When Neil Young pulled his music catalog in protest, he set off a series of events that few could have anticipated. Since then, Spotify has been caught in a maelstrom of public outcry, trending hashtags (#deletespotify), musician exits, and account cancellations. It can be hard to tease apart the impact this is having on Spotify’s business, but with tools from Similarweb Digital Suite, we can take a deeper look into just how wild of a week Spotify had from January 24 to January 30.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought disruption to the flower industry—from plummeting demand, forcing nurseries globally to destroy millions of flowers early in the pandemic, to the supply chain issues resulting in the global flower shortage more recently. Despite these issues, transaction data shows that sales among DTC flower upstarts jumped during the pandemic, particularly during holidays such as Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day.
Home Improvement boomed in 2020 as Americans got started on DIY projects that had been on the back burner for years. Now that routines are (almost) back in full swing, we dove into recent foot traffic to Lowe’s Home Improvement, The Home Depot, and Tractor Supply to see how the sector performed in 2021 and what lies ahead for 2022. We also looked at Lowe’s new collaboration with Petco to understand how this expansion fit into the larger home improvement landscape.
Valentine’s Day is here, and love is in the air. At least, that’s the hope of dating sites that are taking aim at singles looking for a serious relationship. Data from our ad intelligence tool, Pathmatics Explorer, shows that the top 3 advertisers in the Dating category spent nearly $7M on digital ads from January 1 through February 1, 2022. Let’s take a closer look at how Match.com, eHarmony, and Tawkify advertised as Valentine’s Day approached this year.
U.S. single-family rent growth increased 12% in December 2021, the fastest year-over-year increase in over 16 years, according to the CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI). The index measures rent changes among single-family rental homes, including condominiums, using a repeat-rent analysis to measure the same rental properties over time. The December 2021 increase was more than three times the December 2020 increase, and while the index growth slowed in the summer of 2020, rent growth returned to its pre-pandemic rate by October 2020.
Pets can be extremely loyal to their owners, showering affection in exchange for food and shelter. But are pet owners as loyal to the retailers supplying pet necessities? In today’s Insight Flash, we look at 1-800-PETMEDS, Chewy, Petco, and PetSmart using our newly launched CE-Q Subscription Dashboard and CE Receipt Data to evaluate which brands do the best at earning repeat business, attracting new customers, and leveraging basket size.
After a historic 2021 for the multifamily industry in which massive apartment demand drove average effective rent up by 15% nationally, the new year brought with it a change in dynamic. For one month at least, apartment demand was much lower than normal even as rent growth momentum continued upward. As usual, all numbers will refer to conventional properties of at least 50 units.
Walmart and Target both enjoyed strong summer visit metrics as the combination of retail’s reopening, pent up demand and limited COVID cases created a powerful opportunity. Yet, the winter holiday season presented a much trickier situation, with labor shortages and supply chain challenges creating a significant obstacle that was only exacerbated by rising COVID cases in December and January. So, how did the two retail giants perform in late 2021 and early 2022?
Last week, we reported that national respiratory illness activity (fever, cough, and sore throat) decreased and is below pre-COVID seasonal illness levels (“normal seasonal levels”), which remains true this week across all age groups. When taking a closer look at the senior population (65-100 years old), Kinsa’s data shows an interesting trend: all age groups, including seniors, experienced a rapid increase in fever incidence in mid-December, likely due to the Omicron surge.
What happens to the virtual dating market during a lockdown? On the one hand, with bars and clubs closed, people gravitate towards virtual meeting places. But on the other hand, what are these people to do when they find a suitable partner online but cannot take the next step and meet in person? This was the conundrum facing Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, Badoo and the rest for the past two years, although they were certainly not complacent about it.
The many re-formulations of travel restrictions that have been imposed by governments on international travel these past two years have had a huge impact on the entire travel sector. We know that frequent changes to travel rules affect traveller confidence. If you can’t be sure of the travel requirements for a trip, think they might change, or are concerned about the cost of adhering to the rules imposed, then many would-be travellers will simply wait a bit longer before booking.
It’s not TV. It’s HBO. The retired slogan still rings in our ears. HBO elevated original content before it was cool. But for years, brands couldn’t take advantage of the company’s massive audiences. This changed last year. HBO Max entered the advertising-based video on demand (AVOD) landscape. With its content, limited advertising and affordable pricing, HBO is trying to take on the biggest players: Netflix and Disney+. But unlike these other leading OTT platforms, HBO Max has advertising spots that can help media planners and brands get in front of targeted audiences.
Peloton has been plagued with troubles recently. First there were safety concerns with its treadmills. Then there was negative PR as popular shows depicted characters suffering heart attacks while riding. Finally, there was an announcement this week of layoffs for 2,800 employees and a new CEO. But will Peloton’s loyal customer base ride on? In today’s Insight Flash, we use our newly launched Subscription dashboard as well as our CE Web data to look at Peloton’s retention over time, how it has compared to other workouts in attracting new customers, and whether class innovation has led to expanded adoption.
Athleisure surged in 2020 as the pandemic pushed many to re-evaluate their apparel priorities, and sporting goods retailers also thrived as people stocked up on exercise equipment to make up for the absence of fitness centers. Now that gyms and offices are opening back up, we analyzed Nike, Lululemon, and Athleta’s recent visit patterns to understand how these brands performed in 2021 and where the athleisure and athletic wear recovery is heading in 2022.
At the height of the pandemic, there was plenty of discussion about what the response to the pandemic would have been if it had come, say, 20 years ago. Take working from home – a perfectly logical solution to the need for social distancing. But in a time before broadband and video conferencing, this would simply not have been feasible for the vast majority of employees. Similarly, think about mobile apps and their role in the pandemic response. Yes, there may well have been contact tracing and systematic vaccine roll-out plans in the 1990s.
2021 was a year of staggering price growth on both the rental and for-sale sides of the housing market, but even before these recent spikes, housing affordability was already a major concern. Generally accepted wisdom holds that a household should not spend more than 30 percent of gross household income on housing costs (i.e. rent or mortgage payments) in order to maintain good financial health. However, as of 2019, nearly one-in-three American households spent above this threshold; these 36.5 million households are considered to be “cost-burdened.”
Twenty years ago, CapitalOne appointed Cathy Doss as the first Chief Data Officer. Since then, the world, and especially large companies have become more data driven and the Chief Data (and Analytics) Officer (CDAO) role has become a common member of the C-Suite. In 2002, CapitalOne was ahead of its time. It took another 12 years for the role to truly pick up in popularity. But then it did, very rapidly:
The start of any year is about optimism and a fundamental resolution to make the coming annum fundamentally better than the one that preceded it. And the same goes for retail, where the biggest names in the sector look to set the pace for the coming year. However, beyond the standard challenges associated with retail success, 2022 kicked off with the added obstacles of a rising COVID variant, inclement weather, labor shortages, and continued supply chain and inflation issues.
Amazon’s most recent earnings call brought attention to numerous interesting figures; several that are worth digging into from a job posting perspective. Amazon touches many different sectors, but arguably the most interesting details from the earnings calls were to be found in its eCommerce and web services. When Comparing Amazon to some of its larger peers in the space, it seems to be doing well, with job listing growth outperforming Target, Walmart, and Alibaba.
New research from ForwardKeys reveals that flight bookings to and from the UK have soared following the government’s announcement that COVID-19 testing would no longer be required for fully vaccinated travellers entering the UK. The day after the announcement by the UK Transport Secretary was made, combined inbound and outbound flight bookings jumped to 84% of pre-pandemic (2019) levels, outbound to 106% and inbound to 47%.
