••• affluent/wealthy
Affluents on Amazon
Well-off Americans go to Amazon for quality, convenience, service
Affluent Americans, who drive the luxury market, are avid Amazon shoppers, and marketers and retailers looking to reach this valuable audience will need to get creative to compete with Amazon’s offered benefits, such as free two-day shipping with Prime and Sunday deliveries.
According to Shullman Research Center, Greenwich, Conn., 69 percent of adults whose annual household income is $250,000+ have shopped on Amazon in the past 12 months and as household income increases, so does the probability of an Amazon customer’s shopping there. Sixty-four percent of those with a household income of $500,000+ shop there once a month or more frequently.
Sixty percent of Amazon’s customers shop at Amazon at least once a month and nearly one-in-three of Amazon’s customers report that they are enrolled in the Amazon Prime service. Notably, the Prime enrollment soars to 45 percent at the $500,000+ income level.
Attitudinally, 35 percent of Amazon’s customers and 59 percent of its $500,000+ household-income customers agree that they like to buy designer or luxury brands. Not only are a substantial portion of Amazon’s customers attitudinally predisposed to buying designer or luxury brands, just over one-quarter report they purchased a luxury item from one or more retailers in the past 12 months, with this luxury purchasing level rising to 50 percent among the $250,000+ income segment and 72 percent among the $500,000+ income segment.
When probed about their attitudes regarding shopping, Amazon customers: are predisposed to buying American, but this orientation drops as household income rises; focus more on quality than price as incomes increase; seek out superior service as incomes increase; like to buy designer or luxury brands, especially at the $500,000+ income level; and are not particularly influenced by celebrity endorsements. The No. 1 luxury category that these consumers bought was premium cosmetics.
www.shullman.net
••• social media research
Why choose only one?
A look at adult usage of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn
Some 73 percent of online adults now use a social networking site of some kind and 42 percent of online adults use multiple social networking sites, according to data from Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, Washington, D.C.
Despite recent growth by services such as Pinterest and Instagram, Facebook predictably remains the dominant social networking platform. Seventy-one percent of online adults are now Facebook users, a slight increase from the 67 percent of online adults who used Facebook as of late-2012. While Facebook is popular across a diverse mix of demographic groups, other sites have developed their own unique demographic user profiles. For example, Pinterest holds particular appeal to female users (women are four times as likely as men to be Pinterest users) and LinkedIn is especially popular among college graduates and Internet users in higher-income households. Twitter and Instagram have particular appeal to younger adults, urban dwellers and non-whites. And there is substantial overlap between Twitter and Instagram user bases.
Facebook and Instagram also exhibit especially high levels of user engagement, as a majority of users on these sites check in to them daily. Sixty-three percent of Facebook users visit the site at least once a day, with 40 percent doing so multiple times throughout the day. Instagram and Twitter have a significantly smaller number of users than Facebook does but users of these sites also tend to visit them frequently. Some 57 percent of Instagram users visit the site at least once a day (with 35 percent doing so multiple times per day) and 46 percent of Twitter users are daily visitors (with 29 percent visiting multiple times per day).
Overall, 42 percent of online adults use two or more of these social networks, while 36 percent use only one (the remaining 22 percent did not use any of the five sites). Among those who only use one major social networking platform, 84 percent say that Facebook is the single site that they frequent. However, other single-platform social networking site users have adopted a site other than Facebook as their platform of choice. Among those who use just one social networking site, 8 percent use LinkedIn, 4 percent use Pinterest and 2 percent each say that Instagram or Twitter is their sole social networking site.
www.pewinternet.org
••• restaurant research
More of the same, please!
Consumers overall not interested in new menu items
Restaurant operators invest heavily in promoting new menu items but it turns out that a majority of consumers (about 70 percent) won’t try a new menu item, according to Port Washington, N.Y., research company The NPD Group. Of the 30 percent willing to try a new menu item, 17 percent will order a brand new menu item and 10 percent will try a limited-time offer item.
