Jan
29
Chipotle Mexican Grill Chosen for Menu, Not Organic Food; the Burrito Wraps It Up
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Chipotle Grill is a hot topic these days with a massive valuation and a market segment in between casual dining and fast food. How is the chain doing and what are customers looking to get there? We surveyed 30 stores to take a look.
Our most recent survey of Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants shows that a whopping 80% of respondents indicated that customers choose Chipotle because of the menu, compared with 9% because the food is organic and 11% who cited both the menu and the organic food as the reason. The star of the menu that keeps them coming in is the Burrito, chosen 57% of the time; varieties ordered included chicken (41%), steak (29%), barbacoa (12%) and carnitas (6%). The Burrito Bowl was the second most frequently ordered item (26%) followed by Fajita Burritos (14%) and Tacos (3%). The average check size for a party of two is $23.83. More respondents (74%) indicate that the restaurants are crowded at lunch time than reported that dinner had the bigger crowds (26%). Compared to a year ago, 43% of sites reported that the restaurant is busier, 46% say it is the same and 6% say it is less busy. Restaurants less than a year old made up 26% of the responses with older restaurants representing 74%.
Jan
7
We have just concluded an early video game survey of game stores in the U.S. The Nintendo Wii was seen as the top console by over 50% of our respondents. This high response rate is impressive given the widespread shortages of Wii’s this Christmas. The Xbox from Microsoft was reported as being the top selling console by 31% of respondents and 10% saw the Sony PS3 as the top seller. Our survey bodes well for sales of Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox consoles given that Sony reported this morning that it had sold 1.2 million PS3’s from late November through December. We would expect unit sales to be 3x for Microsoft and 5x for Nintendo in the same period. Time will tell how predictive our survey is.
The top game was Guitar Hero III from Activision which was rated as the top selling game by 28% of our respondents. 21% of respondents viewed Halo 3 as the top game despite the widespread problem of scratched discs for Halo 3. 15% of respondents saw Mario Brothers Galaxy as the top game while 10% each viewed Call to Duty 4 and Guitar Hero III competitor Rock Band as the top games.
Halo 3 is seen as the best game for the Xbox console specifically by 41% of respondents. 12% see Call to Duty 4 and Guitar Hero 3 as the best games for this console platform. The most anticipated new game according to our survey is Super Smash Brothers for the Wii. 21% of respondents cited this game as the most anticipated while no other title garnered meaningful support.
One negative from our survey is we believe that Assasin’s Creed and The Orange Box have not been as successful as hoped as our respondents rarely cite either game in any of our response categories despite substantial hype about the games before their releases.
Jan
4
We completed a survey of a broad range of retail outlets that sell Steve Madden boots and shoes during December. We found that the trend for boots was up due to the winter season was almost unanimous among respondents.
We found that 60% of respondents reported that Steve Madden brand boots were selling better than competing brands. 63% of respondents reported that Steve Madden shoes outsell competing brands. 10% of respondents said that Steven Madden brand boots were selling less well than competitors while 21% of respondents stated that Steve Madden shoes sold less well than competing brands. It appears that Steve Madden boots and shoes are viewed consistently by retail store employees with the exception that the competition for sales appears tougher for Steve Madden brand shoes than for its boot line.