How America Spends Money, Bundle’s of it.

By Adam Lyons in : Adam@Champion, Blog // May 25 2010

When you sell stuff, it is important to understand spending habits to adjust for locations, seasons and trends. The level of understanding, however, is what typically differentiates one merchant from another. Retailers and bankers have typically been the most sophisticated groups of analysts I encounter, especially the bankers. Finding the resources to discover these habits is an infinite game, and often when a terrific resource is discovered, it goes “unshared”. Things have changed thanks to Bundle™.

With a team of experienced statisticians and data junkies, Bundle has compiled, tagged and sorted data from a (still-expanding) collection of sources. Their data comes from the U.S. government, from anonymous and aggregated spending transactions from Citi, and from third party data providers. Bundle updates their data on a quarterly basis so people can see the effects of seasonality on spending.

Bundle has released several compelling reports about how America is spending money, by category, city and demographic. In addition, you can compare data between 2 locations, instantly. Champion finds this useful when talking about Arizona’s economic amenities with people outside of Arizona. It can be difficult at times to explain the complicated nature of Phoenix for example, which is surrounded my a myriad of other cities, yet remains mostly symbiotic in every way. Our unique municipal circumstance is a difficult story to explain to people who have never been involved in real estate within an environment such as metropolitan Phoenix.

What caught my eye initially with Bundle was that Austin Texas apparently spends more on dining out than grocery shopping. Almost twice the US average! I was hooked. Then I discovered something that really got my attention. Scottsdale, per average household, not including mortgage or rent, is the #2 top spending city of all of America. Per household, Scottsdale apparently spends $64,687 a year! Tucson is #8 spending $51,857 annually as well! The lowest city is Detroit at just a fraction of Scottsdale, spending just $16,446. If Manhattan stood alone, Scottsdale still spends more!

click for larger image

I see lots of fancy cars, lots of fancy homes, lots of fancy cloths and restaurants in Scottsdale. I never expected Scottsdale to still outrank every single American city other than Austin. I certainly never expected Austin to be quite as “weird” as this either. Los Angeles, New York City, Vegas and San Francisco individually spent less per house in 2009 then Scottsdale.

So naturally, Scottsdale is a huge retailing opportunity. We know this. It’s obvious if you just have one cup of coffee at Starbucks on Shea. But how can you turn this into a plan, to empower your retailing strategy?

We’d like to hear about your experience using Bundle’s data sets, infographics, charts and graphs. I feel at a minimum, Bundle can at least help you plan on a national level which cities may have the most aligned opportunity to your business needs. I think national franchises would love it!

The trademarks/service marks BUNDLE, Bundle.com and the Bundle logos are the property of Bundle Corporation. All other trademarks displayed on this site are the property of their respective owners.

Frank
I live in Scottsdale and I spend at least $16,446 a year on my Tan, Gym membership, and hair products. In all seriousness though, this looks like an amazing tool.
Bob Church
While it is no surprise Scottsdale practically tops the list on spending, I would not have expected the city to surpass some of the other larger metropolitan areas. Keep in mind the cost of living in Arizona is far less than the other cities.
http://cpchampion.com Adam Lyons
The affordability index in Arizona has improved sharply over the last year, surplus cash?
Jeff Sollars
Very Insightful post. The aggregate data relating to spending habits is useful on many levels, not least of which is the level of security a community feels in regards to it's own financial and economic health. It would be interesting to see how the data changes in regard to outside influences, i.e. political changes, national security developments, natural disasters, world economic fluctuations. It would be also interesting to adjust the granularity or resolution of the findings based on media input. What I mean by that is, can it be determined if people who are more connected to “outside events” have a tendency to spend more or less than people who choose not be influenced by mitigating influences outside of the “bubble” of the community.
It would also be very interesting , to me, if there could be a psychological profile developed for these community to determine what motivates that community to spend.
Over all though, it looks to be a very useful tool.
http://ppapartners.com ppapartners
Maybe I should move to Scottsdale so I can spend more money…. Thanks for the “Bundle” suggestion. This tool will prove very useful for my work. And, as always, Adam you are right on top of current trends on the internet.
http://cpchampion.com Adam Lyons
As for “psychological profile” it is common practice now for the more sophisticated commercial developer and broker to use a report called “Psychographics”. A report like that will provide tremendous insights to a narrow corridor and compare the consumer affinities to alternate geographical targets. In addition compare to national averages.
As more people comment on Bundle's capabilities, i hope hope they are listening and start to correlate a wider range of indicators and data points. I'll try and do a write up on Psychographic reporting next week! Thanks for the feedback!
http://cpchampion.com Adam Lyons
Thanks Mark! I've been asking you to move to Scottsdale for over 4 years now! For now, I'm happy just to know that you have a massive 5 megawatt solar project happening in Yuma as Western College. After that, perhaps you can increase the average household spending average, with all those nifty carbon credits in hand. just kidding…..cap & trade better not happen, hahaha.
Jeff Sollars
Very Insightful post. The aggregate data relating to spending habits is useful on many levels, not least of which is the level of security a community feels in regards to it's own financial and economic health. It would be interesting to see how the data changes in regard to outside influences, i.e. political changes, national security developments, natural disasters, world economic fluctuations. It would be also interesting to adjust the granularity or resolution of the findings based on media input. What I mean by that is, can it be determined if people who are more connected to “outside events” have a tendency to spend more or less than people who choose not be influenced by mitigating influences outside of the “bubble” of the community.
It would also be very interesting , to me, if there could be a psychological profile developed for these community to determine what motivates that community to spend.
Over all though, it looks to be a very useful tool.
http://ppapartners.com ppapartners
Maybe I should move to Scottsdale so I can spend more money…. Thanks for the “Bundle” suggestion. This tool will prove very useful for my work. And, as always, Adam you are right on top of current trends on the internet.
http://cpchampion.com Adam Lyons
As for “psychological profile” it is common practice now for the more sophisticated commercial developer and broker to use a report called “Psychographics”. A report like that will provide tremendous insights to a narrow corridor and compare the consumer affinities to alternate geographical targets. In addition compare to national averages.
As more people comment on Bundle's capabilities, i hope hope they are listening and start to correlate a wider range of indicators and data points. I'll try and do a write up on Psychographic reporting next week! Thanks for the feedback!
http://cpchampion.com Adam Lyons
Thanks Mark! I've been asking you to move to Scottsdale for over 4 years now! For now, I'm happy just to know that you have a massive 5 megawatt solar project happening in Yuma as Western College. After that, perhaps you can increase the average household spending average, with all those nifty carbon credits in hand. just kidding…..cap & trade better not happen, hahaha.