Shopper Culture

Brand Sensory Experiences

At my local grocer, I found this shelf card with an actual Ziploc bag sample attached to it. The shelf card says "New Smart Zip. Protection you can hear. Try it for yourself."

We all know how a Ziploc bag works, and I've tried the cheaper brands, which don't seem to work as well. Regardless, I found myself trying the Ziploc sample in the store to see if I could hear the difference.

The book Brand Sense: Sensory Secrets Behind The Stuff We Buy, by Martin Lindstrom, states that brands need to take advantage of all available sensory touch points, find an innovative sensory mind-set that sets it apart from its competitors, and find a way for the consumer to associate these sensory signals with this particular brand.

Ziploc has creatively found a way to do this for a very basic product, and they have focused on two of the sensory points by promoting touch and sound. I got to sample the product in the store, experiencing the Ziploc brand sense.

With five senses to explore, what can you do with your brand to promote its brand sense?

-Contributed by Leslie Young

Next-Besting

The economy has restricted the ability for some to indulge in the brand they want, but a variety of alternatives are popping up to semi-satisfy those desires, sometimes even from the original brands themselves. So instead of trading down, shoppers have found more creative ways around monetary restrictions by Next-Besting into budget-friendly compromises. Do you offer the Next-Best within your brands or services? Should you? The answer is yes! Click here to continue reading the latest issue of The Integer Pulse, and find out what companies are making this happen. 

Spenders Utilize More Experience- and Convenience-based Shopping Aids

 

Since the start of 2009, shoppers appeared to rely more on coupons, from both manufacturers and retailers, to help them shop for groceries. While coupon use had been increasing, other forms of traditional shopping aids, such as directional signage and in-store associates, were steadily decreasing. 

However, when viewing the shopping-aid preferences of Spenders (those who report shopping more) alongside Savers (those shopping less), stark differences in recessionary coping strategies appeared. The Savers segment showed higher price sensitivity and corresponding shopping strategy using circulars and coupons, from both manufacturers and retailers, significantly more than their Spender counterparts, who were using more convenience-based shopping aids such as directional signage, in-store associates, self-checkout, and mobile phones.

For more highlights from The Checkout's 2009 Year in Review, download the full report here.

 

Sharing, A New Form of Product Trial

Can social media and the age-old principles of borrowing and lending impact the future of product trial?  

When I was a child (and my parents' personal messenger boy), my parents often ordered me, "God next door and borrow Mr. Olsen's drill." After using it, my dad would send me to return it. Oh, how grateful I was when my mom finally bought my dad his very own power drill for Christmas. But that wasn't the end of my courier-service and isn't the point of this story. Guess which power drill brand she bought? Of course, the exact brand Mr. Olsen had.  

One of the first to hand out free samples was the advertising pioneer Benjamin T. Babbit, who, in the 1850s, solicited Americans to "get on the bandwagon" and persuaded them with a free trial of soap.  Since then, thousands of brands have offered free trials of their products and millions of samples have been distributed. Studies have measured and validated the effectiveness of these efforts.  

From test drives and trial downloads to a light job around the sports store in a new pair of sneakers, we almost never buy something without first trying it out.  Entire big-box retailers have become electronic test-kitchens.  So, I wasn't surprised when I saw this advertisement in the Las Vegas airport.  

 

While conducting further research into gun trial, I came across this fascinating community forum.  

The Shopper Culture iPhone App

We're thrilled about the acceptance of the new Shopper Culture app to the iTunes store. Available for free, it gives you easy, direct access to shopperculture.com on your iPhone, iTouch, or iPad. To download visit the iTunes store and search "Shopper Culture" or click here.

A Slice of Middle-Eastern Shopping Culture

Different. Yet the same. That's my feeling from a visit to Dubai last week. I was struck by the similarities in shopping culture to what we see here in the U.S. or in western Europe. Dubai is a melting pot of cultures, an ill-planned mash-up of East meets West. From the immense scale of the Burj Khalifa  (once the Burj Dubai), the tallest man-made structure in the world; through the Souks of Spice, Textile, and Gold; on to the mega-mega malls (one mega somehow doesn't do them justice), such as the Mall of the Emirates (with its indoor ski slope) and The Dubai Mall, the similarities of shopping behaviors are what stood out to me. Groups of young people watching each other and being seen at the mall, families out buying their weekly groceries, and young couples window shopping for jewellery and home goods, all felt very familiar.

