ETD: 818 News from NMOA; The New Trend in Spending; America's
Top 300 Retail Web Sites
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Thu Sep 16 11:58:45 GMT 2004
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0818 September 16, 2004
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] News from NMOA
[3] The New Trend in Spending
[4] America's Top 300 Retail Web Sites
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
I'm back from all my journeys - Las Vegas last week and London this
week. I did not have an opportunity to do much shopping, so I can't give
too much of a retail experience. And I did encounter a mail issue, so
couldn't send mail while in London (except for last day on another
network). Apparently POP3 mail is blocked in many places.
In London the big item is 3G for wireless. I was with the Chief Auditor at
France Telecom who said their company just spent 9 billion Euro for the
airwave rights to 3G, and they won't see a return on investment for at
least 15 years! The rights are being sold by governments in individual
countries in a bidding process. Theoretically 3G works in every country of
the world. My London colleagues were in Sydney last month and it worked
there. Could be interesting.
Today we have some National Mail Order Association news from John
Schulte. The NMOA is a great organization with lot's of excellent
resources. I met John face-to-face when I was in Minneapolis last year. He
does a great job with NMOA.
Jan Owens has posted information on new trends in spending and America's
Top 300 Retail Web Sites, which I found very interesting. I was surprised
to see some of the retailers on that list and more surprised to see how
they ranked.
Tell us about your business which will remain for posterity at
our "Members: Who Are You?"
site. http://etailersdigest.com/resources/members/index.htm And we have a
form there for you to tell us about you. As I said when I first proposed
this idea, we have "known" each other for a long time, yet we often don't
know anything about each other. So, tell us who you are and what you do.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] News from NMOA
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Here is some news from the National Mail Order Association.
We have recently completed five specialty market advertising guides. These
guides give you access to the best, and least known, magazine and newspaper
advertising vehicles for each market.
The specialty markets include:
-- The Bridal Market
-- The Christian Market
-- The Hispanic Market
-- The Parenting Market
-- The Women's Market
If you need to reach these type of people, our exclusive advertising guides
can not be beat.
Full details and marketplace outline for these publications are available
at the NMOA bookstore: www.nmoa.org/catalog
--
Best regards,
John Schulte
President and Chairman
National Mail Order Association (NMOA)
http://www.nmoa.org
Email: schulte at nmoa.org
Tel: 612-788-1673
http://www.nmoa.org/schulte
Direct Marketing Events at: http://www.DMEvents.org
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[3] The New Trend in Spending
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Along with Pam Danziger's excellent work, Virginia Postrel also writes
about the importance of experiences in customer purchases. However, as
with a project I am working on, tangible goods tend to have higher levels
of importance when incomes are relatively low, compared to households with
higher-level incomes, when material needs are largely met. However, at any
income bracket, marketers lose track of aesthetics at their peril, whether
for tangible goods or experiences.
Regards,
Jan Owens
U of Wisconsin - Parkside
The New Trend in Spending
Virginia Postrel wrote in the NY Times....
As incomes go up, Americans spend a greater proportion on intangibles and
relatively less on goods. One result is more new jobs in hotels, health
clubs and hospitals, and fewer in factories.
In 1959, Americans spent about 40 percent of their incomes on services,
compared with 58 percent in 2000. That figure understates the trend,
because in many cases goods and services come bundled together.
Consider food, classified by the government's spending survey as a
"nondurable good."
In 1959, consumers spent 25 percent of their income on food, compared with
14 percent in 2000. Today food spending looks much smaller if you exclude
restaurant meals. Meals at home took 19 percent of income in 1959, compared
with only 8 percent in 2000.
Another way to look at the same trend: In 2000, we spent 41 cents of each
food dollar on restaurant meals, up from only 29 cents as recently as 1987.
Restaurant meals have changed, too. More and more of their value comes not
from the nutrition and dishwashing services - function - but from the
experience the restaurant provides. We don't go out to eat just to avoid
cooking. We go to enjoy different cuisines in pleasant environments.
For successful restaurants, aesthetics is no longer an afterthought.
Customers are paying for memories, not just fuel.
What's true for restaurants is true across the economy. New economic value
increasingly comes from experiences.
Americans have not stopped buying stuff, of course. But the marginal value
of tangibles versus intangibles has shifted. That many manufactured goods
are also getting cheaper only intensifies the trend.
Products as well as services increasingly distinguish themselves through
aesthetics, adding emotional value to practical use. This trend confounds
those who equate "quality" with function.
In fact, the trend toward emotional value is exactly what psychological
research would predict. Particularly as incomes rise, people find that
additional experiences give them more pleasure than additional possessions.
As an economist would put it, this research found diminishing marginal
utility - less enjoyment from an additional purchase - from new
possessions, compared with experiences like travel and restaurant meals.
"The good life," the authors wrote, "may be better lived by doing things
than by having things."
In the popular imagination and the political debate, making things is
"real" work. Providing experiences is not. Analysts assume that working in
a factory is a good job and working in a hotel is not.
This perception is not just a question of relative wages. Even at the top,
it's more prestigious to create stuff than experiences.
Virginia Postrel (www.dynamist.com) is the author of "The Substance of
Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture and
Consciousness," just published in paperback by Perennial.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/09/business/09scene.html?ex=1095761299&ei=1&en=c058a531a35f1e1a
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[4] America's Top 300 Retail Web Sites
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Here's a list of the 300 largest Internet retailers which e-tailers might
find interesting.
Jan Owens
U of Wisconsin - Parkside
According to exclusive research contained in the recently published
Internet Retailer Top 300 Guide, retail chains account for 41% of online
sales posted by the 300 largest retail web sites, web-only merchants
account for 24%, catalogers 15% and sites owned by consumer branded
manufacturers account for a surprising 20%. Who are America's top 300
e-merchants and how do they rank in annual sales volume?
If this merely whets your appetite for information on the leading
e-retailers in America, our new Top 300 Guide will completely satisfy it.
Just published by Internet Retailer, the Top 300 Guide is the first
publication ranking the 300 largest retail web sites, with the following
details on each one:
Their annual retail web sales.
How they rank based on sales.
Their conversion rates.
Their web traffic.
The number of SKUs on their sites.
The vendors they use.
Their key contacts.
Their corporate ownership and address.
This research will cost you, of course.
http://www.internetretailer.com/uploads/Top300Ranks.htm
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