Guest Blog: Analyze Your Customers’ Purchases to Find Shopping Trends
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Ed.'s Note: The following is a guest blog by Marcie Wiehagen of Chase Paymentech.
This year, you can track how holiday spending is trending.
Chase has launched the 2012 Chase Holiday Pulse, a comprehensive and near-real-time tracker of consumer shopping trends during the holiday season.
For the seventh consecutive year, Pulse will provide data tracking online sales volume, payment transactions, and average ticket value from 50 of its largest ecommerce retailers. For the first time, Pulse provides aggregated Chase card retail spending data at brick-and-mortar merchants. Together the data offers a comprehensive, one-of-a kind insight into both online and in-store holiday shopping habits.
Chase already has Black Friday Trends, which show that online sales are up 12.3 percent, while in-store cardholder sales are up 1.0 percent over 2011. What does this mean for the smaller retailer?
As we progress through the shopping season, the Chase Paymentech Pulse data continues to provide a view of retail and online volume as compared to prior years. Click the following link for the Mid-Season Graphic (.pdf).
Review your business holiday sales volume to gain shopping insight!
If your payment processor offers online reporting -- and they should -- use it! Online reporting provides quick access to transaction data, which allows you to identify any trends -- sales of particular merchandise and even potential fraudulent activity or improper operating procedures. If you notice anything suspicious, call your payment processor. They can help you analyze transactions, identify trends and offer corrective measures. If you see that merchandise is moving faster than expected, you can respond and plan accordingly.
Call for Assistance
Regardless of which company you use to process your credit and debit cards, you should be able to easily reach customer service to get more information as well as some of those reports mention above. If you don’t accept credit/debit cards or if you would like to see offers from Verizon Merchant Services, click here or call 1-800-600-8351.
What trends are you seeing with your business this season?
