The Plus Sized clothing market is a booming industry. And there is finally some evidence that the Fashion Industry is finally embracing this growing market rather hiding it at the back of the store.
Mintel, a leading market research company, has recently released a study highlighting the importance of this segment. According to Mintel:
Nearly 25% of [...]
There has been a lot of press over the recent Whole Foods survey of consumer shopping habits. In their press release, Whole Foods touts the “Sea change” consumer interest in healthier fresh foods. To support their position, they show the difference between what consumers self-report as their top 5 shopping cart items in 1980 and today.
In 1980, the [...]
In a surprise move last week, Forrester Research announced that their “already aggressive” iPad sales forecast needed to be revised upward.
In her blog, Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, reflects Forrester’s surprise at the iPad’s sales volume:
But the iPad isn’t behaving like other consumer devices: It has a steamroller of momentum behind it that indicates [...]
A couple of years ago I did a study on Boomers and Seniors called “Life, Death, Sex and Shopping”, one of the findings showed that women (unlike men) would give up sex before they’d give up chocolate.
Now, The Continuum Crew, a communications firmed focused on the 40Plus market, has released a study called Mature Consumer Purchase [...]
For the past several years there has been an uneasy relationship between producers of Green consumer products and major retailers.
Large retailers saw Green products as a very limited niche opportunity.
Many Green manufacturers saw traditional retail channels as part of the problem, rather than the solution.
This tension is clearly easing. Today the Wall Street Journal reported [...]
As we all know, online content is the killing fields of today’s economy. Never have so many, bled so much, for so few paying customers. But, after endless articles and posts on bad news, there was a glimmer of hope in today’s Wall Street Journal.
Digital ad revenue was up 21%
Digital ad revenue is now more [...]
The recession has had a fascinating and unexpected impact on the price battle between private label products and brand name CPG products.
The chart below (from IRI’s January Times and Trends report) shows how the prices of private label products increased MUCH more rapidly than the total CPG market during 2007 and 2008. I believe these price increases [...]
Over the past 9 months, moderate and up-scale retailers have resorted to unprecedented deep discounts to drive sales and maintain store traffic. And it worked, for a while.
Now, it looks like these price promotions have begun to wear out. The Wall Street Journal had a very interesting article on the topic the other day Discounting [...]
Price promotions are an important tool, especially in these difficult economic times. But, the panic of declining sales often leads marketers to confuse price promotion with brand strategy. No where is this more evident than in fast food, where we’ve seen many restaurants try to drive traffic by virtually giving away their food.
A recent LA Times article outlined some [...]
There’s a food fight taking place - and it is getting bloody.
Casual dining restaurants (those are restaurants with waitresses but probably not a table cloth) are getting slaughtered as people pull back on their spending. Cheesecake Factory’s profits dropped 43% and California Pizza Kitchen fell into the red. And those who do go out are [...]
