Trend Spy: November

Each month, we ask respondents in our Consumer Intentions & Actions® survey if latest trends, newest gadgets, and even “it” personalities are Hot or Not. The Hot or Not List is generally comprised of input from our respondents, gathered in the previous month’s CIA® survey.

We publish the overall results in the monthly Executive Briefing (see the November results here). In a nutshell, adults in general voted Giving Thanks, Black Friday, Tablet Devices, and Cyber Monday as the hottest trends for November, respectively.

But what’s hot is really dependent on age and gender, doesn’t it? What a teenager believes to be totes cool might not be the bee’s knees to a grandparent. (For the record, if you had to look up “bee’s knees” or “totes,” you probably have a completely different view of what’s hot or not).

This month, though, let’s Trend Spy on younger adults. Some of our findings were quite surprising when we compared data for younger men (aged 18 to 34) to younger women (also 18 to 34). For instance, who would’ve thought that young men would say that Black Friday was hotter than Tablet Devices? Eight out of ten (80.1%) cool dudes voted one of biggest shopping days of the year as hot, compared to 67.3% for Tablets. Guys for Black Friday even outnumbered the young ladies (75.0%). Perhaps retailers are missing the boat a hot demographic here…

Besides Black Friday and Tablets, younger men also named Giving Thanks (65.9%), Cyber Monday (58.9%), and Occupy Wall Street (45.6%) in their top five. In contrast, the hottest item for young women was Giving Thanks at 82.5%…so these ladies are 25% more likely to vote for Giving Thanks than their male counterparts, who are busy giving thanks for Black Friday. Three out of four (75.0%) women 18 to 34 also voted Black Friday as hot, followed by Tablet Devices (69.1%), Cyber Monday (56.9%), and [swoon] Twilight: Breaking Dawn (52.1%).

P.S. For more on Black Friday, stay tuned for our upcoming BIG on the Street post, where we’re planning to bring you highlights from our Black Friday excursion. With 152 million people planning to shop this weekend, it should be interesting.

For more information on this data, please contact BIGinsight™.

Source: Consumer Intentions & Actions® Survey – NOV-11 (N = 8502, 11/1 – 11/8/11)

© 2011, Prosper®

BIGinsight™ is a trademark of Prosper Business Development Corp.

Advertisement

Heyday for Layaway?

When the biggest name in retail – Walmart – announced that they planned to revive layaway for Holiday 2011, BIGinsight™ took notice. And this month as part of our November monthly survey, we asked consumers if they were planning to utilize this service to help with holiday shopping, what items they planned to add to layaway, and – of course – where they would open an “account.”

The results are in: more than one in ten consumers (12.2%) plan to utilize layaway for Holiday 2011. This number rises to 20.0% among Kmart shoppers*, 15.6% with Walmart shoppers, and 15.8% for Toys R Us shoppers. Best Buy shoppers index slightly lower than average (11.0%).

So why are we looking at Best Buy shoppers? Best Buy doesn’t offer layaway.

That might be too bad for Best Buy. A closer look shows us that among Best Buy shoppers planning to use layaway, 58.0% plan to put Electronics into a plan. And where are Best Buy shoppers most likely to use layaway services? That’s right, at Electronics rival Walmart. A holiday shopper knows no loyalty when it comes to finding the best way to maximize budgets and ward off debt.

But let’s get back to the broader details of our findings. Electronics (56.5%), Toys (40.3%), and Apparel (32.5%) are the items most likely to find their way into layaway this holiday season:

To be read as: Among shoppers planning to use Layaway this holiday season, 40.3% are planning to put Toys on Layaway.

Finally, while Walmart (69.0%) and Kmart (42.1%) are by far the preferred venues for layaway, it appears that Toys R Us and Sears will see a fair share of layaway shoppers as well:

To be read as: Among shoppers planning to use Layaway this holiday season, 69.0% are planning to use Layaway at Walmart.

For more information on this data, please contact BIGinsight™.

* “Shoppers” defined as those who shop most often at a particular retailer for one or more major merchandise categories (including Apparel, Shoes, Groceries, Electronics, Sporting Goods, Heath & Beauty Care, Linens/Bedding, Toys, etc.)

Source: BIGinsight.com

© 2011, Prosper®

BIGinsight™ is a trademark of Prosper Business Development Corp.

BIG Call – October 2011

Slides from the October BIG Call are now available!

John Mariotti was our special guest speaker this month. You can view his take on the latest data, including Confidence, Practicality, Personal Finances, the 90 Day Outlook, and Holiday 2011 Spending, by clicking through the slide show below.

To listen to the recorded webinar, click here.

© 2011, Prosper®

BIGinsight™ is a trademark of Prosper Business Development Corp.