Expats around the world are still feeling the pinch from the global financial crisis – which means luxury cars are probably the last things on their wish lists. Or are they?
Recent research suggests that high-end car sales could see a rise in the coming year, with wealthy expats being a large percentage of the owners. Countries in Asia and Africa have seen a dramatic increase in car sales in 2011, prompting luxury car brands to step up their presence overseas.
When it comes to Christmas sales everyone fixates on retail.
At it first glance, this industry seems to be dominated by a few big names. Research from overseas shipping website Forward2me found Amazon UK the #1 for expat shoppers, followed by H&M UK and John Lewis. Expats gravitate to these familiar brands for much of their Christmas shopping, often through simple internet searches.
Fortunately, expats’ specific needs offer potential for niche-retailers as well. And there are other holiday niches ripe with potential, many of them service related.
Millions of expats around the globe travel home for the holidays. But only a fraction purchase international travel or medical insurance. This is a both a major liability for expats (who could face huge medical bills in an emergency) and a missed opportunity for international insurers.
Adrian Shaw, founder of the insurance aggregator Expat Compare, explains the lack of consumer awareness and what insurers can do to tap the market’s potential.
For many expats, holiday shopping is a dull experience. It’s often done entirely online, and the glow of a computer screen is hardly a fair substitute for the hustle and bustle of the Christmas shopping season.
Perhaps that’s why they flock to small specialty shops in droves each December. Expat Marketing talks to Jason Kelly, who owns and operates Kelly’s Expat Shopping with his Dutch wife, Kelly (yes, that makes her Kelly Kelly). Jason explains why “the personal touch” is so appealing this time of year.
‘Tis not only the season to be jolly, but also to phone home–particularly for African expats.
VIP Communications, a provider of international calling services, recently released its 2011 Holiday Calling Report, a look at the seasonal calling habits of over 40,000 expat customers from 100 countries. It measured both average daily call volume and average time spent on the phone. In addition to Christmas the report included data for Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day and Mother’s Day.
A majority of expats use Facebook as their social network of choice, according to HSBC’s 2011 Expat Explorer Survey. Even in countries where only 3-4% of locals use Facebook over half of expats are on the site a couple times a week.
Overall, 69% of expats use Facebook and 52% use it once a week or more. LinkedIn came in second at 40%, followed by Twitter at 14% and MySpace at a meager 2%.
But can businesses targeting expats turn this trend into cold hard cash?
New survey data from kippreport.com should cheer international banks. It found a majority of expats living in Saudi Arabia and the UAE prefer to save money at home.
According to the survey, 74% of expats across both countries have a savings account in their home country, but only 33% in their country of residence. Demand for ATM/debit cards, by contrast, was nearly identical in both locations.
Banking and finance are industries with a traditional, yet somewhat dry image. For marketers, it is often challenging to communicate their services without boring their target, especially when it comes to younger expatriates.
By sponsoring a banking poll across different social media sites, Lloyds TSB International aims to engage expatriates by opening a “fun” conversation about a seemingly boing topic. The participant with the most original expat banking story wins a new iPad 2.
A paradigm shift is underway in global mobility. Record numbers of positions will move overseas as the global economy integrates more tightly and emerging markets mature. As the number of international assignments grows, companies will look to their youngest employees to fill them.
According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) report titled Talent Mobility 2020, the number of international assignments will increase 50% by 2020, to nearly 400 per large organization. The youngest professionals, the so-called “millennials,” will hold the bulk of these jobs. 80% of those PWC surveyed said they wanted to work abroad at some point, a trend that held across both developed and emerging economies.
Let’s face it. There are industries consumers simply love to hate (ahem: banks, insurers).
For these industries, the brave new world of social media has proven challenging, to say the least. Younger people are particularly difficult for these firms to reach.
The problem is these companies are viewed as impenetrable, faceless monoliths. So insists Alex Alpert, Business Development Director at Wheaton World Wide Moving and joint re-Founder of remobilize.org (a new movement for relocation professionals that aims to create professional development workshops and networking events young professionals actually want to attend).