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Paul Connors, the acting general consul with the Consulate General in Minneapolis, discussed the economic, energy and trade connections between Minnesota and Canada at December's Legislative Breakfast event.
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Mobile
Mobile Played Major Role In Thanksgiving Week Sales
From Media Post, Ray Schultz, November 27, 2017
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Email and ad engagement rates leaped in the week before Black Friday -- contributing to a 23% hike in sales on Thursday and Friday, compared with the prior year, according to a study released on Monday by Rakuten Marketing.
Sales grew by 21% during the three-day period from Wednesday to Black Friday, and there was 11% growth in purchases. Click-through rates rose by 154% and ad engagement rates by 111 %.
Black Friday's average order value jumped by 9%. The peak purchase time occurred at 2 p.m. on Black Friday. Thanksgiving Day purchases grew by 35%, and revenue grew by 28%.
In addition, Rakuten found that:
Thanksgiving Day revenue rose by 28%, and purchases by 35%.
Mobile revenue grew by 45%, purchases by 34% and average order value by 7% during Sunday to Friday of Thanksgiving week.
Forty-six percent of all page views occurred on a mobile device during the week.
There was a 17% increase in purchases in the two weeks prior to Thanksgiving Week -- "in line with forecasts of an early peak shopping period this year," Rakuten says."
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State Minimum Wage
Minne
sota's Statewide Minimum Wage Increases With Inflator Adjustment January 1, 2018
Minnesota's minimum-wage rates will be adjusted for inflation beginning January 1, 2018, to $9.65 an hour for large employers and $7.87 an hour for other state minimum wages.
| Provision |
Current Minimum Wage
(Until 12/31/2017) |
2018 Minimum Wage
(Effective 1/1/2018) |
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Large Employer - annual gross revenue of more than $500,000
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$9.50/hour |
$9.65/hour |
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Small Employer - annual gross revenue of under $500.000
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$7.75/hour |
$7.87/hour |
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90-day training wage - under 20 years of age
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$7.75/hour |
$7.87/hour |
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Youth wage - under 18 years of age
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$7.75/hour |
$7.87/hour |
Source: Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry
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Holiday Update
Online Holiday Spend Could Break $100 Billion
From the Retail Dive, Daphne Howland, December 8, 2017
"Online holiday shopping has garnered retailers $65.14 billion so far (Nov. 1-Dec.5), a 14.7% increase over last year, with each of those days seeing more than $1 billion a day in revenue, according to Adobe Digital Insights, using Adobe Analytics data. Mobile is contributing a lot: Nearly half (48.8%) of visits are coming from smartphones (40.3%) and tablets (8.5%), and nearly a third (32.4%) of revenue is coming from those two platforms (22.3% and 10.1% respectively).
Online conversion rates are also showing growth, with 4.5% on desktop (up 10.6% from least year), 2% on smartphones (up 12.3%), and 4.3% on tablets (up 9.3%), Adobe found. The average order value of $130 is slightly lower, though, with a 0.6% decline.
But retailers could have raked in even more online sales, if not for technical and performance issues on many sites. Based on data from some 10,000 visits over the Black Friday weekend to more than 120 major online retail brands, performance monitoring platform Shoppimon estimates that retailers lost an average 13% of online sales to speed and other tech issues - amounting to as much as $1.88 billion in the three shopping days, or $900 million on Cyber Monday alone.
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Understanding the Customer
Mystery Shoppers Can Give Retailers Better Insight In To Service
From the Star Tribune, Mike Porter, December 2, 2017
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Q: Minnesota retailers are focused on delivering great customer service, but don't always find the feedback from customer surveys actionable. Can you suggest other options? - Bruce Nustad, president, Minnesota Retailers Association
A: Customer surveys tend to be focused on an individual experience, which may not reflect the entire service process.
One avenue that retailers of all sizes can use with success involves gathering data on the entire customer service experience by using "mystery shoppers." Many market research firms offer this service, where individuals are paid to shop at the store and record specific aspects of the experience.
While some organizations use this to assess specific skills or actions of individual employees, from a marketing standpoint, this tool can be much more valuable to the organization by finding gaps between the experience that management expects to be delivered overall and what actually happens.
Mystery shoppers are used in every retail environment, from restaurants and convenience stores to high-end fashion retailers and car dealers. The key to success stems from knowing the right elements for the shopper to assess, based on what you know or believe customers expect. This may include specifics such as whether the service person greeted the shopper or exact wait time in line, but also more qualitative things such as store cleanliness and the helpfulness or friendliness of staff.
When choosing a firm to help deploy mystery shopping, you want to engage a firm that does more than simply send people out to experience the store. "Expect your research vendor to closely align the data being gathered to strategic indicators of your customer service success," advised Paul Ryan, president of Golden Valley-based Sights on Service. "In addition, your mystery shopping provider should offer resources to translate the findings into recommended changes to the consumer experience, and probably customer service training resources to close the loop."
This form of customer service evaluation should be part of an ongoing effort to improve or maintain your client experience, so it should be done once or twice a year, with several shoppers at each location."
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Trends
Import Numbers Show Retailers Restocking As Holiday Season Hits Final Days
From the National Retail Federation, December 8, 2017
"Imports at the nation's major retail container ports are expected to increase 1.5 percent this month over the same time last year, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. The year, which included five of the seven busiest months for imports on record, should end with a healthy 6.4 percent increase over 2016.
"Retailers are doing last-minute restocking as consumers head toward the finish line of the shopping season, but the majority of holiday merchandise is already in the country and ports are beginning to quiet down," NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said. "With tax cuts that will leave more money in shoppers' pockets in the headlines and consumer confidence high, all signs are that this has been a strong holiday season."
Gold added, however, that retailers' ability to provide consumers with quality products at affordable prices could be threatened if the United States pulls out of the North American Free Trade Agreement or engages in other anti-trade policy that fails to recognize the increased employment and other contributions imports make to the nation's economy.
"Despite constant threats from the administration regarding trade, especially free trade agreements, imports have been riding high," Gold said. "Concerns continue about what will happen in 2018 and beyond."
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Jobs
Retail Jobs Jumped Nearly 13,000 In November
From the National Retail Federation, December 8, 2017
"Retail industry employment increased by an unusually high 12,900 jobs in November over October, the National Retail Federation said today. The number excludes automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants. Overall, the economy added 228,000 jobs, the Labor Department said.
"This was one of the strongest gains we've seen all year," NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said. "You expect employment to be up during the holiday season and retailers are expecting strong holiday sales with related job growth, but overall growth in the economy has to be recognized here as well. We're also seeing new jobs in other sectors of the economy, particularly industrial, and that means more demand for retail goods and a need for more retail workers."
The November increase compares with a monthly loss of 10,300 jobs in October, although that figure came after a monthly increase of 10,600 jobs in September. The three-month moving average in November showed an increase of 4,400 jobs.
With the numbers from November now in, retailers' annual hiring of temporary holiday workers is on track to reach the high end of NRF's forecast of between 500,000 and 550,000 positions. NRF forecasts that this year's holiday sales will grow between 3.6 and 4 percent.
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Minnesota Retailers Associaiton
400 Robert Street North, suite 1540
St. Paul, MN 55101
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