Increasingly around the world, we are seeing the slow but gradual homogenization of shopping cultures. Different cultures intertwined with the same basic needs for weekly essentials and desire to express their human individuality, even in what we might view as a highly restrictive society like that in Dubai.

And yet there are always small and subtle differences that make a place unique, for example, local boutiques and independent outlets that allow a thriving creative community to find its audience. These are the things that create the essense of a city and bring uniqueness to the culture of shopping. Will it always be thus, or will the march of global brands eventually win out? Or will each city, each unique place, find its own equlibirum, a balance that is right for the cmposition of shoppers that exist within it? I hope so, as it's the thrill of the new, the undiscovered, that unique find that helps to maintain the energy and excitement in global shopping. 

Retailers Doing Their Part for Diabetes

When Meijer says "Higher Standards", they mean it, and live by them. In an article on supermarketnews.com we learned that on Monday, Meijer announced they would be offering free with a prescription Metformin. Metformin is one of the most commonly prescribed treatments for Type 2 diabetes. 

This is another addition to their free prescription program, which includes seven of the most popular children's antibiotics as well as pre-natal vitamins for pregnant women. To date, Miejer has filled over 5 million antibiotic scipts and half a million pre-natal vitamin scripts.

 Also interesting, was Meijer tipping its hat to fellow retailer Publix and noting them as an inspiration for the addition of Metformin to the program.

“We were pleased when we saw Publix, a company we admire, make this move. We quickly looked at it and decided to do the same here in our five-state region,” said Hank Meijer, co-chairman and chief executive officer of Meijer, in a prepared statement.

Its nice to see retailers looking at each other as more than just competition and looking to each other for more than just pricing comparisons.

 

The New Japanese Consumer: Resemblance of Western Shopper Culture?

For decades Japanese consumers have been known for their keenness to pay for quality and convenience over price. From spending for status to buying into the most popular western trend, premium was the norm.

Recently, however, Japanese consumers are taking cues from western buying behaviors, becoming more open to discount shopping, bulk purchases and online retail. Private-label food sales have also significantly increased, and despite small living space and lack of alternative storage, buying in bulk has become a symbol of cache – ala the American “frugalista.” With these major changes in attitudes and behavior also come challenges and potential opportunities for retailers and manufactures in the world’s second-largest retail market.  

What must brands now consider when retailing in Japan? The McKinsey Quarterly report attributes three factors: economic down turn, domestic regulatory action and a generational gap in mindsets. 

The Checkout 2009 Year In Review: Issue 2.10

The latest edition of The Checkout is available for download today. Issue 2.10 recaps the the findings and trends of 2009 as well as predictions for what's to come for the rest of 2010. Interestingly, the latest edition finds that shoppers reported walking away from the shelf empty-handed due to price and limited product selection. This fact could be related to some retailers using SKU rationalization methodologies that do not account for low-velocity items having shopping-basket gravity - the pull some products have on other complementary products. Without a clear understanding of retailer-specific shopping patterns and basket drivers, the wrong SKUs could be cut, leading shoppers to take their business for that entire category elsewhere. 

In focus this month: 2009 Holiday Spending

• Recessionary pressures have made us a nation of shopping procrastinators.  

• The game of chicken between shoppers looking for deals and retailers seeking sales intensifies.  

• 2009 holiday shoppers wanted instant gratification, free shipping, and free stuff.  

Click here to download the latest issue of The Checkout. 

How do Mindsets Change During a Shopping Trip?

Where along a shopper's path should a kiosk like this one go?

Observational research shows that shoppers change their behaviors during a single shopping trip in some interesting ways:

1. As people spend more time in the store, they become more purposeful, less likely to explore, and more likely to grab their familiar products.

2. After getting "virtue" categories (essentials), shoppers are more likely to head over to locations that carry "vice" categories (indulgences).

So even in a single trip type or purchase occasion, shoppers can go through several mindsets. (These results are from analysis of PathTracker data of 1,200 completed shopping trips in supermarkets in the Eastern US.)

How might these behaviors impact your in-store strategies? Maybe a new product launch should be placed near the front of the shopper's path. Maybe candy and small cosmetics would do better near checkout than razors and dental floss. Maybe retailers should reconfigure stores to funnel shoppers towards virtues first and vices later.

And a kiosk like the one above?  Well, would you want to start surfing natural products when the frozen foods are melting in your cart?

If you're into hierarchical Bayesian models, read the full paper: Hui, Bradlow & Fader (2009) Journal of Consumer Research 36:479-493.