Married women say they find clothes shopping frustrating
Married women between the ages of 35 and 44 are much less satisfied with the clothing options available to them than their single counterparts - particularly when it comes to price. That finding is one part of the monthly Consumer Intentions and Actions (CIA) Study from BIGresearch, Columbus, Ohio. The CIA features information on consumer perceptions, how consumers are spending money in the present and how they intend to do so in the next three to six months.
The February 2004 installment polled 8,000 consumers. Members of the panel were asked to assign a rating of one to five (one being “very satisfied” and five being “very dissatisfied”) to statements that assessed their attitude toward clothing purchases. The statements included: “I can find my size,” “I can find clothes that fit within my budget,” “I can find a style for me” and “I can find a style that is fashionable today.”
While 53 percent of single women between the ages of 35 and 44 were satisfied that they could find clothing that fit their budgets, just 38 percent of married women in that age group said they were satisfied. “Clearly, the 35-to-44-year-old married woman is living a different lifestyle than her single counterpart,” says retail industry analyst Robin Lewis, publisher of Robin Reports. “Married women tend to have less time for shopping, less disposable income that can be spent on clothing and a tendency to pay less attention to weight gain and exercise.”
Forty-six percent of single women in that age group felt satisfied they could find the size they wanted, while 40 percent of married women said the same. In terms of style, however, 55 percent of single women were satisfied they could find clothing that fits their personal look, while only 38 percent of married women agreed. The same held true for finding a style that’s in fashion today, with 59 percent of single women satisfied that they could vs. 42 percent of married women. “Married women want the same great styles, but perhaps with a more relaxed fit to better suit their multi-faceted lifestyle,” says Lewis. “They work in the office, they raise the kids, they relax. Chico’s is an example of a store that has done a great job in this area, and one of the few focusing on this fashion-conscious but comfort-seeking consumer.” For more information visit www.bigresearch.com.
Pre-teens prefer gift certificates from toy and book stores
Given a choice of gift certificates from various types of stores, 6-11-year-olds are most likely to prefer one from a toy (29 percent) or book store (24 percent), according to a recent study by Opinion Research Corporation, Princeton, N.J. In the national study of 502 6-11-year-olds, 17 percent preferred a gift certificate from a hobby or sports store, followed by clothing stores (13 percent), music stores (7 percent), restaurants (6 percent), or stores with jewelry and accessories, like hair clips or scrunchies (3 percent).
Among the study’s other findings, nearly half of 6-8-year-old boys prefer a gift certificate from a toy store, while boys 9-11 equally prefer a gift certificate from a hobby/sports store or toy store. Book stores and toy stores are about equally-chosen among 6-8-year-old-girls, while most girls 9-11 prefer a gift certificate from either a book store or clothing store. The study was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation’s CARAVAN among a nationally representative sample of 502 6-11-year-olds October 23-26, 2003. The study has a margin of error of +/-4 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. For more information visit www.opinionresearch.com.
No time to cook
About 44 percent of weekday meals in the U.S. are prepared in 30 minutes or less, and most consumers would like to cut that time even further, according to The U.S. Market for Ready Meals and Side Dishes, a new report by market research publisher Packaged Facts.
With the number of two-working-parent households, single-parent households, and Generation X and Y consumers who don’t know how to cook steadily increasing, it’s no wonder that quickly prepared, easily consumed, portable meal solutions are in demand.
The overall market for ready meals and side dishes grew by 39 percent in the five-year period from 1999 to 2003. Sales increased to $19.6 billion in 2003, a 7.4 percent increase over the previous year.
“When it comes to getting dinner on the table in a hurry, our options have come a long way from frozen dinners of yore,” says Don Montuori, acquisitions editor for Packaged Facts. “The food industry has been highly creative in packaging appetizing and time-saving foods that are quickly approaching a cooked-from-scratch quality.” For more information visit www.packagedfacts.com.
Update on do-not-call list awareness
The Federal Trade Commission’s National Do Not Call Registry has been remarkably successful. More than half of all adults (57 percent) say they have signed up and most of these people say they have either received no telemarketing calls since then (25 percent) or far less than before (53 percent). Only a few of those who have signed up report getting the same number (5 percent) or more (1 percent) telemarketing calls than before.
