Move over Carley Roney , your days as the unquestioned authority on wedding research could be over. There could be new method of collecting data and analyzing the information that could reflect a broader picture of the wedding market, as onlookers and a statistic expert find flaw in how the Knot’s numbers have somehow failed to reflect weddings affected by economic factors.
Shane McMurray, founder of The wedding Report feels the Knot’s findings could inadvertently not be reflecting all the weddings in America and could be skewed towards a higher spending group. While there is nothing wrong with the Knot’s results, a growing demand in American culture seeking transparency and a more focused view on specifics of information could be at the heart of the matter.
Discussions with a growing number of sources that includes competitors of the Knot fighting for a shrinking pool of advertising dollars, right down to people that have advertised with them say this could be a good time for the company to review the way their information is gathered, processed and distributed.
According to Shane Mc Murray, several key points in the Knot’s methodology could need further examination. “I have been asked several times why The Knot's wedding cost numbers vary from ours at The Wedding Report. That is a good question and I decided to share my thoughts on it.
First, I want to clear up sample size. You would think having 20,000 samples is much better than 3,000 samples. The reality is, for a population of 2.2 million (brides), it only takes 384 samples to get a 5% margin of error. Which is a very standard error rate and acceptable. Samples above 500 barely change the results. In preparing surveys and statistics for over five years, our findings have been participants over 500 provides more data to slice and dice, but in the end the results remain the same.
Bridal market up in 2008 and only slightly down in 2009? Those were the reported findings of The Knot; however, we are hard-pressed to find any economic data that support their results. ChangeWave shows that consumer spending started to decline in December, 2007 (which is when the recession started) and continued to decline until February, 2009, before a move towards recovery. Many are still spending less: http://goo.gl/dPb4 .
2009 unemployment was the highest in many years. Our surveys show an increase in spending towards the end of 2009, in 3rd and 4th quarter; however, wedding vendors from all over the country reported 20% to 50% declines in spending from early 2008 through 4th quarter of 2009. Blue Nile, Kay, Zales, (public jewelry companies) reported lower sales in 2008 and some better news in 2009. And yes, there were some companies that saw growth, mostly the discounters; Walmart is a good example. Walmart saw the opportunity for growth and even moved deeper into proving wedding services by adding wedding invitations in 2008.
To us, The Knot’s claims do not add up when compared to the surrounding economic data. When I look at our survey data and compare it to other economic indicators, my conclusions make sense, whereas their findings tend to leave unanswered questions and even disconnect from the market.
Collection of survey data; I don't know what their survey process is and leaves us to wonder if theirs is incentive based. Some possibilities could include brides being offered something in return for their participation or a chance to win prizes. There are different schools of thought on this. However, all of the data I collect from brides and grooms are non-incentive based. They simply participate out of willingness to share their views and approach to planning their weddings. It takes longer to collect data this way and you get less responses, but I believe the results are more realistic, reaching a broader scope of the actual market.
When collecting data, it is critical to understand how broad the samples are and does it reflect the main stream of the market? 20,000 samples does not mean broad based. When I look at their real weddings, the information tends to represent higher end locations. Is this their survey pool? If so, then it certainly helps to explain the difference in some per item spending from our numbers to theirs.
I collect data from couples getting married in the court house to those getting married at the best places in their particular market. They spend between next to nothing to well over 100k for their wedding, representing a truer read of a broader market. In other words, I get the full range of the main stream market. I also collect data from wedding vendors directly and they are included in the overall item result.
I have put a lot of thought, time, and resources in collecting the best data for the most realistic view of the market. In fact, the entire purpose of The Wedding Report is to make sure you see the entire picture around you. Why? So you can make better business decisions and become more successful. That is why I do it.
Overall cost; It is difficult to determine how they came to the 28k as the average amount spent on planning. I don't know if it is the product of asking "How much did you spend in total" on the survey or a sum of all the items. Neither of those two produce the best result. If I asked for the total, more than likely, the results would be way off. A simple way to gauge this would be to ask yourself what you spent. Realistically, do you remember everything you purchased and are you able to total it to get the answer? As we know, there are so many items purchased for a wedding. Even more critical, every wedding differs according to individual spending patterns; not all items are purchased by everyone. A higher standard of data collection would involve knowing what was actually purchased and what was spent for each item. If I summed up all items I collect data for on the wedding, I could say that couples spend $37,000 on average, excluding the engagement ring or honeymoon. That would not be an accurate reflection of the market.
I take a much different approach to make sure I capture all expenditures but use a weighting measure to determine the real total amount spent for a market. I use to say items with more than or close to 50% demand were the items included in the average. But that leaves some items out, so the calculations were changed in 2008 to use a weighting measure of demand on all items, then do the sum up. The result gave a clearer, more accurate picture of the true average and the real market.
I don't believe The Knot intentionally releases the numbers to make the market appear better than it is. Perhaps they felt by collecting 20,000 samples and their ability to do so would lend itself to a higher standard of credibility. I do think they failed to put enough thought into their sample to get the best picture of the market. I also don't believe their calculation of the average spent, total, is the correct way to do it. It over inflates reality.
We just went through the worst economic crisis since the great depression and to say the wedding industry was not effected by it is very short sided and frankly, irresponsible,” feels Mc Murray.
Attempts to reach Carley Roney or an official spokesperson at the Knot, seeking a statement remain ongoing.
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Posted on 02/25/2010
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