Market research news
The blog of the market research agency IntoTheminds lists opinionated articles, examples of alignment with marketing theory, highlights and bad buzz, carefully selected by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, his team and influential experts.
Cambridge Analytica scandal: it’s the user stupid !
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The Cambridge Analytica scandal is one of a one-of-a-kind size. It attracted the attention of many and resembles a wake-up call. Yet also triggers some very hypocritical reactions from people who "seem" to discover that Facebook collects an awful lot…
Flying Tiger: here’s how a unique customer experience is created
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
If you are looking for the quintessence of customer experience, look no further. This store counts only on its customer experience to drive its sales : it's called "Flying Tiger Copenhagen". And believe it or not I visited one store…
The food industry: why 80% of new products fail
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
This article draws on 20 years of observation of the food industry. And identifies the 4 main reasons why 80% of products launched in the food industry fail.
Sonos flagship store offers a unique customer experience
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Sonos is a high-end brand of audio equipment for the home. The Sonos flagship store in New-York is a model of outstanding retail customer experience. Follow us for an inspirational tour of this retail space located at the heart of…
GDPR : these 2 examples prove that US companies are not ready
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
I gave a keynote speech in February in New-York about the need for US companies to adapt to GDPR. I my discussions with companies over the last 12 months I indeed found out that most companies hadn't prepared sufficiently (or…
GDPR: what is consent and why it will impact customer satisfaction
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
I had a recent experience where one firm didn't ask my consent and tried to nudge me into doing something that I was firmly opposed to. In today's article I'd like to highlight the conditions for a valid consent. GDPR…
Louis Vuitton’s latest popup store in New-York open until 10 March 18
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Vuitton opened a popup store on Greene Street, New-York, on 8 February 2018 to sell a limited collected of sneakers. The popup store, which will remain open until 10 March 2018, is located at the corner of Greene street and…
Retail: here’s how you can make it easy for people to buy more
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
How do you make sure your products are visible among a larger assortment and immediately attract shoppers' attention ? By using visual salience. Summary Highlighting products in supermarket shelves Help the shopper's brain make decisions What can be done to…
Market analysis: what’s the future of supermarkets ?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
How will supermarkets look like in 10 year from now ? Will employees be replaced by robots or won't there just be any employees left ? While points of sales are more and more resembling an extension of online businesses…
Retail : here’s how Lego ensures customers buy more
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Supermarkets used to earn a lot of mony just before checkout. All the gums, sweets, ... were there to tempt customers and add fat money to the bottom line. With the advent of smartphones retailers were surprized to see their…
Everything will be purchased online: only those offline businesses will survive
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
What will remain of brick-and-mortar stores in 20 years from now ? Not much. Consumers will adopt online behaviors and will visit physical points of sale on very few occasions : when forced to to enjoy a very special customer…
Market research : how do sales of electric vehicles in Europe look like?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) released recently an interactive maps that presents the state of the market for electric vehicles in the European Union. The figures presented refer to Electric-Chargeable Vehicles (ECV's) sold in Europe in 2016. The numbers remain…
A qualitative market research of the Hollister & Co. brand perceptions
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
How do you explore customers' perceptions about a brand ? Which methodologies should you use to elicitate brand images ? A recent research published in the Journal of Retailing explores consumers' perception of Hollister and Co. and uses for this…
The next hand-written you’ll get may have been produced by those robots
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Is there anything better for customer satisfaction than getting a personal hand-written note? The pleasure of getting one will soon fade away once the secret to thousands of mass produced hand-written notes gets revealed. Why do personal hand-written notes so…
Dynamic pricing in retail : can smart shelves lead to discrimination?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
We presented in another article a great innovation presented at the NRF2018 retail show this year : smart shelves. Those smart shelves are especially interesting because of their built-in cameras to detect customers' faces and interact accordingly with them. As…
Uber wants your data to support its own (ghost) kitchen business
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
This is one of the most interesting articles I've read in a past few weeks. Nick Abouzeid's article on Medium is a excellent, well researched article that sheds light on trends in the shared economy business that are yet unknown in…
Social networks destroy society: what should be done?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Social networks are being accused by their own creators to destroy society and to tear human beings apart (read the interview of Chamath Palihapitya who is a former Facebook VP). At the same time movements like Time Well Spent emerged to…
Online market research reveals the #1 factor to reduce showrooming
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Showrooming is a massive problem for brick-and-mortar retailers. Customers visit stores but eventually make their purchases online. Operating a brick-and-mortar point of sale becomes more and more difficult. A scientific research reveals the #1 thing retailers should do to avoid…
The history of media resistance : from printing to social media through TV and radio
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Throughout history people have shown remarkable resistance to new forms of media, be it books, cinema, radio, TV or Internet. Today social media addiction leads to a new form of resistance. A new book by Trine Syvertsen sums up remarkably…
The 3 benefits of the new “Tap To Go” Ahold no-checkout supermarket
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Since Amazon has launched its no-checkout Amazon Go store (see our article here), other retailers are keen on experimenting the same type of innovation. Ahold Delhaize is currently testing its "tap to go" system in a "Albert Heijn To Go"…
Zalando free-returns policy drives customer loyalty up
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Online retailer Zalando has announced revenues of €4.5b in 2017, up 23% from the year before. Despite a slight decrease of its Ebit (from 5.9% to 4.7%-4.9%), profits before taxes will be over €200m. This is a very solid result…
Retail innovation: smart shelves enable dynamic pricing
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The biggest retail show on earth just opened its doors in New York. The NRF 2018 is the ideal place to observe market trends in the retail sector (professional shows in general are very good places to start market research:…
Market research combines Big Data and qualitative techniques .. 120 years ago
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Visualizing data has become a standard task and one essential component of data science today. But, haven't we forgotten how lucky we are to have all that data available and to be able to use it for various purposes ?…
If you are addicted to your social media, it’s because you suffer of FOMO
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
A recent research (Blackwell et al. 2017) has investigated the antecedents of social media addiction. In other words, what makes us look at Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter dozens of times every single day. Five variables were tested : age, extraversion, neuroticism,…
