Introduction

Verdict Research: Where Britain Shops Department Stores 2011 provides a comprehensive analysis of the shopping habits of British consumers. It presents a detailed examination of customer profiles, demographics and socio-economic trends. It explores consumer shopping habits at sector and retailer level, while historical data is also provided so trends can be analysed over a five year period

Features and benefits

• With the economic climate remaining weak and competition strong between department stores, this report enables you to understand customer motivations
• Through being informed of the opinions of your customers, understand which aspects of your retail proposition most need improving
• Use this report to identify which consumers are less likely to shop with you and adapt your offer to improve your appeal with these shoppers

Highlights

The percentage of UK shoppers using department stores has fallen back for a second year, with low consumer confidence and tightened budgets leading to a decline in footfall. However, remodelled price architectures and improvements to the shopping experience have helped to justify price points, preventing shopper numbers from sinking further

Debenhams, House of Fraser, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer have broadened their price architectures to include good-better-best product offers across most sectors, allowing C1C2 consumers to shop more ranges as they can now trade up or down. This has lead to a rise in department store shoppers in the C1 and C2 socioeconomic segments

The impacts of the economic downturn and poor housing market have finally taken their toll on homewares shopper share. After rising the year before, it fell 0.4 percentage points to 29.8%, demonstrating how the sluggish housing market and the threat of public sector cuts have impacted consumer desire to spend on discretionary homewares items

Your key questions answered

• Who is our core customer base, and which demographics do we need to target to help drive footfall?
• Which product sectors are favoured by consumers at our competitors and what are their weaker sectors?