Q4 2011 Merchant Confidence Survey -- Full Results

Several folks have asked for the full analysis from the Q4 Merchant Confidence Index survey, so here ya go!  This presentation is chock-full of stats pertaining to small business owners' thoughts about our economy, the future of small business hiring and trends in the adoption of new marketing channels like daily deals, pay-per-lead and mobile advertising.



Enjoy!



Sincerely,

The MerchantCircle Team

MerchantCircle Q4 2011 Merchant Confidence Index

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MerchantCircle Confidence Index (MCI) Survey Results - Q1 2010

Below are the results of our second quarterly Merchant Confidence Index (MCI) survey, designed to track trends in local business sentiment over time. This survey was presented to a random sample of MerchantCircle members between February 9th and February 16th, 2010. 11,013 completed responses came in during this period and there were no incentives offered to complete the survey. 

Read the full Merchant Confidence Index press release.

State of the U.S. Economy: a mixed bag

• 27.8% of local merchants surveyed said today's economy is "somewhat" or "significantly" improved


• 30.7% of local merchants surveyed said today's economy is "about the same"


• 41.5% of local merchants surveyed said today's economy is "somewhat" or "much" weaker

Sales revenue expectations: local merchants are optimistic

• Nearly 50% of local merchants surveyed expect sales revenues to "somewhat" or "significantly" improve over the next three months.  This represents a 23% increase over our Q4 2009 survey results (39.9% responded this way in Q4 2009)


• 17.3% of local merchants surveyed expect sales revenues to decline "somewhat" or "significantly".

Marketing expectations: investment expected to remain flat

• 46.3% of local merchants surveyed expect their marketing expenditures to remain flat over the next three months


• 29.2% of local merchants surveyed expect to increase marketing spend (up 2.6% nominally from Q4 2009)


• 24.5% of local merchants surveyed expect to cut marketing investment (down 1.2% nominally from Q4 2009)

Hiring expectations: headcount inching up

• 17.1% of local merchants surveyed expect to increase headcount over the next three months.  This represents a 16% increase over Q4 2009 responses (14.7% responded this way in Q4 2009).


• 11.5% local merchants surveyed expect to reduce headcount over the next three months.  This represents a 17% decrease versus Q4 2009 responses (13.4% responded this way in Q4 2009).

What do you think?  Stay tuned for more insights as we dive into the data.  

In the meantime, if you're interested in survey data broken out by state, business category or business size, please email darren [at] merchantcircle.com.

Darren

MerchantCircle Marketing

A New Chapter

Every now and then we get a dramatically different haircut, buy a new car, or change jobs - and while we may miss the old, we get really excited about the new. For MerchantCircle, we're introducing a whole new set of advertising products and options that's unparalleled on the web. Our new advertising options are SO easy to use and can fit any budget. Needless to say, we're really excited about the value these new products will bring to our merchants.

From the moment we decided to revamp our advertising options and products, our focus was on ease-of-use, because we realized that you have a business to run OFFline. Through our new offerings, we've given you a suite of options that will advertise for you on top consumer destination sites like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and Citysearch - all with the click of a button.

Check out our press release here or find out all about our new advertising options here. We're excited about bringing you more local customers and giving you more bang for your buck.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations