The Checkout report: latest US shopper trends

Shopping lists and how shoppers are using them in a post-recession economy is the theme of the latest Checkout report, which is based on a nationally representative survey of 1,200 US adults conducted monthly by M/A/R/C Research.

According to researchers, the focal point of decision making is gradually shifting from store to home.

On the back of the worst recession in the last 15 years, shoppers have dramatically altered the way they consume, plan, and shop for groceries and basic household goods, say researchers.

A prominent effect of prolonged recessionary pressures has been a shift to a home-centric and self-suf?cient lifestyle as consumers trade nights at the cinema for DVD rentals, restaurants for home cooked meals, and specialty treatments for home remedies.

“The most signi?cant change is that households are making more shopping decisions at home,” says the report.

Penetration of the shopping list is fairly substantial, with 43% of general market shoppers reporting they always rely on a shopping list. But, more than half of consumers (57%) are shopping-list-free at least some of the time, making impulse buying and in-store promotion a larger part of the buying decision.

While in many instances, the shopper and list-maker are one and the same, when it comes to attached male shoppers, there is a slight disparity. Nearly one out of four (23%) male shoppers report while they are the primary grocery shopper, they are not the primary grocery shopping list maker.

When creating a shopping list, more shoppers (81%) include the type of product, and not the brand, leaving the door open for brands and retailers to drive brand switching in-store via compelling marketing materials at-shelf, says the report.

The respondents also report their shopping lists typically include the quantity needed (67%), but not details like the size of an item or its price. This may indicate most price-based decisions (price and/or price-per-unit valuations) are being made at shelf. Because the majority of brand (66%) and unit size (73%) decisions are being made at shelf, there is an opportunity for shopper marketing programmes to persuade value-concerned shoppers to reconsider brand-name products and entice unit size trade-up in that location. This can be especially potent when considering most brands will be a few inches away from their private-label counterpart, it says.

While the in?uence on list-making from the internet and mobile phones is relatively small (11%), compared to other factors, the growth in shopping-list web sites and mobile applications will have a sizeable impact on shoppers’ list-making habits in the near-term, claims the study.

The proliferation of mobile devices and technologies will rede?ne shopping-list making and usage, as brands and retailers begin coordinating their marketing campaigns both in and out of the store, it says.

Some retailers have already been making substantial headway into the list-making space including Whole Foods, Kroger, Safeway and King Soopers.

Despite pre-planning, most shoppers still make off-list purchases, says the report.

Nine out of 10 shoppers routinely make impulse purchases with nearly a third (30%) adding four or more items to their basket per trip. The magnitude of the implication is tremendous, it says. If the average shopper makes 6.9 grocery-shopping trips per month and most large-format grocers only realise meaningful economic bene?t when consumers make three or more additional purchases. For a leading retailer like Safeway, getting an additional 10% of existing shoppers to add three more items could amount to more than $1.5bn in banner sales a year.