2013 Harris Poll EquiTrend Reports: Brick and Mortar Retail Brands Beat Out Their Online Counterparts

NEW YORK, May 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- As online retailing has become a force to be reckoned with in the retail industry, a close look at how brand equity varies for brick and mortar vs. online brands beckons. Measuring many online retail brands for the first time in the 2013 Harris Poll EquiTrend® Study shows that where EquiTrend measures the brick and mortar and E-retailer, or "E-tailer," sides of a single brand, the E-tailer side lags. The study, which assesses more than 1,500 brands across over 155 categories, specifically looks at key retail sectors including: e-retailers, hardware and home merchandisers and mass merchandisers.

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With the growing competition from Amazon.com across all sectors in which it competes, brands like Target, Best Buy, Walmart and others are looking to understand how to better compete against this ubiquitous retailer. Results from the 2013 study show that many retailers have a way to go; specifically, for most brands measured, the local store outperforms its online counterpart.  Retail brands with the largest gap between brand equity scores for their brick and mortar and their corresponding online brands include Target, Office Depot, Walgreens and Best Buy.  

"There are many reasons why a consumer would choose to visit a location-based retailer over their online counterpart, including convenience, selection and immediate needs," says Lisa Mulyk, Vice President at Harris Interactive. "Most of all, shoppers tend to want to interact with the physical merchandise prior to purchasing it, and the 2013 EquiTrend data shows us that while consumers are shopping online, their brand experience when doing so tends to be lower than their in-store experience."

On Target for the third year running

For the third year in a row, Target Stores are top ranked and, for 2013, earn the Mass Merchandiser Brand of the Year award. Target has been at the top of its category since pulling ahead of Walmart back in 2007.

"While both Target and Walmart are frequently shopped, Target has a strong position in Consumer Connection, which is comprised of four key predictive metrics: Emotion, Fit, Trust and Performance," explains Mulyk. "And, while Target has a strong score in the forward looking Brand Momentum metric, Walmart also performs well – showing that Target needs to keep their eye on their competition going forward." 

While Walmart follows behind Target among the brick and mortar mass merchandisers, it nevertheless outperforms the category average; what's more, Walmart.com beats out Target.com in the newly minted online retail category to become the 2013 Online Mass Merchandiser Brand of the Year.

Kohl's leads brick and mortar and online department store categories

In the second year of this award category, Kohl's once again earns the Department Store Brand of the Year title, with strong Quality and Purchase Consideration scores.  Macy's moves into the second spot for the first time, with their study-high Brand equity score driven by category-high Quality ratings and Purchase Consideration scores that continue to rise. After a significant decline in 2012, JCPenney's score remains flat year over year. 

"Macy's rise into second place pushes JCPenney into third," says Mulyk. "This is the first time against these competitors that JCPenney has not been ranked in the top or second spot." 

Mirroring the story among brick and mortar department stores, Kohl's is the top ranked Online Department Store; Macy's and JCPenney round out the brands above the category average. 

Staples is also top ranked in two categories

One of the few retail brands to be top ranked in both its respective brick and mortar and online categories is Staples. Both Staples and Staples.com take the top ranking in their office supply categories and are Brands of the Year. Office Depot also finishes above the category average among brick and mortar office supply retailers.

Click here for full retail sector results, including the following additional retail categories:

• 2013 Luxury Department Store Brand of the Year - Saks Department Store
  Other brands measured: Bloomingdale's Department Store, Lord & Taylor Department Store, Neiman Marcus Department Store, Nordstrom Department Store
• 2013 Off-Price Retailer Brand of the Year - Marshalls Stores
  Other brands measured - Burlington Coat Factory, Ross Stores, T.J.Maxx Stores
• 2013 Value Retailer Brand of the Year - Dollar Tree
  Other brands measured - Big Lots, Dollar General Store, Family Dollar Store, 99 Cents Only Store
• 2013 Warehouse Club Brand of the Year - Costco
  Other brands measured - BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc, Sam's Club
• 2013 Online Deal Brand of the Year - Woot.com
  Other brands measured - CouponCabin.com, CouponMom.com, Coupons.com, Ebates.com, Google Offers, Groupon, LivingSocial, RetailMeNot.com
• 2013 Hardware & Home Store Brand of the Year - The Home Depot
  Other brands measured - Ace Hardware, Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouses, Menard, True Value

Harris Poll EquiTrend® Methodology

A sample of 38,814 U.S. consumers ages 15 and over were surveyed online by Harris Interactive from January 11 through February 8, 2013 and the survey took an average of 35 minutes to complete. The sample was from the Harris Interactive online panel of respondents, a database consisting of over a million cooperative respondents who have double-opted in to be randomly invited by Harris Interactive to take part in online surveys. The total number of brands rated was 1,511. Each respondent was asked to rate a total of 40 randomly selected brands. Each brand received approximately 1,000 ratings. Data were weighted to be representative of the entire U.S. population of consumers ages 15 and over based on age by sex, education, race/ethnicity, region, income, and data from respondents ages 18 and over were also weighted for their propensity to be online. This is the same precision weighting approach Harris has used to become the leading online polling organization when calling elections.

The Brand Equity Index is the keystone to the EquiTrend program providing an understanding of a brand's overall strength. A brand's Equity is determined by a calculation of Familiarity, Quality and Purchase Consideration. Brand of the Year is determined by a simple ranking of brands.

An academic study concluded that the Harris Poll EquiTrend® Brand Equity model had predicative power on stock performance during the 2008 financial downturn. The results of the academic study findings appear in the September 2012 issue of the International Journal of Research in Marketing in the paper titled, "The Performance of Global Brands in the 2008 Financial Crisis: A Test of Two Brand Value Measures." The paper was authored by Johny K. Johansson, Claudiu V. Dimofte and Sanal K. Mazvancheryl.

The Harris Poll EquiTrend® study results disclosed in this release may not be used for advertising, marketing or promotional purposes without the prior written consent of Harris Interactive.

Product and brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

About Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive is one of the world's leading market research firms, leveraging research, technology, and business acumen to transform relevant insight into actionable foresight. Known widely for the Harris Poll® and for pioneering innovative research methodologies, Harris offers proprietary solutions in the areas of market and customer insight, corporate brand and reputation strategy, and marketing, advertising, public relations and communications research. Harris possesses expertise in a wide range of industries including health care, technology, public affairs, energy, telecommunications, financial services, insurance, media, retail, restaurant, and consumer package goods. Additionally, Harris has a portfolio of multi-client offerings that complement our custom solutions while maximizing our client's research investment. Serving clients in more than 196 countries and territories through our North American and European offices, Harris specializes in delivering research solutions that help us – and our clients – stay ahead of what's next. For more information, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com.

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SOURCE Harris Interactive