Dear reader,
With 2012 just released, a new year begins in which the predominant note of the experts’ forecasts continues to be caution, since the slight growth that is expected will be due to inflation, despite the fact that consumers will maintain their level spending and low prices prevail when making your purchases.
In this way, according to a study carried out by Kantar Worldpanel, in 2012 it is only expected that consumption in drugstores (0.6%) and food (0.1%) will rise, especially in healthy foods, diet and preparations. Consumption in clothing will remain stable, while the consumption of perfumery and beauty products will fall by 0.5% and “impulse” consumption, which includes spending on food and drink outside the home, will fall by 0.6% .
On the other hand, the average spending per household is also expected to fall during 2012. Thus, independent consumers will cut their average spending by 3.3% and retirees will reduce their spending by 1.3%. However, there is also room for hopeful data: the only ones that will slightly increase their spending are couples with children, especially those with older children (with 1.8% more spending than in 2011), followed by households single parents with children (1%).
All these figures show that consumers are aware of the current situation and are resigning themselves to facing a long period of crisis, so they try to maintain their consumption at the expense of savings and compulsively always look for the best price. In fact, more and more people are changing their spending habits and trying to save across the board on all household products, according to the latest wave of Nielsen’s global online survey of “Consumer Confidence and Purchase Intentions.”
Precisely on the importance that consumers are currently attributing to price, we want to focus this new issue of our newsletter, with the aim of showing that this variable can become a powerful analysis and management tool so that companies can reach with the right price, to the right customer and at the right time.
In this way, I invite you to reflect on the need to incorporate the pricing strategy into the business strategy as an essential element when designing and implementing Marketing campaigns in the video that you can find in the section El Despertador.
Continuing with this approach in which price determines that consumers opt for a particular distributor, in the La Ducha section I present the success story of Grupo El Árbol, one of the leading brands that, thanks to its strategy of personalized promotions and careful development of its loyalty program has positioned it within the top 10 of distribution in Spain.
New pricing strategies that are managing to attract and retain customers and that require prior study and analysis. If you want to learn how to make the best decisions when setting prices that maximize your company’s profits, I encourage you to read the book “Pricing Strategy: Setting Price Levels, Managing Price Discounts & Establishing Price Structures” in our Breakfast section. where from the hand of the renowned pricing strategy leader Tim J. Smith you will discover the keys to transforming the hidden benefits of your products into net income.
To finish, I recommend that you consult in the Farewell section three interesting reports on the field of retail to find out how the shopping cart is evolving in Spain, the importance that the point of sale is acquiring for consumers or how the corporate brand is a critical factor in their purchase decision.