STORES Magazine - June 2008 - (Page 16)

trEnDS Choose Wisely, Young SMB You might imagine that for most small businesses, choosing a web address would be a time-laden, thoughtful decision — but you’d be wrong. According to a survey released earlier this year by 1&1 Internet, some 42 percent of SMBs invested less than one hour of thought in the decision. That means these business owners spent about as much time selecting their domain names as they did sourcing equipment like the coffee maker or paper shredder. The survey of 1,074 American businesses revealed that, on average, each spent less than 12 hours choosing its primary domain name. Some 60 percent of business owners said they did not seek a second opinion before making a selection, and 57 percent did not consider options such as .biz or .net. Most said they recognized that their domain name could have a lasting effect on their business: 37 percent believe that revenues could improve as a direct result of having a better web address, and 28 percent admitted they had “concerns” about the effectiveness of their web address. Still, the research suggests few are optimizing their web presence. In fact, some 7 percent of business owners surveyed admit to having forgotten their own domain name. come back,” says Linda Shea, senior vice president and global managing director of customer strategies at ORC. “When the last moment of the shopper’s experience is an unpleasant one, the result is likely to be a lingering negative perception of the store.” Rounding out the top five things that “bother shoppers most” are prices not clearly marked (12 percent) or that don’t match advertised or listed price (11 percent) and selfcheckout instructions that are unclear (5 percent). Red, Blue and Green? You can learn a lot by looking at purchasing data with an educated eye. Just ask the executives at Catalina Marketing. Best known as the supplier of targeted communications at supermarket checkouts, Catalina can provide retailers with insight on any number of consumer purchasing trends. One of the trends they’re watching closely is shoppers’ acceptance of green products. Executives can tell, for example, which stores have committed “green” shoppers, which have shoppers who are more inclined to buy green on a budget and which are just green dabblers. Recently, Catalina decided to have a little fun with the masses of data it collects by engaging business intelligence partner SAS in an attempt to predict the influence green-oriented shoppers will have on the upcoming presi16 STORES / JUNE 2008 dential election. It asked SAS experts to help answer the following questions: “Where do green consumers shop, and will their state of residence have an impact on how they will vote in November?” and “Do green shoppers translate into green voters?” (Green shoppers were identified as individuals who made purchases from a list of eco-friendly products between April 2006 and April 2007; a shopper’s home state was determined by the location of the store where they do most of their shopping.) “What we found,” says Laurie Wachter, senior vice president of analytics for Catalina, “is that the Democratic [blue] states had a higher-than-average proportion of green shoppers than Republican [red] states.” Perhaps the biggest surprise is what the data revealed about California. “Although the state is often seen as a healthy place to live, California indexed at the average for the number of green shoppers,” Wachter says. “Its neighbors, Oregon and Washington, both ranked well above the average.” Of the Republican states, Colorado and Alaska both ranked above-average in their tendency to have green shoppers, with Alaska even beating out Oregon and Washington. The states most likely to have green shoppers are, in order: Alaska (red), Washington (blue), Oregon (blue), Colorado (red) and Vermont (blue). The states least likely to have green shoppers are Oklahoma (red), Alabama (red), Minnesota (blue), North Dakota (red) and Wisconsin (blue). CORRECTION: In the May issue of STORES, GXS was incorrectly identified in two instances in the story entitled “Finding a Better Way.” WWW.STORES.ORG http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - June 2008

STORES Magazine - June 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Tesco Tests Carbon Labels What Shoppers Think 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Cover Story: Boom - or Bust Green Retailing Concept2Watch Online Marketing Building Traffic Water Management Branding Digital Marketing Loyalty Programs Special Report: Taking on Teens Supply Chain - Robo Crop Human Resources Supply Chain - Directory Assistance Loeb Retail Letter Arts Update Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - June 2008

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