Consumers may be emerging from the Great Recession a little more willing to spend these days, but they\u0092re still incredibly price-conscious and making smaller, more frequent purchases rather than loading up on costlier bulk goods.<\/p>\n
The bargain hunting is a boon to some retailers, such as deep-discount grocery stores, and a growing problem for others, like big-box department stores. That\u0092s according to a new 2010 “megatrends” study released on Tuesday from New York-based WSL Strategic Retail, a consultancy.<\/p>\n
Shoppers are “making more stops to more stores,” said the group\u0092s president, Candace Corlett, and doing far more of their shopping online -\u0096 a behavioral shift accelerated by the recession.<\/p>\n
Supermarkets such as Kroger or Wegman\u0092s and supercenters like Walmart are still the top two retail “channels” with 64% of Americans shopping there over the past three months. Department stores such as Macy\u0092s slipped to the No. 5 position, just behind dollar stores, which were patroned by some 20% of Americans.<\/p>\n
The clear winner in the survey, however, is online shopping, ranked #3 in the findings with nearly half of women \u0096- 47% — shopping online in the last quarter and 24% shopping online each week, up from 10% who did so in 2008. The internet “has become the go-to channel to find the lowest prices and coupons,” according to WSL. Growth in online shopping, dollar stores and “deep-discount” grocery like Sav-a-Lot threaten to diminish the popularity of supercenters like Walmart, said WSL chief executive Wendy Liebmann in the release.<\/p>\n
Women are shopping “for ingredients to prepare food\u0085and avoiding the mass merchandiser where they can be tempted to overspend on the wide array” of products, the survey notes.<\/p>\n
Almost 70% of Walmart\u0092s “core shoppers,” those with household incomes under $40,000, visited dollar stores in the last three months and a quarter of shoppers are now at such stores each week, WSL says.<\/p>\n
In addition, it\u0092s not clear the online shopping offered by retailers like Walmart, Target