Tag: consumer behaviour

The term ‘customer engagement’ is arguably one of the biggest buzzwords in today’s business landscape. It's so widely used that when many people hear the phrase, they interpret it as a checkbox item. It is, however, an ongoing crucial relationship between a company and its customers, which is determined by the customer’s preferences and behaviour.

Higher education institutions have long been considered to be the repositories of knowledge and learning and the structures through which knowledge is produced and disseminated. They have survived sweeping societal changes created by technology – the moveable-type printing press, previous industrial revolutions, information and communication technologies, electronic media and computers.

Whilst listening to a recent presentation by Absa's equity analyst Samantha Naicker titled 'Navigating the Maze' on South African Food Producers, I stumbled on a theory dubbed 'The Lipstick Effect'.

Chief executives at leading grocery retailer and consumer goods companies see supply chain visibility and personalisation as key drivers of growth, according to a new joint research paper we released together with PwC. The report interviewed 16 leaders from the consumer goods industry and identified what they envisioned for the future.

Shopping has always been a social activity. Just two years ago, you would find people discussing the good and bad about their recent purchases over coffee. Today, e-commerce finds people shopping from the comfort of their home, and social commerce means they’re still shopping while being social on their preferred platforms such as Instagram Checkout or Facebook Shops.

The truth is we are not returning to normal as we knew it before COVID-19, and many South African consumers are grappling with a range of emotions as they consider what the future will look like. Early on in the pandemic, there was a belief that not much will happen to drastically affect consumer behaviour.

Consumer behaviour is ever-changing, but several changes we’ve recently seen have and will alter the way brands do business and approach advertising. For one, consumers now have very high expectations for brands, especially when it comes to social, environmental and political issues.

Brands in all sectors of the economy have come through COVID-19 with varying degrees of success. The liquor industry was of course hard hit, but through it we (as a brand) have learned a lot about consumer behaviour. In fact, the purchase-behaviour spinoffs we’ve seen as a direct result of COVID-19 restrictions have been very interesting.

Most people’s first association with voice recognition technology is Siri, Apple’s now-ubiquitous personal assistant. 10 years on though, the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning initiatives suggest that voice integration has a bright future ahead.

SpaceMatch, an online platform that allows landlords with available space to list their properties and prospective tenants to view and secure those spaces for rental, is shaking up the traditional retail rental market. The platform – www.spacematch.co.za – already has more than 200 spaces loaded, together offering an impressive 37,148m² of prime retail space.