Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

Generally speaking, direct donations to a cause don't do much to give sales a spike, but I suppose it depends on the demographic profile, the product/brand/industry, the country, the cause and a dozen other variables.

You'll have to find a way to give us more details if you want real help. The answer may well be different among rural Chinese buying farm equipment than among affluent Parisians buying diamonds.

Thanks - "good" input does allow better answers, as we all know! This is a retail Health/Beauty product - packaging speaks to the donation, etc. Again - looking to see if specific demo cells contribute more than others...while we can make "obvious" choices for this, having a demo cell would help. Thanks.

This brings to my mind a slightly tangential but relevant issue: demographic-based segmentation vs. activity/interest-based segmentation.

I'd argue that demographics are becoming less and less reliable as behavior predictors. This is especially true as Internet, etc. enables people to connect by interest, across demographic lines. Age and location are just less relevant now. Also, drawing a line between age groups is sort of arbitrary.

People of all age groups, races, income levels, and both genders would be interested in charity. But you can break those down by their hobbies, jobs, history of giving, history of experience w/ charity group, etc. Just my thoughts...

Thanks for your responses - we've utilized Cone for a multitude of detail - they are wonderful. Their research studies are available online - so you can glean good information that "helps." Still no real hardcore stats on who donates, who buys misc. product types, etc. Thanks for all for your time/thoughts.

Yes and no. I have a retail store and do all the buying for the store. I occassionally run across a manufacturer that tells me their product costs more because a portion goes to a certain charity. In this case, my customers would rather just donate to the charity of their choice. If for example they are buying a product and one has a portion of the profits going to charity and the other doesn't, but the prices are similar, most will pick the product with the charity donation. When I have a supplier decide to tie into a charity on a limited basis, but I have to pay more I will not stock the item. If the wholesale costs stays the same of I always buy.
On a side note, if a manufacturer is trying to tie a product into a charity the charity should probably have something to do with the product. If your selling boys clothing, the breast cancer tie in is probably not the best choice.