By Danielle Pinnington, managing director, Shoppercentric
Making life easier for shoppers is an admirable aim, but there is a real commercial point to this. Persuading shoppers to buy your product is hard enough without putting any obstacles in their way once they get into the store.
I’d like to suggest that ease of shopping is actually rather complicated. Our research consistently tells us that grocery shoppers are inherently lazy, they love finding a shortcut to the routine, a way of reducing the time spent in-store.
They frequently switch to autopilot and put the blinkers on as soon as they step into the average supermarket.
Frustrated shoppers also operate with a siege mentality, not opening their eyes to the items in-store that they could be encouraged to buy.
When shoppers articulate ease of shop they infer a sense of empowerment: the ability to be in the driving seat of their shopping trip, whether they want to grab and go or to step back and consider the options.
This might depend on which category they are shopping, how much time they have, the shopping mission they are trying to satisfy or even what mood they are in.
Plenty of us are grumpy shoppers and we need store fixtures that are ‘on our side’, not conspiring against us. It is in this way that retailers and their suppliers will be better able to maximise the potential of our trip.
So, ease of shop is about empowerment – but what does that actually mean? In my opinion it means thinking about the shopper needs:
1. Navigation – think layouts and enabling shoppers to locate what they need.
2. Attraction – encouraging shoppers to consider the options available.
3. Persuasion – educating shoppers to understand the differences between products on the shelf and empowering decisions.
In addition, ease of shop also has to be examined from an emotional perspective – attraction and persuasion are nothing if not emotional. Even navigation, whilst seemingly functional, has an emotional edge.
The frustration felt by shoppers who cannot find what they want is clear and can colour the shoppers’ experience in-store and their receptiveness to point-of-sale communication.
Successful ease of shop is about removing the barriers in the purchase process – but without losing the triggers that will drive a sale.
By seeing the purchase process through the eyes of the shopper, brands and supermarkets will identify the relevant features in the process, and how these might be enhanced to aid the purchase process.
In short it’s about getting the basics correct – the right products in the right place and presented in a way that can actively engage the shopper.
It is ironic that in wanting to generate ease of shop at fixture, retailers and brands will come to realise ease of shop is not an easy business.
This article nicely touches upon the age old puzzle that retailers are trying to solve – how to ensure ‘right product at right time for right price’. With consumer buying patterns and behaviors changing with external situations like economic conditions and also change in demographics, retailers have to continue their investment to understand their consumers. There are several innovative tools available in the market that can help retailers to understand consumers, their demographics, buying patterns and footfall in a store. This information can help the merchandisers to offer right product mix, manage shelf space effectively and also help to device in-store marketing.