Market Research to Share: August 2008 Archives

Restaurant Performance Index Declined in June as Same-Store Sales and Customer Traffic Slipped

By
Elvan Teo
on August 22, 2008 3:01 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
Restaurant performance index.jpg

Restaurant industry performance softened in June, as the National Restaurant Association's comprehensive index of restaurant activity posted a modest decline. The Association's Restaurant Performance Index (RPI) - a monthly composite index that tracks the health of and outlook for the U.S. restaurant industry - stood at 98.3 in June, down 0.3 percent from May and the lowest level in three months.

"The June decline in the Restaurant Performance Index was the result of a drop in the current situation component," said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research and information services for the Association. "Restaurant operators reported negative same-store sales and customer traffic levels in June, after posting somewhat stronger results in May."



Continue reading Restaurant Performance Index Declined in June as Same-Store Sales and Customer Traffic Slipped.

Stanford Business School Research Examines: Do Samples Whet or Dampen Consumer Appetites?

By
Elvan Teo
on August 22, 2008 2:46 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Food sampling.jpg

Every grocery store knows that a hungry shopper is likely to buy more. On the other side are product marketers who would love to stuff customers with samples of specific items to obtain converts to their brands. Retailers worry: Could food and product sampling sate hunger-and with it, the desire to fill the grocery basket? As reported in today's Stanford Knowledgebase, Baba Shiv, professor of marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, has found evidence that product sampling in fact can do what a good French appetizer is intended to do: whet the appetite for more-even in someone who was not hungry to begin with. Not only can sampling stimulate the desire for more of the same product-cheese, soda, or what have you-but it can also spark an overall desire for anything pleasurable, be it other foodstuffs or even seemingly unrelated things, such as exotic vacations and spa experiences. Such a phenomenon is likely, then, to stimulate buying.



Continue reading Stanford Business School Research Examines: Do Samples Whet or Dampen Consumer Appetites?.
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