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By John Stanley
Successful retailers take consumers on a journey. In this series of articles, I explain this journey to you, offering examples on how to implement it in your business.
Here’s a recap of the four steps to providing that rewarding experience for shoppers:
Journey of Discovery
Journey of Inspiration
Journey of Excitement
Journey of Trust
Step Three: Journey of Excitement
In the previous article in this series, we looked at the Journey of Inspiration. The consumers in your catchment area have discovered you, and taken the time to come into your store. Your next challenge is to excite them so they leave singing your praises!
Basically, customers are bored with seeing products on retail shelves. They’re looking for more exciting experiences. The question to ask yourself is: Are you in the commodity business, selling products, or are you providing an experience?
Now is the time for you to move on from being a commodity retailer and to start providing an experience. This means you should create an experience for the customer where they are fully engaged with what you are doing.
In the USA, Pike Place Fish Market is looked on as the ultimate experience in Seattle’s retail scene. In Canada, it’s Pete’s Frootique. In Australia, the Beechworth Bakery in Victoria creates the same experience. In South Africa, Lifestyle Garden Centre is recognized as a global leader in the experience market.
1. How do you create an experience?
Experience retailing should be exciting. If it is not, then consumers will fall back on convenience retailers to buy their products. That said, everyone is different. What excites some people will not excite others, and therefore don’t think everyone will be stimulated by your displays, merchandising and awesome customer service. The best thing to do is to focus on your target market and make it exciting for them.
2. Who are your customers?
You can only excite some of the market. So you need to do some market research and find out which segments constitute your target market and what excites them. Are you targeting the female “IKEA” babies (Generation X) or the female “baby boomers” (45-60 year olds), both of which are currently major target markets? Also keep in mind that each region will have a different demographic mix that will need to be addressed.
You need to understand your customers’ lives and lifestyles, and develop a feel for what appeals to them in fashion statements, color, meal arrangements, garden design and so on. You then present your retail products in a “leading edge,” not “bleeding edge” way. If you are bleeding edge, you may lose your customers as you are too far ahead of their thinking pattern.
Let me give you an example. I recently worked in Italy and had an opportunity to look at furniture stores there. I thought they were amazing. However, if I had introduced the concepts en masse to my own town of Perth, they would have been rejected. In the furniture category, what is leading edge in Bergamo, Italy is bleeding edge in Perth, Australia.
3. How do you generate leading-edge excitement?
Firstly, you need to ensure the whole of your team is behind the motion that you need to be leading edge. You can then divide the work between the members of your staff and, in my experience, they will enjoy coming up with new ideas and will want to be involved.
The ideas come from a number of areas, including:
• Lifestyle television programs
• Newspaper Lifestyle segments
• Fashion magazines
• Other retailers outside this industry
• Trends overseas within and outside your industry sector
• Lifestyle books: always check your bookshop for the latest books
• Conversations with customers
• Paint manufacturers (yes, they are leaders in fashion)
• Ideas on the web
• The global leading edge retailers in what you do.
4. How do you put “excitement” together?
The fun of creating excitement is that often all you need to do is take your existing products and rearrange them in a different way to create a new, exciting display.
This can also be achieved by ensuring that displays are topical and you have introduced interesting “props” to help set the scene.
Don’t forget the importance of ambience, which is achieved by making the space right for the consumer, getting the correct music and volume, as well as the aroma of the place.
5. The team sets the scene
Don’t fall into the trap of making your store look visually attractive and then having the team let you down. You are far better to have an enthusiastic team and dull display, than great displays and a dull team. The retail team ultimately controls the atmosphere in your business.
I recently stayed at one of those theme hotels while attending a conference in Las Vegas. Visually, the place was fantastic, but the team, in my experience, was average. It didn’t meet the visual expectations and, as a result, it is the team that I remember, not the exciting props.
6. You must be consistent
The challenge is not in the creation of the excitement, it’s in ensuring that you do it consistently.
I come across businesses that can achieve it in December but lose it in January. Yet customers expect a consistent message from retailers.
Many people would argue that if Disney World, Pete’s Frootique, The Body Shop and Rainforest Cafés can achieve it, why can’t everyone? These organizations should be looked on as models. Their business culture is critically important. They aren’t operated by managers, but by leaders. That makes all the difference and has a great impact on the final customer experience.
Pete Luckett of Pete’s Frootique often mentions that the difference between a manager and a leader is “that when a manager has a bad day the team knows about it. When a leader has a bad day the team is not aware of it.”
Consumers want a visit that excites them. It is our role not to disappoint them.
Don’t miss out on the next column on providing a rewarding experience for your customers. In the final article we look at the trust factor.
John Stanley is an internationally recognized conference speaker and retail consultant with more than 25 years of experience in 18 countries, and has authored many books.
For more information on John Stanley and his services, please hop online and visit his website at www.JohnStanley.cc.
Nov.
2009
2009
Posted in Columns
