 through December 12. The largest year-over-year change observed was in the percentage of clicks received on mobile devices. All industry showed a 35 percent increase in the mobile click percentage, and all but one industry had increases in this metric. Larger mobile phone sizes and more mobile friendly s are likely driving this increase. Percent of clicks on mobile devices, year-over-year November 22 December 12 Percent of clicks occuring on mobile devices 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 11% 10% Business products and services 26% 36% Catalogers 33% 38% Consumer products and services 35% 49% Media and entertainment 38% 43% Multi-channel retailers 8% 11% Publishers 22% Travel 25% 26% 35% All industry Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 6

7 Consumer Insights and Targeting Peak days Between the first of November and December 31st, the Hitwise Retail 500 tallied up 8.7 trillion visits. As in years past, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving and Black Friday all earned top spots as the busiest online shopping days of the season. In fact, visits to the Hitwise Retail 500 during each of those three days exceeded 225 million. There were eight additional days during the season where visits to the top retail sites fell between 160 and 169 million visits. Daily visits to the Hitwise Retail 500 November 1 through December 31, 2014 Tuesday December 16 and Wednesday December 17. This trend is important as it shows that consumers are sustaining their weekday shopping beyond Monday giving marketers more opportunities to reach and engage them deeper into the work week and closer to the weekend when they can deliver impressions and incentives before they hit the physical stores again. Peak traffic days 250,000, ,000, ,000, ,000,000 50,000,000 11/01/ /05/ /09/ /13/ /17/ /21/ /25/ /29/ /03/ /07/ /11/ /15/ /19/ /23/ /27/ /31/2014 Interestingly, there were three days that were among the top 10 in 2013 that didn t make the cut this year. Those days included the day before Thanksgiving, the Saturday after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas. While these days still generated plenty of traffic this year, they are no longer among the top peak days. Moreover, the new days that are now among the top performers are all either Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Specifically, these new days include Wednesday December 3 (two days after Cyber Monday), Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 7

8 Top retailers Once again, Amazon.com handily won the season capturing more than one out of every four visits to the Hitwise Retail 500 during the month of December or put another way a total of 1.3 billion visits. Amazon.com also captured more than three times more traffic than Walmart, the nearest competitor, which claimed 7.2 percent of all visits and 339 million visits in December. Target, Best Buy and Macy s rounded out the top five. Among the top 20 retailers, the share of visits that came from mobile devices ranged from a low of 21 percent for QVC to a high of 64 percent for Victoria s Secret. The next section of this week s Hot Sheet will drill further into the topic of mobile. Top visited retail sites, December 2014 Rank Website Visits Visit share Percent of traffic from mobile 1 Amazon.com 1,266,328, % 33% 2 Walmart 338,945, % 44% 3 Target 186,824, % 54% 4 Best Buy 129,099, % 45% 5 Macy*s 90,984, % 42% 6 Kohls.com 88,024, % 39% 7 Sears 60,982, % 27% 8 The Home Depot 57,643, % 34% 9 JC Penney 56,080, % 38% 10 TOYS R US - USA 51,505, % 55% 11 QVC.com 47,020, % 21% 12 Fandango 43,034, % 63% 13 Victoria s Secret 39,650, % 64% 14 Overstock.com 39,069, % 34% 15 Lowe s 38,785, % 34% 16 GameStop 38,469, % 55% 17 Ticketmaster 35,440, % 54% 18 Kmart.com 35,166, % 42% 19 Walgreens.com 34,732, % 35% 20 Zulily 31,906, % 32% Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 8

9 Mobile In a Hot Sheet earlier in the holiday season, Experian Marketing Services reported that during the week ending October 25, 2014, 37 percent of visits to the Hitwise Retail 500 came from mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) compared to an all industry average of 30 percent. Since then, the share of traffic to the top retail sites coming from mobile has risen to 40 percent (as of the week ending January 3, 2014) while the overall average has remained flat at 30 percent. When Experian Marketing Services published the retail sites with the highest share of traffic coming from mobile in the November 6th Holiday Hot Sheet, the top site, Party City, received 69 percent of its traffic from smartphones and tablets. Today, Party City receives 79 percent of traffic from mobile and ranks behind Forever 21 and Hot Topic, which get even more traffic from a mobile device. Furthermore, during the four weeks ending January 3, 2015, 34 of the Hitwise Retail 100 sites received more than half of their traffic from mobile, up from just 25 sites that had reached that milestone during the four weeks ending October 25, Share of traffic to Hitwise Retail 100 sites by device: Four weeks ending January 3, 2014 Site Mobile Desktop Forever 21 81% 19% Hot Topic 79% 21% Party City 79% 21% Foot Locker 76% 24% H&M 75% 25% ULTA.com 73% 27% Express 73% 27% Sephora 73% 27% The Children s Place 68% 32% Finish Line 66% 34% American Eagle Outfitters 66% 34% Excludes mobile service providers and ticketing sites Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 9

