Programmatic costs, retail footfall, new car sales: 5 interesting stats to start your week

15% of programmatic supply chain costs ‘unattributable’

Half of the money brands spend on online publishers is lost in the programmatic advertising supply chain and 15% cannot be attributed at all.

The data comes from studying the supply chains of 15 brands – including Tesco, BT, Unilever and British Airways – eight agencies, five demand side platforms (DSPs), six supply side platforms (SSPs) and 12 publishers, representing approximately £100m in UK programmatic media spend in total.

The report found that publishers receive approximately half of advertiser spend. Of that 51%, the study could attribute 34% to suppliers including the agency, DSP, technology providers and SSP.

That left 15% in unattributable spend, or the ‘unknown delta’, equal to around a third of supply chain costs.

Source: ISBA/PwC

Retail footfall declines by ‘unprecedented’ 80%

Retail footfall declined by an “unprecedented magnitude” of 80.1% in April

Retail parks fared best with footfall down 68.1% due to the presence of essential food stores, while high street footfall declined by 83.3% and shopping centres by 84.8%.

Despite lockdown restrictions, footfall strengthened slightly in the second half of the month, moving from an average decline of 81.4% in the first two weeks of April to 77.4% in weeks three and four.

Footfall shifted away from large towns and cities to smaller more local centres. The 20 high streets with the most modest drops in footfall in April (each less than 60%) are all small centres. In contrast the 20 high streets with the greatest drops in footfall, which average 89.7%, comprise major city centres and large towns.

Source: Springboard

People making purchases to improve their lives while in lockdown

A large proportion of the purchases people are making during lockdown are ‘non-essential’ as people look for ways to improve their lives.

While 56% are still shopping out of necessity, people are also buying for a number of other reasons. A third (34%) are purchasing to make life easier, 30% to entertain, 27% as a reward for themselves and 20% out of boredom.

Almost a third (32%) say they take longer to look up and consider a product or service before buying. Lockdown has also made other factors more important, with 42% citing ease of purchase, 41% availability, 19% company reputation and 19% speed of delivery.

People are also more inclined to make purchases as lockdown continues. Some 21% are now buying clothes, compared to 13% when lockdown began, while 18% are buying DIY items versus 11% and 15% are buying gardening equipment versus 12%.

Source: Bauer Media

UK consumer confidence remains ‘severely depressed’

UK consumer confidence has increased by one point over the past two weeks, however consumer sentiment remains “severely depressed”.

Overall confidence in the economy was at -33 between 20 and 26 April.

Consumers’ feelings about their personal financial situation over the last 12 months remained stable at -4, while the score for personal financial situation over the next 12 months increased three points to -11.

Feelings about the general economic situation over the last 12 months decreased four points to -48, while feelings about the general economic situation over the next 12 months increased three points to -53.

The major purchase index increased three points to -49, while the savings index increased nine points to 14.

Source: GfK

New car sales slump to a record low

UK new car registrations declined by 97.3% in April, a record low for the industry as the lockdown forced showrooms to close and potential car buyers to stay at home.

Just 4,321 new cars were registered in the month, almost 157,000 fewer than in April 2019. The majority of those went to key workers and front line public services and companies.

Fleet orders represented the bulk of the market, taking 71.5% market share with 3,090 registrations. Private buyers registered just 871 cars, down 98.7% year on year.

The decline has led to a downgrade of the new car market forecast for 2020. There are now expected to be just 1.68 million registrations, down 27% year on year and the worse performance since 1992.

Source: SMMT