In the 12-year span from October 1, 2005 to September 30, 2017, about 12.8 million consumer bankruptcy petitions were filed in the federal courts. Of those, 8.7 million–68 percent–were filed under Chapter 7, and 4.1 million– 32 percent–were filed under Chapter 13. Nonbusiness filings (i.e., filings involving mainly consumer debt) constituted 97 percent of all Chapter 7 bankruptcies and 99 percent of all Chapter 13 bankruptcies.
Wishing you and “yours” a safe and happy Thanksgiving Holiday.
It’s official. The Postage Rate Hike has been approved and will take effect on January 27, 2019.
Prices were approved raising rates approximately 2.5% across the board. Shipping Service price increases vary by product. For example, Priority Mail Express will increase 3.9 percent and Priority Mail will increase 5.9 percent. Although Mailing Services price increases are based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Shipping Service prices are primarily adjusted according to market conditions.
The new prices include a 5-cent increase in the price of a First-Class Mail Forever stamp, from 50 cents to 55 cents. Click below to review Price Comparisons by Type of Service.
FIRST CLASS COMPARISON – Postal Rate Comparison First Class 2018-2019
MARKETING MAIL COMPARISON – Postal Rate Comparison Marketing Mail 2018-2019
NON PROFIT MAIL COMPARISON – Postal Rate Comparison NP 2018-2019
2019 POSTAL RATE GUIDE – BEB Postal Rate Guide
Here are some basics to ensure your business is discoverable on searches with local intent:
For more information on local search and best practices, check out this checklist by Moz.
According to new statistics provided by Facebook, 48% of mobile first auto buyers are Millennials. 43% of desktop first auto buyers are Baby Boomers.
Mobile first buyers have some additional interesting stats:
Mobile buyers are growing in numbers every day. Savvy brands have developed brand apps allowing buyers to customize their shopping, leveraging smartphone features like 360-degree views. Last year, Chevrolet launched the immersive app for the Camaro that garnered 62,000 downloads in just a couple of months.
Have a safe and happy Halloween everybody! From all of us at BEBdata
2018 second quarter showed signs of improvement for auto loan delinquencies.
30-day delinquencies dropped to 2.11% of outstanding balances from 2.2% in the prior-year period, while the 60-day delinquency rate dropped to 0.64% of outstanding balances from 0.67% over the same time period. However, the industry saw average finance amounts and monthly payments reach new highs during the period.
Delinquencies are one of the most telling metrics. The downward trend is an encouraging sign. However, lenders will keep a close eye on car buyers’ payment performance.
The average new-vehicle finance amount jumped more than $700 from the prior-year period to $30,958 and used-vehicles average jumped $520 from the prior-year period to $19,708. Also, the average monthly payment for a new-vehicle purchase increased $20 over the same period to a record $525 and the average payment for used increased by $13 to a record $378. 72 months remains the most common loan term for both new and used financing,
Outstanding loan balances have increased from $1.027 trillion in the prior-year period to a record $1.149 trillion, consumers appear unfazed by the rise in loan amounts and monthly payments. However, the average interest rate for new and used increased 56 and 38 basis points to 5.76% and 9.40%, respectively.
Car buyers are increasingly looking to credit unions to secure auto financing; the segment saw double-digit growth in new-vehicle financing (12.9%) and strong growth overall (4.9%). Credit unions closed the quarter with a 21.3% share of the market in the second quarter. The only other lender type to experience growth was the captive finance segment, which grew 1.2 percent during the same time period.
Market share for banks dropped to 31.6% from 32.3% in the second quarter of 2017.
High-risk tiers felt the impact of more restrictive credit standards, with the percentage of both subprime and deep subprime falling below 19% of loan balances. On its own, deep subprime hit an all-time low of 3.54%, compared with 3.98% in the prior-year quarter. The pullback from the high-risk tiers caused average credit scores for new and used financing to rise from 714 and 652 in the year-ago period to 715 and 655, respectively.
Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) is now reporting Store Visits as a new Conversion Metric for a small group of US dealers.
A store visit is defined as someone who has physically been in a dealership after clicking on a paid search ad or being shown a viewable impression of a display ad within the past 30 days. An ad impression is considered viewable when at least 50% of the ad is on screen for at least one (1) second. Currently about 300 dealerships are able to track Store Visits. The quantity of dealers is expected to increase over time. In approximately 12 months, about half of all dealers in the U.S. are expected to be tracking Store Visits.
Store Visit data is based on anonymous, aggregated statistics. Google Ads creates a count of visitors by using current and past data on the number of people who click or view your ads and later visit the dealership. Visit data can’t be tied to individual ad clicks, viewable impressions or people. Industry best practices are used to ensure the privacy of individual users. Google states that they are accurate >99% of the time.
To be able to measure store visit conversions you need the following:
• Receive thousands of ad clicks and viewable impressions.
• Have a Google My Business account linked to your Google Ads account.
• Create each of your store locations in your Google My Business account.
• Have at least 90% of your linked locations verified in Google My Business.
• Ensure location extensions are active in your account.
• Have sufficient store visits data on the backend to attribute to ad click or viewable impressions traffic and pass our user privacy thresholds.
