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As the Group stages of the World Cup prove to be nothing if not unpredictable, with many of Europe’s most highly acclaimed national teams suffering underwhelming results against previously underestimated opposition, the tournament’s impact on retailers has also delivered its fair share of surprises.

The expectancy for surging pre-tournament search interest in electricals and LCD TVs to turn into strong sales was largely realised by retailers DSGi, Comet and John Lewis; reporting increases of 140%, 73% [1] and 42% [2] respectively. For the Home Retail Group, however, Britain’s biggest retailer of TVs by volume, sales were down 10% YoY with Terry Duddy CEO of HRG lamenting the lack of the same “perfect storm” they had witnessed in sales of televisions and barbecues during the 2006 competition [3].

Industry analysts have posited that Argos may have suffered from reduced demand for entry-level priced models in favour of higher price and larger screen size variants. Certainly Insights for Search would give some credence to the idea, with breakout rising searches for “50 inch TVs”, “Sony Bravia40” and “3D tvs”

As the tournament enters the knock-out stages, the categories anticipated to experience the highest continued growth in search interest include sportswear and groceries. Certainly supermarket retailers have already acted fast to capitalise on these developing trends. ASDA undercut traditional sports retailers with their heavily discounted, “grey market” sourced England Shirts [4], currently the breakout rising search for the category in Insights for Search.

World cup beer promotions within the grocery sector also remain extremely popular. Hitwise recently reported that four out of five of their top performing brands in the Experian Hitwise World Cup Brands Index for w/e June 12th were beers [5] (and World Cup sponsors no less).

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the tournament period to date, and not an item that readily fits into any of the categories mentioned above, has been the unprecedented demand for vuvuzela horns. In their coverage of Sainsbury’s first quarter trading statement - which saw a staggering rise in online sales just shy of 20% - Internet Retailing cited some of their drivers for growth including clothing, dvds and the ubiquitous vuvuzela horns [6]. The Daily Mail also reported that in the 12 hours prior to the first England match 22,000 red vuvuzelas were sold by Sainsbury's - one every two seconds [7].

Insights for Search would seemingly confirm that the vuvuzela is not just an instrument of aural punishment. Interest is higher than other perennial World Cup stalwarts “England Shirts” and “Beer”. With related top searches and rising searches like “buy vuvuzela” and “buy vuvuzela uk” it would seem that search interest continues to be driven mainly by consumer demand, rather than those desperately looking for respite in their TV coverage.





Overall it’s been a positive story so far for online retail during the 2010 World Cup. If further confirmation were needed IMRG Capgemini figures reveal that total online sales were up 22 per cent in May compared to the same time last year – the highest growth since June 2008 [8]. Now all that remains to be seen is what happens when England inevitably crash out on penalties ... again ... or loose to Slovenia later today. Come on England!

[1] "Home Retail fails to Score TV sales growth from World Cup", Retail Week, June 18 2010
[2] John Lewis Partnership 18 June 2010
[3] "Argos falls flat as World Cup fever fails to lift TV sales", The Guardian, 10 June 2010
[4] "ASDA offers half-price England Shirts", This is Money, 20 May 2010
[5] "South African Airways and beer companies biggest beneficiaries of World Cup sponsorship so far" , Hitwise, June 15 2010
[6] "Sainsbury's hits record online orders" , Internet retailing, 18 June 2010
[7] "Peace at last? Quite possibly on the BBC, but not on your iPhone (thanks to the vuvuzela apps)", Daily Mail, 15 June 2010
[8] "World Cup provides boost to growth in online shopping", The Independent, 21 June 2010

Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

Many retailers have been asking us about the anticipated impact of the 2010 World Cup and what they should do online to capture the sales inertia created by the tournament.

Well in short, we believe that the typical sectors like Audio Visual, Groceries and Home Appliances (including BBQs, mini fridges etc) will be leading the charge (especially if the weather holds up!). However, thinking about what businesses should do to capitalise on this opportunity presents further questions. Namely, will there be a shift in search behaviour in the lead up to this year’s tournament?

Looking at the below extract from Insights for Search we can see that the top rising search terms during Oct’09 (what could be considered as a reasonable reflection of a consumer’s research period) are all fairly generic. They reflect how the British public like researching consumer electricals online while looking for a bargain with modifiers such as “sale” and “deals” being thrown into the mix.


(Google Insights for Search, October 2009)

In contrast, when we look at the top rising searches within the same category in the run-up to the 2006 tournament there is a marked difference in what people were searching for. The top six rising searches were all TV product codes:


(Google Insights for Search, May '06 - June '06)

This implies that just before the last World Cup consumers were clearer on what they wanted and a few front runners became the most searched TVs among Google users in the UK! For TV manufacturers, wouldn’t this be great news if it was your products? If you are a retailer how much would you want these purchases to come through your store?

Below we can see the top terms from March’06 – Apr’06. While there are a few “break out” searches for champion products such as the Panasonic Viera th42px60 (“The best Viera so far, and a superb use of plasma technology”[1), there are also many generic/research type keywords like “HDTVs”, and leading brands such as “Bravia” and “Samsung”. What is interesting to note is the lack of “cheap” or “deal” related search terms at this point.


(Insights for Search Mar '06 - Apr '06)

It is also interesting to look at when the major Home Video spike in interest occurred:


(Google insights for search May ’06 – June’06)

Category interest was highest on the last weekend of the month, presumably after everyone had been paid. While we are missing conversion data, we would be confident that sales would have followed a similar pattern (online and off). Against type there is a spike in interest on a Saturday and in our experience only key shopping events like Christmas - and of course England being in the World Cup! - influence the UK’s weekly search patterns like this.

While it is not that surprising to think that most people are likely to purchase a product once they have been paid, what is interesting is that it seems many will have already considered what products they want to buy.

… So what are the implications of these trends ahead of this year’s World Cup? If you are a manufacturer then make sure people know about your TVs asap. Display advertising could be one solution. If you are a retailer, advertising on all relevant keywords at the various stages of the purchasing funnel will help ensure that you influence consumers, so when they are ready to make that all important purchase they think of your goods!

[1] cnet UK, 7th April 2006

Posted by Alastair Stirling, UK Retail Team