Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

How much is your customer worth?

One approach would be to re-focus acquisition strategy based on the Customer Lifetime Value or CLV. According to the 2015 RJ Metrics Benchmark report, a new e-commerce customer is worth, on average, $154 in their first year. This number varies by type of retail. For instance, the categories of housewares, food and drugs tend to be above this average.

What is more interesting is that only 32 percent of these new customers are likely to make a second purchase in their first year. The report also reveals that the top 1 percent of customers are worth 18 times more than the average customer, which equals about $2,772.

Armed with this information, an e-tailer can easily calculate ROI on programs targeting new customers vs. programs targeting your biggest fans—the top 5 percent....

One of the bigger implications of our new mobile world is the hurt it is putting on the retail supply chain.

There used to be a day when the only way a consumer could get a product from a specific brand was to find it in a store. That isn’t true anymore. With so many brands now reaching the consumer directly and the expectations of the consumer reaching orbital requirements, what will happen to the legacy supply chains still being used by most retailers today?

RSR released a report on the impact that mobile is having on the supply chain and, in case you didn’t know, it has been disruptive and destructive. More change in retail = more opportunity for differentiation....

Mobile, social, and the cacophony of modern interruption marketing has transformed the retail path to purchase, and forced retail marketers to focus on building lasting relationships that benefit customers.

...“Now, because of smartphones and tablets, marketers need to fundamentally rethink things. Shopping is becoming an iterative rather than a serial process. Consumers no longer go shopping, they always are shopping.”

Among the less frequently discussed casualties of modern marketing is the path to purchase.The path to purchase is not a sidewalk leading from the shopper’s front door to a store; it is a cycle repeated over and over, and it requires marketers to take a different tack....

Ebay enterprise with CFI Group conducted a survey on over 500 shoppers to understand who is shopping online, how they are using the Internet and what matters most to maintain their loyalty.

“We all know that shoppers are using the Internet to research and purchase products these days, but as retailers are trying to catch up to the new fast-paced landscape of real-time omnichannel shopping, it is important to understand the online methods consumers are using and for what purpose,” said the report.

The study found that customers  are using multiple channels when shopping. When asked how often the shopping is done using both the store’s website and physical locations, 96% said the utilized both channels, and 49% use both channels frequently. Moreover, 32% are now using mobile devices to shop, which is said to grow in future. This shows that, to boost their sales, retailers need to be aware of synchronized communication across all channels...

PNo industry has been more transfigured in the past year than retail. Stores now behave like websites, tracking customers as they browse. American malls have pretty much died (but maybe on their way back to life). And in some parts of the country you can have your milk and eggs home-delivered along with your new iPod on the same day. Those who lead the field strike the right balance between physical and digital, experience and affordability, convenience and quality....