Read more about this at https://www.l2tmedia.com/2018/08/new-google-store-visit-conversion-metric-in-google-ads/
Beacon Technology is the next big thing for local Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The Big technology companies including Google and Facebook have already implemented beacon technology and are actively seeking early adoption of beacons on the store-level.
The definition of a beacon is a physical light or other visible object serving as a signal or guide. Beacon Technology operates the same. Beacons are physical devices that operate based on proximity. All beacons use a low-energy Bluetooth signal to operate and are a cloud platform device. Some frequently used names are Proximity Beacon (PB) and Bluetooth Low Energy Beacon (LE).
Beacons are used to encourage customer engagement, send quick knowledge, and drive sales. Beacons can send push notifications to people within a certain distance of the device. Brick and mortar stores can send specials or savings to in-store customers to encourage purchases or give them helpful business information that solidifies trust. Public locations like bus stops can provide information that is publicly accessible and will help people get information instantly, such as what time the next bus is stopping there. They can also encourage user-generated content. Users are encouraged to add images of your business and leave an online review of your business.
Beacons are a new way to ensure customers are getting accurate, up to date information when they want it. It is also a way to reach people when they are most engaged, or conversely if they are in your business but may still be price comparing on their phone. Beacons can be an excellent way to seal the deal or promote a “why you should buy” message.
Google beacons allow businesses to promote a URL, which allows customer interaction with Google’s Physical Web product. Physical Web is a platform that finally acknowledges consumer behavior in real-life. Physical Web allows you to interact with what’s around you – interact with inanimate objects or choose web pages related to your surroundings.
A Bluetooth signal will initiate information transfer when a customer is within a certain radius of a beacon. One important thing to note is that beacons are ONE-WAY information transmitters, therefore they are not be collecting data or violating any privacy laws. Instead of taking information from your phone or you personally, beacons are only submitting information to the user. The Facebook beacon will display information when a user is using the Facebook app within the beacon range. Facebook will show Place Tips, a welcome note, and photo. The Facebook beacon will also encourage users to like the business page and check-in to the business. Being a social app in nature, it will also display recommendation information from a user’s Facebook friends.
For now, the Facebook beacon is free. There are several companies that offer beacons for a price such as the Google-compatible beacons average $25 per device.
Both Google and Facebook beacons will come already activated right out of the box. You simply have to place them in a fixed location, preferably a doorway. Some beacons also work by USB power instead of an internal battery – these must be plugged into a computer at all times.
Beacons may begin to collect more accurate data on key business factors like the busiest time of day and the average foot traffic of each location. While these are relatively simple devices, they may be able to track the aggregate number of impressions served over a certain timeline and report back on them. While those statements are just a theory, one thing is for certain: beacons will be an effective way to engage with the formerly disengaged customer who is more focused on their phone than the world around them.
From an advertiser perspective, beacons may help assist with the Store Visits objective. The current challenges with Store Visit measurement is primarily geographical; currently only large, freestanding stores like Whole Foods and Target have effective store visit capability and measurement. Anonymous solutions like beacons may bridge the gap for the large percentage of business that is currently unable to measure in-store success and cross-attribution from their digital campaigns.
For more information go to https://www.clickherepublishing.com/local-seo-beacons/
Facebook has introduced a new template for business manager pages effective August 22nd 2018.
The new template will allow people to easily connect with your business. You can choose your business’ new template based on your business goals and priorities. For example, if your business is a restaurant there are templates available that prioritizes restaurant goals. If you choose a template for businesses, sales goals are prioritized. Template options consist of services, venues, movies, nonprofit, politicians, and the list goes on. Each template is prioritized to show what your viewers and/or customers find most important.
The new template allows you to customize how your page layout appears to users. You can easily rearrange sidebar tabs prioritizing what you think is most important to users and your business, hopefully improving conversion rate.
Another new twist is that Ratings are now Recommendations. While it is still under the “Review” section, you can no longer rate a business on 1-5 star scale. When customers want to write a review, they can choose to recommend or not recommend your page.
Recommendations are powerful endorsements. 2 in 3 Facebook users visit the page of a local business at least once a week. 1 in 3 people on Facebook use the platform to look for recommendations and reviews. When customers publicly recommend you in a group or to their friends, it appears on your page for all to see. Therefore, recommendations are essential to your business in order to drive more sales and to, obtain a positive reputation.
Any Facebook user can easily report content that you believe is unfair, fraud, spam or paid for. This feature will benefit your business by keeping your businesses reputation true.
Customers can now easily share important details through tags and photos. In order to leave a recommendation, locate the recommendations on the left side of a page. Click YES to recommend or NO to not recommend. Write your custom recommendation or you can choose from auto tags (friendly staff, slow service, etc.)
Facebook is testing a new rating and recommendation system. Facebook currently uses a scale of 1-5 stars as an overall rating for your business. A new system is currently being tested to replace the 5-star scale with a rating scale from 1-10. Sentiments within reviews as well as recommendations and response times to private messages will be considered when calculating the overall rating of a business.
We’ll keep you posted as things continue to change within the FB platform.