Commerce Signals Introduces Covid-19 Consumer Spending Impact Tracker; Provides Deep Insights to Help Retailers and Others Plan for Uncertain Times

Jersey City, N.J., May 28, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Commerce Signals, a Verisk Financial company and leading source of U.S. retail payment insights, today announced the availability of the Covid-19 Consumer Spending Impact Tracker, enabling companies to quickly and easily gain valuable insights into U.S. consumer spending behavior across key retail and direct-to-consumer business categories. The solution provides a granular view into spending patterns over time, including regional differences that can be expected to arise as various geographic areas begin to ease restrictions on businesses and consumers.    The tracker allows users to access accurate weekly views of purchases and returns by category, including online vs. in-store, with geographic views down to the county level—all from an easy-to-use and intuitive online dashboard. A datacube is also available for custom analysis.“Retailers and e-commerce companies are hungry for accurate and granular spending data delivered in a timely fashion to help with their strategic, financial, business and marketing planning, especially during these uncertain times,” said Lisa Bonalle-Hannan, president of Verisk Financial.  “The Commerce Signals spend tracker provides the insights companies need to find opportunities, cut waste and create a competitive advantage by understanding how customers are behaving and spending outside of their own businesses.”“As states and regions start to ease their stay-at-home restrictions and businesses start to reopen, we’ll be closely following whether l consumer spending will follow suit and how quickly, as well as which categories will see a quick rebound and which might see the impacts linger,” added Bonalle-Hannan. “The spend tracker is unique in that it lets you drill down deeply into spending behavior on a weekly basis and look at differences by specific geographies, between online and instore, and across other critical factors.”Consumer spending patterns are changing dramatically on a weekly basis. For example, nationwide, home stores and wholesale retailer store purchases were down by 16.4 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively, from a year earlier (for the week ending March 28). However, during the week ending May 16th, they were up 27.3 percent and 18.1 percent from the same time a year earlier. Online sales that week for home stores and wholesale retailers were up significantly at 97 percent and 60.5 percent, respectively, while in-store sales were up 14.4 percent and down 5.8 percent compared to a year earlier. Sales performance also varies significantly by geography.The new solution is powered by Commerce Signals’ comprehensive and anonymized consumer credit and debit card spending dataset, which includes transactions from more than 40 million U.S. households. The data is balanced for the total U.S. population by geography and other proprietary metrics.The direct-to-consumer business categories followed by the spend tracker include:AirlinesLodgingTravel AgenciesAuto RentalRide Share, Cruises, Etc.Entertainment/Amusement ParksGas StationsRestaurantsGrocery StoresPharmacy/Drug StoresWholesale RetailersDiscount StoresDepartment StoresClothing StoresElectronics StoresHome Improvement/Interior Furnishing StoresUtilities 
For more information or to request a Demo of the Covid-19 Consumer Spending Impact Tracker, please email: CommerceSignals@Verisk.comABOUT COMMERCE SIGNALS
Commerce Signals, a Verisk Financial company, is a leading source of U.S. retail payment insights and analytics. The company has a unique, continuous and anonymized view of the credit and debit card spending behavior from 40 million U.S. households. Commerce Signals provides retailers and other direct-to-consumer companies with powerful insights to understand customer and competitive dynamics outside their business, improve decision making, and increase marketing spend efficiency. Its insights and measurement solutions are used by some of the largest retailers in the country.ABOUT VERISK FINANCIAL
Verisk (Nasdaq:VRSK) is a leading data analytics provider serving customers in insurance, energy and specialized markets, and financial services. Using advanced technologies to collect and analyze billions of records, Verisk draws on unique data assets and deep domain expertise to provide first-to-market innovations that are integrated into customer workflows. Verisk offers predictive analytics and decision support solutions to customers in rating, underwriting, claims, catastrophe and weather risk, global risk analytics, natural resources intelligence, economic forecasting, and many other fields. Around the world, Verisk helps customers protect people, property, and financial assets. For more information about Verisk Financial, please visit https://www.verisk.com/financial/.Headquartered in Jersey City, N.J., Verisk operates in 30 countries and is a member of Standard & Poor’s S&P 500® Index.  Media Contact:Joe Madden
joseph.madden@verisk.com
201.232.4486AttachmentCommerce Signals Consumer Spend Dashboard Screenshot.5.28.20