Digital American Newsletter

Visual search is taking off. Three quarters of American internet users consistently look for pictures during their path to purchase. 36% have performed a true visual search: taken a photo and shared it with an app to identify the product, brand, and how to buy it.

This trend is gathering momentum. 62% of Millennials are interested in visual search. That’s a larger group than are intrigued by other new shopping technologies including social shopping and augmented reality.

What’s the attraction? Visual search is convenient and mirrors how our brains work. 90% of the information we process is visual.

Google, Bing and Pinterest are developing powerful visual search capabilities. Google Lens identifies pictures and matches them with reviews and local retailers. Pinterest Lens has similar capabilities that have driven an almost three-fold increase in visual searches on their platform from 2017 to 2018.

Target is at the forefront of this trend, teaming up with Pinterest to support visual search on its app and website. However, only 8% of retailers (and an unknown percent of brands) are engaged with visual search. Shouldn’t your brand be leveraging this trend?

Sources: Business Wire 2019, emarketer 2018, Medium 2019, Search Engine Journal 2018, Social Media Today 2019

The big networks are losing their monopoly on consumer attention now that the average American has 8 social media accounts.

Consumers are branching out to get away from privacy problems, algorithms that hide content and too many ads. They are moving to smaller, more controlled communities—some without advertising.

Escapex is the poster child for this trend. The platform is growing like wildfire, with 20 million subscribers, each using the app an average of 4 times a day.

Here’s how it works. Using Escapex, a celebrity or influencer can create an independent social app that looks a lot like Instagram, except they personally own it. The celeb has total control of the content, what follower behavior is allowed, and whether brands can participate.

Fans pay a small monthly fee ($6 on average) to subscribe to the celebrity’s app. In return, they get exclusive content that is not on big social networks plus more direct access to the celebrity.

So far, 350 celebrities, including Amber Rose, Jeremy Renner, and Bob Marley’s Estate have launched Escapex apps. Over 150 million new consumers visit the apps each month, and 12% of those who download an app subscribe.

Sources: Barrie360 2019, Crunchbase 2019, Entrepreneur 2019, Fast Company 2019, HubSpot 2019

Amazon’s sales are higher on Prime Day than Black Friday or Cyber Monday. That’s just one of the reasons why your brand should craft a game plan for this day dedicated to discounts for Prime members. Here are some other rationale.

• Over 66% of US households are Prime members.
• More than 60% of Prime Day buyers planned for the event at least 4 days in advance.
• 39% of Prime Day purchases were impulsive, with cosmetics and beauty items leading the way.
• A number of brands were very successful because they unveiled new products on Amazon on Prime Day.
• Small/medium businesses sold more than $1 B on Prime Day last year.
• Prime Day was celebrated with a week of special discounts at Whole Foods Market in July 2018.
• 40% of consumers who participated in Prime Day also purchased from competing retailers who offered discounts, especially Walmart and Target.
• Other retailers were particularly effective at gaining Prime Day share in grocery, cosmetics and beauty categories.

 
Even though Amazon hasn’t yet announced the date for Prime Day 2019 (it’s likely to be in mid-July), brands should be setting their strategies now to drive sales.

Sources: Amazon 2018, AT Kearney 2018, CNBC 2018, Inc 2018, The Street 2018

Gen Z (consumers under 25 years old) are more likely to turn to social media than search engines when looking for products to buy. Millennials (ages 25-38) are following their lead.

It’s all part of the seismic shift that is occurring in what’s driving consumers to use social media. Over the past three years, the importance of visiting social sites for friendship-related reasons has declined. At the same time, the percentage of global consumers who are on social to find products to buy has increased from 23% to 30%.

Think about that. Almost one-third of consumers say a top reason they check social media is to research potential purchases.

What’s more, 30% of all North American online shoppers, and 51% of Millennials, believe that within the next 12 months they are likely to buy a product via their favorite social platform.

Instagram and Pinterest are leading the pack in social commerce because they are visually oriented and have strong shopping functionality. Snapchat is adding features to try to catch up, and Facebook continues to experiment with ways to sell on their platform.

Sources: Business2Community 2019, eMarketer 2019, Globalwebindex 2019, Hootsuite 2019, Nielsen 2018

Subscription boxes full of curated, on-trend items—like Stitch Fix and FabFitFun—tend to get the press coverage. Meanwhile, subscription services that replenish consumer product basics (think Amazon Subscribe & Save) are quietly and methodically driving significant sales.

Currently, 15% of online Americans are signed up for at least 1 subscription. Subscribers are most likely to be urban women between 25 and 44 years old, with household incomes of $50,000-$100,000.

Consumer awareness, consideration, sign up and retention rates are higher for replenishment subscriptions than curated boxes. Shoppers usually sign up for a replenishment service based on a friend’s recommendation or a financial incentive.

45% of replenishment subscribers have had their subscription for over a year. They stay for the convenience, lower prices and personalization. The top reasons why consumers drop replenishment subscriptions are that they are unhappy with the product or the delivery rate does not match their needs.

Subscription sales have doubled each year since 2012, so this trend has become more important, even while you were reading.

Sources: Fast Company 2018, Forbes 2018, McKinsey 2018, Pitchbook 2019