10 Hot products year-over-year comparison To see which products were hotter by comparison this holiday season and which lost steam, Experian Marketing Services analysts examined the share of search clicks to the Hitwise Retail 500 that each of the top 50 hot products during the month of December 2014 received compared to their share in December The analysis excluded searches for new products and newer versions or models of products that didn t exist last year (e.g.: Amazon Fire TV, iphone 6 and Keurig 2.0 ). Starting off with those that experienced an observable cooling off, Experian analysts noted that while several variations of Beats electronics were consistently among the top 10 searches throughout the season, their share of search clicks to the Hitwise Retail 500 were largely down this year compared to Likewise, Sony s PS4, which launch during the 2013 holiday season lost a relative 66 percent of search clicks year-over-year and PlayStation 4 lost 61 percent of search click share, which is not unexpected for a console that is now a year old. Experian analysists also observed a manifestation of a larger trend in which tablets while always big holiday gifts started to cool off this year. Specifically, Apple s ipad and the Amazon Fire tablets lost a relative 45 percent and 50 percent share of search clicks, respectively. Hot products that lost steam Four weeks ending December 27, 2014 versus four weeks ending December 28, 2013 Search term Relative difference in share of search clicks lego -68% ps4-66% north face jackets -66% beats by dre -63% playstation 4-61% kindle fire -50% ipod touch -49% ipad -45% iphone 5s -41% kindle -40% Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 10

11 Some of the products that gained the most steam include items that were already red hot, including Fitbit and Ugg. In fact, Fitbit, which was one of the hottest products this year and last, nearly doubled its share of search clicks. Likewise, Ugg, the number one product for nearly every week of the 2013 and 2014 holiday seasons, gained a relative 13 percent share of search clicks this year over But Ugg wasn t the only footwear brand in the top 10. Timberland boots nearly doubled their share of search clicks year-over-year and helped the brand move up the overall list of hot products. Kitchen appliances, including the KitchenAid mixer and the Ninja Blender, were also among those posting the biggest gains. And while the PS4 lost search click share, two Nintendo gaming devices, the Wii U and the Nintendo 3Ds both gained share, though both were considerably less popular overall than the leading PlayStation and Xbox platforms. Hot products that gained steam Four weeks ending December 27, 2014 vs four weeks ending December 28, 2013 Search term Relative difference in share of search clicks polaroid camera +213% kitchenaid mixer +188% timberland boots +93% fitbit +92% cards against humanity +74% michael kors watches +30% nintendo 3ds 26% wii u +14% ninja blender +14% ugg +13% The last trend to note focuses on Polaroid, which has been in the news in recent days as a company making a resurgence, at least in the software space. It seems that consumers are also giving the company a second look with search clicks for Polaroid camera more than tripling this year compared with 2013 earning it a spot as the top overall hot product gaining steam. Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 11

12 Christmas day Experian Marketing Services hot products lists have revealed that many Americans once again received a lot of tech gifts this holiday season. And Christmas Day is when many of those gifted gadgets and gizmos sprang to life. Millions of consumers logging in and setting up their connected devices resulted in a surge of traffic to the makers of these electronics, not to mention utility sites where consumers can download necessary driver software. In an analysis comparing online visits to 50,000 of the top trafficked websites on Christmas Day to the visits those same sites received on December 23, Experian Marketing Services analysts found that a significant share of sites that registered the greatest relative increase in visits were those linked to popular holiday gifts. Among the sites with the biggest boost in visits were: Microsoft Xbox, Fitbit, Apple itunes and Sony Entertainment Network. Gadget-related websites with the greatest relative increase in visits between December 23 and December 25, 2014 Website Relative change in visits Microsoft Xbox +572% Fitbit +232% Sony Entertainment Network +200% Apple itunes +144% Apple +101% Apple Discussion +63% Straight Talk +61% Apple iphone +54% Microsoft Corporation +37% Microsoft Windows +36% Download/software websites with the greatest relative increase in visits between December 23 and December 25, 2014 Website Relative change in visits McAfee Home +88% Grabsofts.com +77% ProPCCleaner.com +75% Avast +75% Malwarebytes +72% Hotspot Shield Elite +70% Norton Management +59% Java +54% CNET Download.com +51% Google Chrome +47% Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 12

13 With post-christmas sales looming and many consumers having received gift cards or other items they didn t particularly care for or need, it s no surprise that many retail websites are among those with the highest relative change in traffic on Christmas Day. With physical stores closed, consumers logged on to check out what they could buy, get in exchange or check the balance of their cards. Retail websites with the greatest relative increase in visits between December 23 and December 25, 2014 Website Relative change in visits Origin +142% Bath & Body Works +141% REI +116% CVS.com +70% Forever % Apple Store +64% Sometimes virtual experiences just aren t enough and consumers with cabin fever sought out activities in the physical world. But with most business closed during Christmas Day, one of the few remaining options was the plush seat of a darkened movie theater. As such, film sites are well represented among the sites with the greatest increase in visit share on Christmas. Movie/cinema websites with the greatest relative increase in visits between December 23 and December 25, 2014 Website Relative change in visits Deadline Hollywood +183% AMC Theaters +152% Cinemark +116% Fandango +113% Moviefone.com +96% GameStop +59% Fry s Outpost.com +58% American Eagle Outfitters +54% Dillard s +51% Holiday Hot Sheet: January 8, 2015 Experian Marketing Services 13

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