After Black Friday, the back to school shopping season is the most potentially profitable for retailers. Most have already made their plans and are putting the final touches on strategies and tactics. If you are a retailer, you had best be ready to go with all of your online marketing already in place. If not, you just may get left behind as the back to school shopping season begins to morph into a whole new animal.
- Recent marketing research released by Google suggests that shoppers are going to spend more time researching and waiting until almost the proverbial last minute to buy. The research suggests further that today’s back to school shopper will shop an average of just three retail outlets and the season will last just two short weeks. Over 80% of the shopping will be done during that two week window.
- Mobile, again, will be a leading player during the season. It is projected that over half of the research and shopping done online will be done on mobile devices. The younger Millennials, ages 18-24, are actually using YouTube to determine what will be in vogue for the coming fall season.
- One final new innovation that has been devised by Google, and adopted my many of the major retailer’s, is a “buy” button that is actually located on the ads that come up in the search results for mobile devices. When a shopper searches for a particular product, the search results will show the “buy” button which will enable the shopper to be sent to a landing page where they can actually purchase the product right then and there.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
