Ugam Releases 2017 Holiday Voice Shopping Analysis

NEW YORK, Dec. 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ugam, a global leader in data and analytics, today released its holiday season report, "2017 Holiday Retail Analysis: Voice Shopping." The report captures results from Ugam's testing of Amazon Echo and Google Home Mini voice devices. It also analyzes the deals retailers offered via voice during the holiday season kickoff.

The recent influx of voice devices has given retailers a new consumer touchpoint. Ugam's report examines the emergence of voice shopping and provides insights into the present and future. Here are some key findings:

• Voice shopping was not heavily leveraged. After heavily promoting its Alexa-enabled devices heading into the holiday season, Amazon featured very few gift promotions for sale by voice. On Cyber Monday, Amazon offered only one out of its 5000 holiday deals via voice.
• Alexa Deals were more competitive than Google Home. Google Home does not offer an equivalent to Amazon's 'Deal of the Day.' And when searching for Amazon Alexa Deals products on Google Home, it offered exact matches only 30 percent of the time. Google Home's prices on those products were higher.
• Walmart and Target were the top retailers on Google Home. Most of Amazon's top competitors entered the voice commerce market by making offers via Google Home. Of those, Walmart and Target featured the most matches for Amazon Alexa Deals.
• Best Buy was the most prepared for voice shopping. The retailer's deals through Alexa were discounted more deeply than Amazon's; the average price difference between Best Buy's Alexa Deals and BestBuy.com was 30 percent, compared to a 21 percent difference between Amazon Alexa and Amazon.com. Best Buy also offered more private label products by voice, as well as much more daily deal variety, while Amazon offered the same products throughout the period.
• Philips was one of the top brands. Despite electronics not being the top category in Amazon Alexa Deals, Philips topped the list of brands prominently featured by both Amazon and Best Buy via Alexa.
• Cyber Monday was the lowest price day for Amazon Alexa Deals.

"Voice shopping enabled by devices like Amazon Echo Dot and Google Home Mini is the newest consumer touchpoint this holiday season," said Mihir Kittur, co-founder and chief commercial officer at Ugam. "However, Ugam's analysis found that most retailers are still in the very early stages of leveraging this touchpoint. With the likelihood of over 25 million devices sold in 2017, voice is an area retailers and manufacturers will need to plan for and execute on."

Ugam commissioned respondents across seven regions in the U.S. to collect data from the Echo Dot (Alexa-enabled) and Google Home Mini twice a day during the period of November 16 – November 28, 2017. They collected the first six deals from Amazon and Best Buy on Echo Dot (Alexa-enabled) and compared the top six Amazon Alexa deals to each of the Google Home Mini's first product matches. This data was analyzed for the availability and price patterns of the deals by individual, region, time, channel, retailer, category and brand.

To download the full report, click here: http://www.ugamsolutions.com/resources/ebooks/2017-holiday-retail-analysis

About Ugam
Ugam is a global leader in data and analytics that helps retailers, brands and market research firms transform big data into valuable insights. The company's unique managed services offering combines a proprietary big data technology platform with deep domain knowledge and analytics expertise to empower clients to make decisions that improve their business. For retailers, online marketplaces and brands, Ugam supports better merchandising, marketing and channel management decisions through the use of analytics. For market research firms and insight-based consultancies, Ugam offers a portfolio of solutions, including end-to-end research operations, technology transitioning support, and data warehousing, visualization and reporting that enables them to better serve their clients. Five of the top 10 U.S. retailers, four of the leading Australian retailers, many of the world's largest brands and online marketplaces, and 13 of the top 25 market research firms work with Ugam because of its ability to deliver high-quality insights with unmatched customer experience. Visit us at ugamsolutions.com, follow us on Twitter @ugam, and visit our LinkedIn page.

Contact:
Xenia Alphonso
Ugam
[email protected]

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