Christmas spending, accessibility, retail data: 5 interesting stats to start your week

UK households predicted to have £3bn less to spend this Christmas

UK consumers are predicted to be £3bn worse off this Christmas compared with last year, according to research from ShipEngine and Retail Economics, as the cost of living crisis continues to impact people’s spending power.

UK consumers are expected to start their Christmas shopping earlier to help spread the cost and are expected to spend £17.9bn online specifically in search of lower prices.

More people will be cutting back on non-food items this festive season, with 79% of UK consumers surveyed saying they will be limiting spend in this area – a 9% increase on last year.

Just over a third (34%) attributed this to inflation, while 22% said a lack of savings is their biggest worry this season.

However, consumers’ responses are at odds with retailers, who remain optimistic. Almost two-thirds of online merchants surveyed say sales volumes will broadly align with 2022, while 24% expect volumes to rise.

Source: ShipEngine/Retail Economics

Accessibility issues causing consumers to discard online orders

Retailers that do not prioritise accessibility risk missing out, according to a survey of UK consumers which finds 55% have discarded a purchase because of accessibility issues.

Almost half of UK consumers think retailers should employ more people with disabilities to work on their ecommerce websites, according to a nationally representative survey of more than 2,000 UK consumers.

Just over half (51%) say retailers should be working with disabled people when testing their ecommerce websites, with 17% of those surveyed saying they are confused about how to pay, while 16% have trouble with fonts and colours.

Over a tenth (12%) say a lack of personalisation from retailers online is another issue.

Meanwhile, more than a third (37%) welcome the introduction of a universal, legal and government-mandated accessibility standard to online retailers to ensure inclusivity.

Source: Quickfire Digital

Two in five podcast listeners find ads intrusive and skip them entirely

Nearly half (42%) of podcast listeners are increasingly skipping ads and finding them intrusive, according to research from polling firm YouGov. This is up from 36% who said they were intrusive and skipped them in 2019.

A further one in five also say ads are intrusive, but listen to them anyway (18%). Meanwhile, 14% do not find them intrusive – but don’t find them interesting either.

Spotify came out top as the most popular podcast provider (40%), followed by BBC Sounds (26%) and Apple Podcasts (23%). In terms of genre, comedy is the most popular (36%), followed by sport (24%), music (22%), news and politics (22%) and TV and film (21%).

Podcast listeners skew younger, says YouGov: 44% are aged 18 to 34, 38% 35 to 54 and 17% are over 55.  Plus, podcast listeners are less likely to be parents or guardians (50% versus a national average of 40%) and less likely to be married (38% versus 43%).

Source: YouGov

Black culture is being portrayed better in ads than 10 years ago

More than three-quarters of black British people (77%) say black culture is being portrayed better in ad campaigns than a decade ago, according to research from the University of Cambridge, The Voice Newspaper and I-Cubed Consultancy, alongside support from M&C Saatchi London.

Digging into this stat, more than half (55%) say black culture is portrayed somewhat better in ads, while 22% say depictions are much better.

Around a tenth (13%) say portrayals are about the same, while 6% say they are somewhat worse. Just 2% say ads are much worse for their portrayals of black culture.

The majority (74%) of those surveyed dislike the term BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) with a common response in interviews being “I’m not BAME, I’m black.”

The study also looked at the role of race in education, with 80% believing racial discrimination is the biggest barrier to academic achievement, and just 8% have trust in the education system.

The vast majority of respondents (95%) believe black people are not sufficiently represented in history lessons in the national curriculum.

Source: University of Cambridge/The Voice Newspaper/I-Cubed Consultancy/M&C Saatchi London

Most marketers plan to increase or maintain use of retail data

Three-quarters (76%) of marketers plan to increase or maintain their investment in retail data in the coming years.

Currently, 79% are using retail data, while 87% suggest their business plans to use retail data in the next two years.

However, at present just 13% of digital marketing budgets are allocated to retail data.

Those currently using retail data use it to drive sales (53%), increase awareness of a brand or product (50%), and measure across channels to help determine the success of marketing campaigns (50%).

Those planning to increase investment in retail data plan to use it to improve digital stateggies (67%), for ecommerce (63%) and shopper marketing (44%).

Source: The Trade Desk