New York SBDC Research Network

From eMarketer An April 2018 study of US retailers by Retail Systems Research (RSR) found that pricing concerns far outstripped other issues. Keeping up with the competition’s prices was the No. 1 challenge, cited by 58% of respondents. When asked about their top three business challenges, 65% of retailers cited "aggressive competitors of like items make price our primary demand driver." And 60% cited "increased consumer price sensitivity." Those two challenges were the only ones cited by more than half of the respondents. But pricing pressures were more acute in some sectors than others. In particular, the study noted that fashion and apparel retailers were much less likely to be focused on pricing parity (at 39%) and tended to be more concerned about minimizing markdown spend (48%).

Now that we’ve looked at advertising in Part 1, it’s time to consider the situations in which you may be directly contacting your customers to advertise or market your products, and collecting their information to do so. Collecting customer information will be done in different ways online and offline, and has a number of different legal and privacy issues tied up in it that you need to consider. Let’s take a look. Read more at bplans

Who doesn’t love a good deal when online shopping? Pretty much everyone. But not all offers are created equal, and in July 2014 polling by Retention Science, percentage discounts led the pack as the most effective customer incentive. Among US online retailers, 30.9% said a percentage discount was the most effective customer incentive, the No. 1 response. Meanwhile, 21.8% cited shipping incentives—free or discounted—as offers that worked best for their customers. Though percentage discounts were the favorite, amount discounts weren't very popular... However, a Q2 2014 study by Flagship Research for BlueHornet found age played a big role in whether US internet users preferred a percentage discount vs. free shipping. Consumers ages 18 to 45 favored discounts, while 46- to 75-year-olds preferred free shipping — indeed, shipping costs are a top digital shopping pet peeve for older generations. See more at eMarketer .