Consumption smoothing refers to an individual’s preference to maintain a certain standard of living over time. All things constant this means an individual will use savings as a tool to compensate when incomes are low or save more when incomes are high thus “smoothing” their consumption patterns.
- Download the Arcus Retail Report for growth in a recession.
- Learn about Consumption Smoothing and Goods Substitution.
Retail Report on Growth Strategies
Consumption smoothing refers to an individual’s preference to maintain a certain standard of living over time. All things constant this means an individual will use savings as a tool to compensate when incomes are low or save more when incomes are high thus “smoothing” their consumption patterns. This doesn’t mean that spending doesn’t increase or decrease as incomes levels change, but rather that the peaks and valley’s will be less dramatic.
The Arcus study examines how customer attitudes affect specific retail categories. From home improvement to groceries and apparel to appliances, the Arcus Study helps marketers discover best practices to engage customers with specific tactics that are most likely to lead to specific shopping behaviours.
Concern about the economy is running high in the country today, but people are notorious for espousing pro-shopping attitudes and intentions that never translate into changes in shopping behaviour or purchasing patterns. The Arcus Retail Best Practices Study examines this disconnect and explores the impact of the current economic environment in the marketplace in context of retailers marketing challenges.
Client Success
The scope of work on this engagement included an attitude and usage study for a grocery retailer retailer. The market for frozen and dry foods has moved towards emerging ethnic cuisines linked to a premium for “rready to eat” foods, a move away from “ready to cook” and “cooking from scratch”. Three dynamic food segments were identified with extensive qualitative research.
Our Services
Visit the links below to find out more about a specific problem or opportunity you would like to address.
We serve clients in the following functional areas:
- Corporate Strategy – identifying opportunities and defining strategic direction for incremental growth through optimization of decision processes and best practices.
- Organization – maximize performance with optimization of people, processes and internal structures.
- Marketing and Research – determining specific strategies to manage brand portfolios brands, ensure marketing spend effectiveness, and strenthening marketing capabilities.
- Customer Engagement – deeper market research, consumer insight, optimization of internal sales- related processes, team performance, channels, and capabilities to identify and grow the most profitable customer base.
- Operations – ensure best practice performance in processes, functions and optimization.
Find out how your company can address its performance challenges. We invite you to learn more about us by exploring the links to the left. Need more information? Email us.