When Should You Shop, As Told By Data

Today, we take a break from fiscal advice and talk with Mike Catania (@chompy), our Chief Technology Officer, to look at shopping trends. A few days ago, Sarah Spagnolo, a writer at Foursquare, released a data-driven look at the best times to physically shop so we recruited Mike to see how our the data compared to ours for online shopping.

When You Should Shop: When There Are The Most Offers

Catania: One of the things that immediately struck me is the similarity between the Foursquare analysis and our own, is the correlation between when there are the most offers compared to when people are shopping. The plurality of offers falls on Monday, Friday, and Sunday. Foursquare shows the best shopping dates as Monday, Friday, and Thursday (with Sunday next). It's reasonable to conclude that stores are offering more deals on lighter traffic days.

When Do New Offers Come Out?

Catania: In the wake of the Foursquare article, there was additional coverage that chose not to employ a data-driven model nor offer any methodology on a lot of coupon-related stats, so we wanted to provide some clarity based on hard numbers. It's evident from the chart below, based on a sample of 300,000 offers, that the most common days for publication are Tuesday through Friday; the exact opposite of other recent citations.

When Do Offers Expire?

Catania: A tried-and-true retailing tactic is to convey a sense of urgency, but the reality is that the vast, vast majority of coupons last for a week or more. The majority of them, lead by grocery coupons, expire on Sundays at midnight. This trend suggests that Sundays are the best time to check for coupons while they're still valid--and with Westworld done for the season, you'll have more time to do so.

Methodology Notes: These charts were compiled using hundreds of thousands of merchant-provided codes submitted between 2012 - 2016 to ensure accuracy that wouldn't be guaranteed if community-submitted promotions had been included. Please note X-Axis breaks in the top two charts. Post-breaks have been slightly modified visually to highlight subtle differences.

We will continue with a data-driven Holiday Wrap release on December 28th, 2016 once the final tabulations are complete.