Retailing and Consumerism – Stats

Equilibrium is the beauty of universe. Balance! If it exists, harmony and resonance flourishes. And if it doesn’t, turbulence and chaos appear. Somewhat similar is happening in the world of local commerce (in which towntawks is operational) i.e. retailing and consumerism.

Consumerism Leading the smartness:

The way we see, with the growth and proliferation of social economy, consumers of today’s age are becoming hyper-connected, hyper-vocal and hyper-social. Just about everything. Man is a social animal quote once famously uttered by Plato is now seeing its realization in its truest form because of the social driven age. Consumers specifically are now interacting with brands in entirely different ways and mediums. Its the age when they are lending no ear to advertisements. With the evolution of digital medium, consumers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, connected and have high expectations of retail experience. They are demanding instant availability of information. And they want information to be complete and accurate. In short, increasing social smartness in consumers is demanding “adaptive retailing” i.e. the retailing that may cope up with their lightening fast purchasing veracity. But thats where the equilibrium is being severely affected thus causing retailing and consumerism becoming out of sync.

Retailing lagging the digital stampede:

Whereas retailers and local businesses on the other hand are lagging poorly at almost the same rate consumers are becoming smart. They seem to be so oblivious of this increasing and inevitable  shift occurring in consumers thinking planes and evolved purchasing journeys that they are not adapting to stay competitive in this landscape.

Retail needs to embrace Omni-Channeling to adapt to Today’s Consumers’ surge in expectations!

Specifically, in the case of Pakistan, the state of their online presence is extremely poor if not absolutely absent. Roughly estimating that around 3% of the SMB/SoHo retailers in Pakistan have some decent online presence yet they still haven’t leveraged this to the maximum (the way we at towntawks have planned in subsequent versions). Majority of the retailers have no roadmap to tap the potential of internet for their business prospects. They are lagging in multiple capacities to ride the surge of internet driven economy and stay provocatively present online. These include but aren’t limited to technical, intellectual and economical incapacities i.e. retailers of today’s age aren’t that tech-savvy, not open-minded and are victims of inertia that most of them “haven’t felt the need” to be online and be digitally available to their consumers. And also because they seem to be so “over-occupied” in their daily activities of businesses that they simply don’t bother about being proficiently online and accessible to their potential consumers. They seem to have left their businesses’ fate and progress to traditional norms and cults. Resting on their laurels in their office cubicles and waiting for some astray customer to drop by. Or at max placing a “meh” poster outside of their shop and expecting a surge of customers to become entrapped by that and drop in their outlets’ premises.There is a dire need to cope up the laggard retailing with smart consumerism so as to keep them in lockstep. And that’s where towntawks is positioned to generate strides in this niche.

Retailing and Consumerism – Statistics:

Above comprehension may seem to an opinionated or biased so it always helps to pepper up the insights with some lucid stats. Here is a compendium of intriguing stats that consolidates our point of increasing differences in these retailing and consumerism:

Ninety-two percent of retailers are struggling with online/offline integration. (RSR Research)

92%! As elaborated that majority of the retailers have no road map to migrate to the online realm where their customers are hanging out the most.

Time spent with mobile apps (127 minutes per day) is starting to challenge television (168 minutes). Yet mobile budgets aren’t nearly as high as TV. (Tech Crunch)

The end of TV industrial complex as Seth Godin famously quoted once!

Fifty-four percent of consumers would consider ending their relationship with a retailer if they are not given tailor-made, relevant content and offers. (CMO Council)

it’s the age of experience-economy. RoE (Return on Experience) and CLM (Customer loyalty management) is now starting to herald in businesses CxOs and becoming a top priority gradually then RoI in Marketing and shallow CRM)

Fifty-seven percent of consumers will not recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site. (Mobile Marketer)

No recommendations. No social virality and visibility. No peer influence. Less leads. Less sales.

Fifty-three percent of consumers have stopped an in-store purchase as a result of using their mobile phone. Thirty-eight percent have done so because they found a better price in another store, and 30 percent have because they found a better price online. (Mobile Commerce Daily)

Consumers smartphone is a battlefield that retailers should prepare to conquer to cope up with today’s consumers!

Retailers’ average response time to a post by consumers in social media is seven hours, more than enough time for the person to go ahead and purchase from the competition. (Exact Target)

Consumers have a lot of choices and extremely less time. They don’t care about you. They just care about themselves. If you aren’t there, they will have no remorse in ignoring you. And they are really great in ignoring, mind you!

Fewer than half of retailers collect social network data from third-party domains and only 8 percent thought it made an important contribution to generating insights. (ATKearney)

Data is the new goldmine of today’s economy. How to leverage that for actionable insights? Stay on board with towntawks and subsequent releases of towntawks will amaze you with its stupendous approach to data amassing.

Retailers say data is at the bottom of their list of initiatives planned to improve website performance. Email is at the top of the list of priorities followed by on-site search and merchandising, respectively. (E-tailing)

It’s the age of data driven marketing but retailers’ mindset is far lagged to embrace this. Only a tech-messiah can escort them to the heavens of data intelligence. May towntawks prove to live up to this hype in its future phases

Thirty-one percent of retailers are conflicted as to whether new technologies in-store will be tools or distractions. Yet consumer surveys have shown time and time again that technologies like mobile apps and QR codes linking to product information have driven people to make a purchase in store. (RSR Research)

As stated, retailers need to embrace and adapt to the modern era of consumerism or they will be left far behind

74% of businesses dont have a plan to stay  competitive in the new mobile world.

Its the age of competitiveness. If you aren’t competitive enough, you will be eventually out of the game!
Would love to hear your remarks about these statistics proving our point that retailing and consumerism are becoming leagues apart in this age of digital stampede. Stay connected with us and have a superb day!