Oh Philadelphia, we know you love the whole “we boo Santa” image, but we must say that intentionally vomiting on an 11-year-old girl is a bit much, even for you. [More]
behavior
MasterCard Opens Online Store, Uses Predictive Software To Guess What You'll Buy
By 4.12.10
MasterCard has decided to expand into online retailing, so it’s opened a store that’s sort of Amazon lite. Well, Amazon several design iterations ago. Actually the site looks like one of those themed mini-stores eBay keeps promoting these days, but the merchandise is all new and tailored to your shopping patterns. And by “tailored,” I mean that the card issuer is using special customer behavior software to predict the things you’re most likely to buy, which it then shows to you. [More]
You Ignore Calorie Info For Yourself, But Not Your Kids
By 1.25.10
Parents apparently don’t do a great job choosing lower-calorie options for themselves when faced with calorie information on menu boards — but they do make low cal choices for their kids, says a new study. [More]
Shaw's Wants You To Shop More With Their Wheeled Baskets
By 9.29.08
Shaw’s has wised up to the trick of using a basket instead of a shopping cart to physically limit your grocery purchases, and they’ve come up with a creative workaround: convertible baskets that you can drag behind you on wheels when they become too heavy to carry.
Are We Nearing The End Of Credit Card Consumerism?
By 8.12.08
Is it possible? Can this country’s insatiable appetite for consumer goods be slowing down? No! Surely not! US News & World Report’s Alpha Consumer, Kimberly Palmer took a look at consumer demand and its relationship to cheap credit.
Southwest Will Give Refund To The Family That Was Too Unruly To Fly
By 7.8.08
Southwest Airlines said that they will be giving a refund to the family it considered too “threatening” to make their connection to Seattle. KPHO says Wendy Slaughter will receive a full refund for their six one-way tickets from Detroit to Seattle via Phoenix.
12 Ways To Save Money Without Scrimping
By 5.4.08
Some economists think we’re starting to pull out of our not-recession. For those of us who believe them and want to save without putting too firm a dent in our wallets, consider these twelve tips endorsed by the Wall Street Journal.
Why You're Not A Logical Consumer
By 4.1.08
CNNMoney has an interesting interview with behavioral economist, Dan Ariely. In the interview, Dan talks about how price comparison (which we take for granted as a “good” habit for consumers to engaging in) may not be very helpful after all. Ha!
U.S. News: It's Your Own Damn Fault You Can't Redeem Rebates
By 1.27.08
U.S. News & World Report hates our inability to redeem rebates. If we only tried harder, they say, we might be able to conquer our “tendency to procrastinate and inability to follow multistep directions.” Yes, that must be the problem.
Retailing Consortium Launches PRISM To Collect Data On Shoppers' Behavior
By 11.3.07
A consortium of retailers and consumer suppliers are working with Nielsen Co., famous for its nonsensical television ratings system, to launch a large-scale study of consumer behavior in stores. The program is called PRISM, which stands for “Pioneering Research for an In-Store Metric,” and it uses infrared sensors and manual counting, as well as genetic clones of our loved ones, to monitor not just what we buy but how we go about buying it. “About 70% of final purchase decision are made at the shelf,” says a Procter & Gamble rep. “The store has always been important – we just didn’t know enough about it.”
Apparently Marketers Still Have A Lot To Learn
By 9.6.07
Adweek reports that in a recent Nielsen study of shoppers’ in-store behavior, even the study authors were surprised to discover how little some marketers seem to know about what works and what doesn’t. First, they determined how we shop for specific product categories:
What You Bought in January and How It Hurt Millions
By 3.1.06
Yo, lured out to the stores by the warmest January in more than a century, you blithely spent at a rapid clip that outpaced your income.