These are some of the results of a Harris Poll conducted online by Harris Interactive, Rochester, N.Y., with a nationwide sample of 3,378 adults who were surveyed between January 19 and 28, 2004.
Other interesting findings in this research include: the proportion of all adults who have heard of the Registry has increased from 71 percent last September to 91 percent; the proportion of all adults who claim to have signed up with the Registry has increased from 32 percent last September to 57 percent; over 90 percent of those who have signed up report receiving fewer telemarketing calls, including the 25 percent who say they have received none, 53 percent who have received some but far less and 14 percent who have received some but a little less than before.
Most people on the Registry (68 percent) do not know if survey research firms and pollsters are allowed to call numbers that have signed up for the Registry. Only a quarter (24 percent of those signed up) know that they are allowed to call because they were exempted from the “do not call” restrictions. A few people (8 percent of those who have signed up) mistakenly believe that pollsters are not allowed to call. Two in every five (41 percent) of those on the Registry report that they have been polled since signing up. For more information visit www.harrisinteractive.com.
Credit card mailings decline for second consecutive year
Though you probably couldn’t tell based on the number of offers in your mailbox, annual credit card mail volume for 2003 decreased by 12 percent compared to volume in 2002, according to Chicago research firm Synovate. The findings, which were compiled using Synovate’s Mail Monitor, showed that 4.29 billion credit card offers were received by U.S. households during 2003, down from 4.89 billion in 2002, while consumer response remained low at just 0.6 percent. The year-on-year drop follows a record 5.01 billion offers set for mail volume in 2001.
On average each month, 69 percent of U.S. households received 4.8 offers during 2003 vs. 75 percent of households receiving 5.1 offers during 2002. “During 2003 typical seasonal mailing patterns went out of the window,” says Andrew Davidson, vice president of competitive tracking services for Synovate’s Financial Services Practice. “90 percent of credit card direct mail comes from the 10 largest card issuers and in 2003 half of those issuers cut back, causing the overall decline in mail volume.”
In 2003, an all-time record was set for personal bankruptcies and despite recent improvements to the economy, unemployment remains high. “Card issuers have reacted to this environment by mailing fewer low-introductory-rate offers and decreasing the frequency of mailings to lower-income households,” says Davidson. “At the same time, we have seen a significant increase in offers promoting rewards and cash rebates as issuers seek new ways to stand out from the clutter and acquire customers that are less likely to switch.”
U.S. households received 1.27 billion reward offers in 2003, up from 0.81 billion in 2002. Rebate card mail volume increased to 0.90 billion from 0.68 billion over the same time period. For more information visit www.synovate.com.
Report looks at furniture-buying process
Of total adults planning to purchase bedroom furniture, 31 percent indicated that lowest price was a determinant with their last furniture purchase versus 23 percent who said high quality was a major factor. And 31 percent of adults who indicated that highest quality was most important reported that they visited three stores prior to making their last furniture purchase of $500 or more, 4 percent more than the average adult. These are some of the findings from the Customer Focus 2004: Furniture study from Vertis, a Baltimore marketing services firm.
Other study findings include:
- 84 percent of Sunday newspaper readers who also plan to purchase living-room furniture in the next 12 months said they have read Sunday’s advertising insert or circulars in the past seven days.
- 82 percent of Sunday newspaper readers who own their condominium, townhouse or house, and said they shopped at two furniture stores before making a purchase of $500 or more, read an ad insert in the Sunday paper in the last seven days.
- 85 percent of total adults surveyed said they read advertising inserts and 69 percent indicated that they have read them in the past seven days.
- Advertising inserts and circulars continue to be the medium that consumers turn to first when they are looking to make their purchase decisions. Thirty percent of total adults surveyed indicated that inserts are their first preference, as opposed to 18 percent who said they turn to ads on the page of a newspaper, and 15 percent who indicated that they turn to the Internet.
- 23 percent of total adults surveyed said they plan on purchasing area rugs in the next 12 months, followed closely by bedding and floor coverings at 22 percent.
- Of those surveyed, 17 percent indicated that they will be purchasing bedroom furniture and 16 percent said they will purchase living-room furniture over the next year.
