News This Week: Shopping Habits of Frugalistas, Curated Content

Early online shopping. Flickr user Garethjmsaunders.

What should you be paying attention to this week?


39% of Americans have already started their holiday shopping, and some frugalistas are already done. Retailers discounted aggressively in October, and without any one toy or tech gadget rising to the top as this year's must have, there's no reason for shoppers to wait.

Your Takeaway: How are you helping holiday shoppers plan their shopping and get great deals? Help them get organized with gift lists and gift ideas by type of recipient. Click here more posts from this blog about holiday planning.

Macy's, Target and other major retailers now using editorial and curated content to drive sales. Macy's and Target both launched online magazine-type sites that include trending news, fashion guides, and user-generated content to help guide shoppers to the right looks.

Your Takeaway: You're probably not in a position to create something on the magnitude of what Macy's and Target are doing, but that doesn't mean you can't give your customers a little more guidance. Consider putting together outfits or other sets of product that go together, linking relevant posts from your blog to your product, and bringing up the prominence of customer generated content on your site. This doesn't just mean customer reviews - get customers to send you pics and videos of them using your products, and you may gain some marketing gold.

Consumers shop in stores but buy online, finds a new survey by electronics site Retrevo.com. The most typical behavior is for today's frugalista customers to find something in your store that they like, and then use their smartphones to compare other retailer's pricing and availability to yours.

Your takeaway: How will you measure up when customers do this? People don't always buy the least expensive thing, but you'll need to be competitive, on service and quality as well as price. Also, now is a good time to make sure your site is optimized for mobile and you're available on check-in sites like FourSquare. After all, people will be in your competitors' stores checking your prices, too.

Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading.