Monthly Archives: August 2008

Shoppers Behaving Badly

Topics: Category Strategy, Channel / Retail, E-Bulletins / Newsletters, FMCG, Insights, Shopper

As consumers grapple with all that is plaguing the Australian economy, they have started to batten down the hatches and shift their spending habits, turning to money-saving options as they find ways to pay for dramatic increases in the cost of living and the associated run-on to the other necessities of life.

Economic events outside the control of the everyday family such as interest rates, the housing bubble, rents, personal debt levels, stock market volatility, the cost of energy, petrol and food all combine to mean that our “average shopper” is now starting to do some distinctly “unaverage” things to make ends meet.

Read More >

It's a Trip

Topics: Category Strategy, Channel / Retail, E-Bulletins / Newsletters, FMCG, Point of Purchase, Shopper

Trip management is the ‘new black’ in shopper and retail marketing. But what is a trip, and how do you leverage it? Smart retail marketers are taking a much closer look at what type of category and shopping trip types they are in and how to successfully activate against them in store.

Shopping trips have changed in the Australian market over the past 20 years.

Read More >

Future’s So Bright Green Sustainability Conference

Topics: E-Bulletins / Newsletters, FMCG, Insights, Point of Purchase, Sustainability

POPAI and the FMCG Sustainability Institute (FSI) are working together to advance sustainability research at ‘The Future’s So Bright Green Sustainability Conference’ on Oct 22. The conference is a ‘must attend’ for anyone involved in Marketing at Retail and will include presentations from major Retailers and FMCGs including Coles and Coca Cola Australia.

The FMCG Sustainability Institute will be involving conference delegates in the Retail World FMCG Sustainability Barometer Survey, and providing an update on the study at the conference.

Read More >

FMCG Sustainability Institute Launches

Topics: E-Bulletins / Newsletters, FMCG, Insights, Sustainability

ShopAbility has partnered with EcoSTEPS, one of Australia’s oldest, largest and most highly respected Sustainability companies, to form the FMCG Sustainability Institute (FSI). The charter of the institute is to provide thought leadership, research, education and advice on Sustainability to the Australian FMCG and Retail sector.

First cab off the rank is the Retail World FMCG Sustainability Barometer Survey; the most comprehensive study yet on industry progress, conducted by the FSI through the support of our sponsors Retail World Magazine, Jigsaw Strategic Research and i-Link Research Solutions.

It aims to determine where the collective Australian FMCG and Retail industry is at in relation to environmental, social and economic sustainability.

Read More >

Horses for Courses in a Changing Grocery Sector

Topics: Channel / Retail, FMCG, Point of Purchase, Segmentation / Clustering, Shopper, Uncategorized

For Ad News, by Norrelle Goldring, Director, ShopAbility.

The concentrated and restrictive grocery marketing environment in Australia is expected to loosen over the next few years, giving marketers more choices in how they get their brands to market and promote them instore.

Coupled with new best practice thinking and tracking tools around trip management and segmentation, and the growth of shopper insights, we are on the threshold of a new, smarter, but more complex grocery retailing era in Australia. One size will no longer fit all, so it’s not a question of which horse you back, but rather which selection of horses you run on which tracks.  Here are some of the headlines coming out of the USA underscoring this trend.

Read More >

Retail: what’s new and different, what stays the same…

Topics: Channel / Retail, FMCG, Point of Purchase, Shopper, Uncategorized

B & T Magazine’s Sophia Russell interviews Norrelle Goldring, Director of ShopAbility, about what’s happening in Retail Land in 2008.

1. Have there been any major shifts in consumer shopping behaviour in the last year (in general, but also amongst specific demographics)?

Rather than a right-angle turn in behaviours in the past 12 months, there has probably been more a continuation of what we’ve been seeing over the past 5 years, particularly the rise and rise of single person households, which now account (according to a Mosaic report last week) for just over 25% of Australian households. These households are predominantly urban white collar, with a high amount of disposable income and a highly social lifestyle.
This is contributing to the decline of traditional stock-up shops and the rise of top-up shops, where people are now shopping for their dinner tonight up to 5 times a week.

Read More >