What Can We Learn from a Haul Video?
"Haul" videos are all the rage on video sites like YouTube. Shoppers record video evidence of their latest shopping "haul" and describe the bargains or treasures that they scored on their shopping mission. But if you take a closer look at these videos as marketers, can you learn something about shoppers and their habits, needs and wants from them?To find out, let's take a closer look at this recent scrapbooking haul video posted to YouTube by user detdaty0129:
- Our haul shopper is pretty savvy. Not too many shoppers realize that some stores will take the competitor's coupons (something I am personally always forgetting about when I get my Joann's flyers in the mail).
- This shopper chose to use her coupon on an item [Scotch ATG adhesive applicator, $29.99 at Scrapbook.com] that I've been hearing a lot of buzz about, and was very excited about it. Adhesive isn't usually a "sexy" product, but this particular adhesive gun seems to have really excited consumers.
- The 70% off coupon was used to get a very practical item for a nominal price rather than seeing the discount as an opportunity to get a less usable luxury item at a massive savings. I'll admit - I have a few expensive "ghost tools" that sit around my scrap room collecting dust that I was swayed into buying by a massive discount.
- This coupon promotion by Jo-Ann Stores converted well into a sale - unfortunately it was a sale for their competitor! But it does show that coupons will bring out shoppers.
- Coupon promotions like this are designed to get shoppers into the store in the hopes that they will buy more than just the coupon item. Although it isn't mentioned in the video, a glance at the shopper's receipt shows that it contains multiple line items, which means the promotion was probably successful in that respect.
This concept of using big sales to buy basic essentials at affordable prices was one that we saw retailers reporting as a trend last holiday season, when it seemed shoppers were gravitating more than usual towards holiday sales on basic clothing items. Since it appears that sentiment has stuck with consumers, it will be interesting to see how it affects the upcoming holiday season for retailers.
Remember the tease on the Behind The Scenes blog to get your video cameras ready? Well, here's your first chance to use them on Scrapbook Update! Would you like your haul to be the featured in the next Scrapbook Update "haul" analysis? You can submit your own "haul" video to Scrapbook Update via our video submissions page after uploading it to YouTube or a similar service. We can't wait to see what our readers come up with!