- Additionally, 30 percent of furniture shoppers surveyed reported that one to six months elapses between major bedroom furniture purchases of $500 or more - 10 percent more than the average adult.
- 26 percent of total adults surveyed said they wait 37 or more months between furniture purchases of $500 or more as compared to 17 percent of bedroom furniture purchasers.
- 53 percent of adults planning to purchase furniture are women, compared to 47 percent men.
- 27 percent of Generation Y (1977-1994) adults and 33 percent of Generation X (1965-1976) adults surveyed indicated that they will purchase bedroom furniture in the next 12 months. Conversely, only 11 percent of older Baby Boomers (1946-1964) reported that they will purchase bedroom furniture.
- 52 percent of Generation Y renters plan to purchase living-room or bedroom furniture, compared to 36 percent of total renters. For more information visit www.vertisinc.com.
Consumers will sacrifice convenience, cash to skip TV commercials
New research from Menlo Park, Calif.-based Knowledge Networks/SRI shows that early adopters of home media technologies are willing to pay a significant price - in dollars and convenience - for the capability to bypass commercials in television programming; but many may not be willing to offer up information on their viewing habits as part of the bargain.
The findings come from two recent reports – All Things Digital and How People Use Interactive TV – published as part of The Home Technology Monitor, a service tracking consumers’ ownership and use of media technologies. The data show that awareness of digital video recorders (such as TiVo) - which enable ad skipping at the push of a button - has risen from 56 percent in 2002 to 72 percent among early adopters.
Though 63 percent of these high-tech consumers say that watching commercials is a fair price to pay for TV programming, an even higher proportion (72 percent) do not think that DVR ad-skipping capabilities should be restricted or eliminated. This sentiment was stronger among younger respondents (86 percent of those ages 18 to 34) than older ones (66 percent of those 50 or older).
Early adopters also said - by a three to one margin (74 percent versus 22 percent) - that the ability to skip commercials is more important to them than being able to watch programs “on demand” (at the time most convenient to them).
About 5 percent of early adopters have a DVR, and 14 percent of non-owners say they would be “very interested” in paying $10 extra per month for a set-top box with a DVR built in.
Newer DVRs and digital set-top boxes have the capacity to capture users’ viewing, pause, and replay data - information that can be collected by the service provider. Knowledge Networks research shows that 57 percent of those with advanced TV services agree with the statement, “No one should be able to find out any information about what I watch.” Among these privacy-minded consumers, only 23 percent said they would be more likely to share their viewing information if they were offered incentives (such as discounts on their TV service). For more information visit www.knowledgenetworks.com.
Senior citizens lead Internet growth
New York-based Nielsen//NetRatings reports that senior citizens age 65 and older were the fastest-growing age group online, surging 25 percent year over year to 9.6 million Web surfers from home and work in October 2003. Additionally, within the senior citizen age group, Nielsen//NetRatings found that the number of female seniors online jumped 30 percent, while male seniors jumped 20 percent.
Since October 2002, senior citizens online grew from 7.6 million or 5.9 percent of the active Internet universe to 9.6 million surfers aged 65 plus, making up 7 percent of the active Internet universe in October 2003. The second-fastest-growing age group was Internet users 55-64, which jumped 15 percent from 13.6 million to 15.6 million surfers from home and work. The third-fastest-growing age group included those aged 18-24, jumping 13 percent from 9.3 million to 10.5 million surfers.
Nielsen//NetRatings found that in addition to outpacing senior males in audience growth, the rise in usage by female seniors was greater than the increase in usage by senior males. While male senior usage still dominates, female seniors increased their average Web pages viewed per month by 14 percent, whereas male seniors increased their pages viewed by 5 percent. Female seniors increased their average time spent online by 6 percent, spending nearly two more hours online, while male seniors increased their time online by 2 percent. While the number of sessions for female seniors increased by 2 percent, the number of sessions for male seniors decreased by 3 percent.
“As a whole, the Internet audience is continuing to become more representative of the general population,” says Greg Bloom, senior Internet analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. “Thanks to new technologies such as broadband and wireless, the bulk of the Internet’s recent growth has been associated to higher levels of activity from experienced Web users. However, as we continue to track year-over-year trends, we observe significant upticks in the online presence of important groups such as seniors.” For more information visit www.nielsen-netratings.com.