"Happy Planet" sustainability.
With all the talk about sustainability, some shoppers are excited
about it, some are eating it, and others are getting annoyed. One of our
shoppers said she was getting confused about the value of . . .
Don't add anything.(Brief article)
Prego pasta sauce, introduced in 1981, is a new kid on the block
compared to Ragu, which came onto the market in 1937 and continues to
show the power of being the first to market. Now, pasta sauces . . .
Coffee at McDonald's.
McDonald's is selling coffee at 69 cents plus tax. They say
that their new coffee is premium and that the price applies to small
size cups as well as large ones. Some shoppers who have tried the . . .
Romancing coffee.
Do you remember when wine was the beverage of romance? Learning
about wine used to start in literature classes where the wine was paired
with a loaf of bread and the presence of the loved one. I . . .
Soup fans.
Shoppers are talking about soup as well as eating it at home, at
work, and at a new generation of bakery cafes. They seem to be
rediscovering the value of soup as a healthful and flavorful small . . .
Retail layoffs trigger anger.
The layoffs at Circuit City hit a shopper sore spot because they
seemed "anti-shopper" or "consumer-be-damned," as
well as unjust, short-sighted, and certain to degrade the shopping
experience.
* . . .
Green grows connections.
Perhaps it has something to do with the onset of a May that is
bursting with especially green leaves and grasses. Whatever the reasons,
politicians, journalists, marketers, and shoppers are . . .
Corrosive pricing.
Shoppers perceive pricing that's higher than they were led to
expect as cheating. Whether or not it's deliberate, they usually
think it is and would rather shop at stores that didn't do it. At
the . . .
Bagging together.
Trader Joe's was crowded on the Sunday afternoon I stopped to
look at eggs because one of our panelists asked me, "How come they
are selling large eggs for a regular price of 99 cents while . . .
Complaining by blog.
"... the harder it becomes to complain and the longer it takes
to get satisfaction, the angrier customers become in return." A
blog called Surtori classifies complaints into six categories: 1-Kind . . .
Merchandising/marketing continued from last month.
Last month's Shopper Report included a long, soap-box kind of
article on merchandising versus marketing. Right after that issue went
out, a new supermarket ad from Acme Markets, which is based here . . .
The supermarket quality gap.
It's been a bad winter for American citrus, the kind that
makes many shoppers revert to retelling their grandparent's advice
about it being best to avoid buying produce when it's expensive
because . . .
Fresh pricing.
Both Kraft and Sara Lee have announced plans to enter the fresh
salads-with-meat business. Since supermarkets are playing catch-up to
convenience stores in this category, we wonder how the national . . .
Who owns what brands?
In the aftermath of both major and minor food industry majors,
consumers don't know who owns what and whether or not they really
have any choices. In this environment, one of our shoppers sees . . .
Store brand quality gap.
In the race for quality perceptions, store brands run close to even
with national brands in some categories and lag far behind in others. We
asked shoppers to share their quality perceptions of . . .
Comparing supermarket prices.(price comparison of Tesco PLC and J
Sainsbury PLC)
With the world gone global, consumers' expectations follow
suit. One of our panelists wrote:
* "If Tesco makes it possible for me to check supermarket
prices in England even while I'm here in New . . .
Blaming retailers.(shoppers opinions)(Brief article)
1. "If they insist on selling me packages that I can't
open easily, they should make sure that retailers know how to open them
for me."
2. "I HATE the packages that are so hard to get into. I . . .
Squeamish generations.(trends in advertising)
Newspaper readership continues to drop precipitously, and one of
the reasons for the decline is hidden in the ways that Generations X, Y,
and Z manage to eat without cooking. The clean generations . . .
Breaking the opening code.(trends in packaging)
Packaging is too full of assumptions about the people who will be
using it. Designers and their employers and customers frequently think
that whatever is obvious to them is obvious to most people . . .
Supermarket price checking systems need overhaul.
Since our intelligence agencies can't seem to share data with
one another in a way that lets them synthesize and act on it, maybe
it's too much to expect supermarkets and other retailers to . . .
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