Consumers try a new or unfamiliar menu item based on their perceptions of its taste and visual appeal but they also may consider healthfulness and price. Generally, consumers tend to replace their pre-planned menu item with a new menu item only if the new item is the same food type as the product they had originally planned to order. The exception to this is snacks, where any other food type has an equal chance of being replaced.
A first-time menu item purchase during a restaurant visit occurs less frequently at quick-service places than at full-service restaurants. The highest incidence of trial of a new or unfamiliar menu item occurs at casual dining places, which relates to the quality/freshness of the ingredients used in the menu item; the item being a good meal accompaniment choice; and the ability for diners to share the menu item with others. Half of the new menu items ordered is main dishes, while sandwiches make up almost half of the remaining new items ordered.
www.npd.com
••• sports/leisure
America’s true pastime?
Football again trumps baseball as America’s favorite sport
Football continues to dominate over baseball as America’s favorite sport, as 35 percent of adults who follow at least one sport say professional football is their favorite sport, while just 14 percent say baseball is their favorite, according to a poll from Rochester, N.Y., research company Harris Interactive.
The gap between the two sports has grown from 2012, when 34 percent said pro football was their favorite and 16 percent said baseball was their favorite sport. This is the second-largest gap between the two sports in the almost-30 years this survey has been conducted. The highest gap was in 2011 at 23 points (36 percent football vs. 13 percent baseball). Looking at how other sports fared, 11 percent say college football is their favorite sport, while 7 percent say it is auto racing, 6 percent say men’s professional basketball, 5 percent say hockey and 3 percent say it is men’s college basketball. All other sports are favorites for 2 percent or less of sports fans.
There are some fluctuations in favorites over time. Since this question was first asked in 1985, professional football has gone up 11 points, from 24 percent of sports fans saying it was their favorite sport then to 35 percent saying so now. Baseball, on the other hand, has gone down 9 points, from 23 percent in 1985 to 14 percent today. Hockey has gone up 3 points, while men’s tennis, men’s college basketball and horse racing have all gone down 3 points.
When it comes to the top sports, different groups are more likely to cite them as favorites. Those who live in rural areas (44 percent), people with a child under 18 (42 percent) and Easterners (39 percent) are more likely to say professional football is their favorite sport, while those with a post-graduate degree (24 percent), Echo Boomers (31 percent) and liberals (31 percent) are less likely to do so. For baseball, Hispanics (19 percent), those with a household income of $100,000 or more (18 percent) and suburbanites (18 percent) are more likely to cite it as their favorite sport. African-Americans (7 percent), those who live in rural areas (8 percent) and Echo Boomers (10 percent) are least likely to say baseball is their favorite.
Looking at college football, those in the South (17 percent), those with a post-graduate degree (17 percent) and college graduates (16 percent) are more likely to say this is their favorite, while Easterners (4 percent), Hispanics (7 percent) and Democrats (8 percent) are least likely to say college football is their favorite sport. Auto racing is more likely to be the favorite for those living in rural areas (12 percent), those in households with an income under $35,000 (12 percent) and those with a high-school-or-less education (11 percent); auto racing is less likely to be the favorite for African-Americans (1 percent), Hispanics (2 percent) and both post-graduates and college graduates (3 percent each).
www.harrisinteractive.com
••• teens
Evermore connected
Teens’ time online outpacing all other age groups
Teenagers’ Internet use is growing faster than that of any other age group, abetted by a variety of devices – smartphones, tablets, video game consoles and connected TVs. According to a study from New York research company GfK, time spent online by teens (ages 13-to-17) rose 37 percent, to just over four hours per day, compared to the beginning of 2012. By contrast, online minutes remained essentially flat for those ages 18-to-64, 18-to-54 and even 18-to-49.
The teens’ increases were driven by huge leaps in their time spent online via tablets (up 157 percent, to over half an hour daily), smartphones (up 72 percent, to over an hour a day) and connected TVs (up 86 percent, to 13 minutes daily).
Smartphone ownership among the 13-to-17 group jumped 70 percent, from 35 percent to 55 percent, in 2013 and teen tablet ownership doubled, from 18 percent to 37 percent. These dramatic leaps in device ownership suggest that teens are rarely disconnected.
www.gfk.com/us