The wider Home Improvement category was one of the retail bright spots early on in the pandemic, with brands like Home Depot and Lowe’s showing a unique level of strength. Yet, one of the more interesting storylines was the rise of Tractor Supply – a brand that also outperformed over the last 18 months. Home furnishings leaders were also among the better performers over the last year as key trends aligned to give an added boost to their specific offerings.
It seems that everything is positive for the aviation industry this week as more and more markets relax their Covid-19 restrictions and start to look forward to reopening their hotel doors. In many markets optimism is now flooding back, even Australia is beginning to plan for a reopening, New Zealand now increasingly looking isolated both geographically and in response to Covid-19. The United States finally announced a date for reopening access from major source markets although sadly with too short notice for some airlines that had already started cancelling services out to the middle of November.
Our nation’s infrastructure is set to get a massive funding boost courtesy of the Federal government’s American Rescue Plan Act and bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In their new report entitled Hard-to-Fill Infrastructure Jobs: A Challenge to Building Our Future the National League of Cities explores the labor market’s readiness for the influx of infrastructure jobs that will be created by these new funding streams. An infrastructure job is one in which the work required is related to the design, construction or maintenance of infrastructure
When many Americans sheltered in their homes early in the coronavirus pandemic, meal delivery sales reached new heights. Our data reveals that in September 2021, sales for meal delivery services grew 17 percent year-over-year, collectively. The ongoing pandemic may also be driving more Americans to make their first meal delivery purchase. In September 2021, 50 percent of U.S. consumers had ever ordered from one of the services in our analysis, up from 44 percent a year ago.
When U.S. cities and states faced shelter-in-place orders to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Americans’ reduced mobility resulted in plummeting sales at rideshare companies. With the exception of a late 2020 dip, sales have been gradually recovering since April 2020. Uber sales were up 110 percent year-over-year and Lyft sales were up 87 percent year-over-year in September 2021.
While many retailers took a cautious approach to expansion following the COVID outbreak, Dollar General bucked the trend, deciding instead to launch a new concept, Popshelf, mid-pandemic. Courting a new type of customer, it plans to open up to 50 of these locations by the end of the year. Popshelf is attracting higher-income shoppers: 29% of its customer spend in 2021 came from households with annual earnings of more than $150K, while this figure was 22% at its parent, Dollar General.
The online business of Lowe’s Home Improvement has had many fits and starts over the past few years. Although our CE Transact credit card data has been accurately tracking the company’s total U.S. sales along with those of competitor Home Depot, our newly launched CE Receipt data is our first data offering to be able to break out the e-commerce channel. In today’s Insight Flash, we dig into online home improvement trends such as how online share compares to total company for Home Depot and Lowe’s, how the two stack up in terms of items per transaction
Piccoma, published by Kakao Japan Corporation, launched in 2016, and has achieved monumental success by surpassing the $1 billion milestone, 1 of only 15 non-gaming apps globally to do so to date (October 10, 2021). This is particularly impressive because all of its consumer spend came from one market: Japan. Japan is one of the world’s most lucrative mobile app markets for monetization with the highest monthly consumer spend per device.
Meituan Waimai, a food delivery app published by Sankuai Technology Company, has surpassed 100 million app downloads across iOS and Google Play worldwide. Meituan Waimai was released on Nov 19, 2013 on iOS and July 18, 2017 on Google Play. In addition to delivering international cuisines ranging from specific fast food partners such as Pizza Hut and KFC as well as local favorites such as barbecue and hot pot, Meituan Waimai also delivers soda drinks, fresh fruits, pharmacy items, and supermarket groceries.
When the COVID-19 pandemic upended the world’s travel activity in 2020, no transportation systems felt the effects more acutely than airports and airlines. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), which ranked as the busiest origin-destination airport in the world prior to the pandemic, saw a staggering 96% drop in passengers in April 2020 as compared with the year prior.
After a brief month of year-over-two-year visit growth in July, nationwide dining visits fell once again below 2019-levels in August, and declined even further in September. To understand how current dining trends were affecting the QSR sector, we dove into in-store visits to Chipotle and Yum! Brands’s portfolio – KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. While Chipotle has been investing heavily in its digital channels, offline traffic has been lagging behind pre-pandemic levels. But the brand has been opening new locations
Buying a home is considered the American dream, but during a pandemic, that dream swiftly vanished, especially for real estate brands trying to advertise to consumers who, ironically, were stuck in their homes. We analyzed the top advertisers in the space to find out how their spend, strategy, and creatives adapted to the changing pandemic landscape, and a 2021 housing market which finds consumers paying top dollar for a scarce supply of homes.
The Earnest Research Spend Index* was flat compared to the prior month with in-store growth continuing to decelerate and online accelerating slightly. Yo2Y spend accelerated 2pp both in-store and online. Foot traffic to consumer businesses was up slightly versus 2019 levels for the first month since February 2020, a sharp reversal from August suggesting a recovery in consumer activity.
ATTOM, licensor of the nation’s most comprehensive foreclosure data and parent company to RealtyTrac (www.realtytrac.com), the largest online marketplace for foreclosure and distressed properties, released its Q3 2021 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 45,517 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — up 34 percent from the previous quarter and 68 percent from a year ago.
The cryptocurrency market has been one of the more disruptive elements of the finance industry since it sprung to stardom in 2017. Where once cryptocurrencies seemed like a figment of the future, they’re now a household name. As key currencies rise and fall and the pundits have their say, the question is: How does the buzz surrounding cryptocurrencies translate into customer behavior online?
Had a plant-based sausage or some non-dairy cheese lately? Meat replacements and dairy alternatives have become increasingly popular over the past decade. Not only are these foods more environmentally friendly, but they are also a part of an extremely lucrative market: the plant-based food market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.9% from 2020 to 2027 to reach $74.2 billion by 2027.
Germany’s office transaction market has picked up momentum through the spring and summer, with deal activity for the first eight months of the year now on par with the average for the five years before the pandemic. The second quarter of 2021 was the ninth best quarter on record for office transaction volume. Investors spent €8.4 billion ($9.7 billion) in the quarter and another €3.8 billion over the normally quiet summer months of July and August.
Retail advertisers’ creative messaging has shifted during the Covid-19 pandemic as they continued to meet consumers changing needs. Top creatives in 2020 and 2021 were meaningful promotions highlighting new job opportunities, being present for the community, and even convenient pick-up options. Today, we’re taking a look at the retail category’s top three advertisers during the summer (June-September) of 2020 and 2021.
Their product might not come wrapped with a beautiful bow like consumer products—but B2B teams need to make their final Q4 sales soon. This is why it’s critical to approach their advertising team now—they’re spending the remainder of their budget and they’re planning for next year. Make sure you’re coordinating with the right contacts to get ahead of your competition. On Monday we covered the top consumer brands to watch in Q4. Here are the top B2B brands from a range of sectors to keep tabs on.
How much free time does the average working person have per day? Let's say she gets home from work at 6pm, then prepares something to eat. If she goes to bed at 11pm, that leaves around four hours in the evening. Add in some time on the commute and at lunch, and we might say the average working person has just over five hours of leisure time a day. In some markets you're probably spending all of that time in apps.
