There are other things on the 'to-do' list, but since things are a bit dark, it might be a good time to cover retail.
That's right, retail. Considered by by many to be the getto of agency life - formulaic, reactive and stuck in the old 'messaging' timewarp. And mostly it is. But that's not the fault of the category, it's more to do with majority of people within it. Either the people in agencies who 'do their time' until they get to do something sexier, or the people in the marketing departments who insist the bigger you scream 'sale' the more footfall you'll enjoy. But it doesn't have to be this way.
At its best, retail can be the most interesting thing you could ever work on. It changes from week to week, you'll never work an anything else that relies on good design quite so much- and it's all based on understanding how people behave - staff as well as customers. You need to find a really good brand proposition that's flexible enough for weekly market shocks, own brand, more projects than I can think of right now and more media too - that's hard, which is why so many do it badly. That's a lot to have to think about, and a great way to learn. You get lots of little projects where you can experiment far more than an FMCG brand where the budget is ploughed into maybe three campaigns a year. You'll be doing something new every week!
And is there anything more admirable than Ikea's'chuck out your chintz' or Sainsbury's'Try something new today'?
This is a summary of something I did for the people at work, it's mostly taken from accompanying notes, so please take it that way, the prose is not exactly Wildean (and there will be typos of course since it was internal and not checked to the Nth degree).
Naturally it has elements of Paco Underhill's 'Why we buy', which is a must read, but it also has the experience of a 2 supermarkets, a bank, 2 furniture retailers and a computer retailer (to start with). Don't feel sorry for me, much of this was fun, I learned quick. And the bits that were not so great taught me a lot about WHAT NOT TO DO!.
First off I’m going to talk about Darwinism. It’s probably the best idea anyone has ever had, and the idea of natural selection is still the winning theory of how we got here.
But the survival of species depends on being able to adapt of you environment, the survival of retailers is quite the opposite:
SUCCESSFUL RETAIL ENVIRONMENTS ADAPT TO THE PEOPLE WHO SHOP THERE.
What follows is the sum knowledge of thousands of hours watching people shop. Not the artificial focus group settings, not asking questions – but anthropology. Studying the person in their natural habitat.
A fair bit will confirm what you already know, but some it may surprise.
We’ll do it in two chunks:
1.The ideal environment
2.
But first, here’s three things to consider. If you go no further, please remember these.
1.Shoppers need space. Bloomingdales discovered ‘but brush syndrome’. Shoppers cannot bear to be even slightly touched from behind. No matter how intently they browse, pressure from behind will make them move on. If you want someone to linger, give them space!
2.Shopping is fun, paying is not. If the transactions are not crisp, if you cannot see an organised checkout, you are very likely to not end up buying. Some people just turn around and leave as soon as they see a busy checkout.
3.Store layout is everything. A supermarket doubled sales of vitamins when they moved them away from the chilled fizzy drinks section. Older vitamin buyers had been rattled by the noisy kids getting the pop. In every case, people will move if they feel uncomfortable with what’s going on nearby.
The logical place to begin is with the retailers themselves.
So what do retailers know? Everything you would think. That’s what they’d tell you. They know how many sales they’ve done, what the profit margin was, how much last weekend was better than this one…and on the whole, that’s about it.
Retailers know little about what really goes on.
THERE IS A DIRECT RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT IN STORE AND HOW MUCH PEOPLE SPEND.
Yet how many retailers know how long people spend in store?
People are more likely to buy if they’ve spoken to a member of staff. Do they know the interception rate?
We’ll see that people hate waiting. Really hate it. Do they know the average speed of transaction? Do they know average time of delivery?
Agencies always talk about target audiences – but do we, or clients really know WHO visits and WHO buys?
Who spends the most?
Until they know stuff like this, they can never really claim to know what’s really going their stores.
And since advertising is harder than ever before, shouldn’t the bit where people actually decide where and how to shop be as good as it can possibly be?
(Russell picture)
Men will have to shop for babies – and take care of them more. Imagine the baby bag, with the bottles and nappies in looking like a gymn bag. Or more mannish baby food (like the way they buy boys miniature football kits before they can crawl!!) Imagine selling moisturiser to men as a health product and selling it next to outdoor gear, or Creatin (bodybuilders are, naturally, very vain). Men's Health is largely a male Cosmo with a very clever name.
Old people hate newfangled stuff, but it’s them who will be able to afford it. Like the people on their own in a café reading, and re-reading the menu - desperate for something else to be interested in.
People walk how they drive – they keep to the left. Not only does signage need to reflect this, it really needs to work at all angles.
Shelves and racks work better at an angle too- you don’t see road signs at 90 degrees of the road.
That goes for packaging too! It’s usually designed to work face on, people rarely look at it that way at first. pakcaging needs to work for every concievable angle!.
One final thing. Shoppers don’t know or care what you’re original intentions were. They’ll mould a shop and its wares into what they want. If you watch them closely, and learn, they can tell you a hell of a lot:
•Like the women who buy men's’ t-shirts for nightshirts.
•Like the men waiting for their partner, sitting on a display because there’s no seats.
•Like the drive thru where customers stop and eat in the car park because the restaurant is offers little privacy.
•Like the people drinking take-away coffee on a bench opposite the shop, enjoying the sun.
•
It’s useful to try and create a pinball effect. People should always be able to sees somewhere else they want to visit. That means going instore, looking at the natural sightlines and interrupting them.
There are other practical things to think about too. When people walk down an aisle and pick up what they want THEY WALK BACK THE WAY THEY CAME. The most popular gear should be where the most people will have to walk the most distance.
But in the end, what a shopper wants, the shopper gets. Maybe in supermarkets there would be more new trial shoppers if there was a grab and go section at the front, for milk and bread. You would then have to seduce them like hell!
By the way, different people shop at different times. First thing it’s Mums. After 5pm it’s workers. Shouldn’t you alter displays and signage to match?
People will not give time to read stuff unless it’s interesting…..or relevant!
……..and people need hands.
It’s rare that people are not carrying something these days. Purse, wallet, briefcase, handbag or even child.
Whatever you can do to free them up, you should. How many times do you go in a supermarket and end up with far more than you thought you would?
How many times have you fumed at a checkout while someone fumbles to pay?
Why would supermarkets discourage hands free shopping with £1 deposits on trolleys?
Stores need to be designed for people with one hand, who may be juggling.
Shopping demographics
NO ONE SHOPS THE SAME, SO IT’S SENSELESS TO TRY AND MAKE THEM DO SO.
That stands for people as individuals – but there’s some basic gender issues to think about first.
Men
Men don’t like shopping. In these liberated times, men still want to get through a store by thinking as little as possible. They look less, hate asking for help and when they find what they want, they want to escape in double quick time.
•If a man tries something on, after investing that amount of time, the only thing stopping purchase is a bad fit.
•While women take ages to choose style and colour and cut…
•Men check price tags less and upgrade more easily.
•They upgrade more easily, since they’re hugely suggestible. They’ll say yes to anything to escape the store!
BUT MEN ARE NOT THE SAME BEASTS THEY WERE…
• They stay single for longer – and get divorced. Women work now and household responsibilities are shared more. So household stuff must appeal to men a little more.
• They’re less likely to go shopping with a list, and they say no to kids less.
•They still get a big thrill from paying though – there’s a big opportunity to sell to a woman or child with a man (Dads spend more on children's clothes and food than Mums)
In most cases though, when a woman goes shopping, men can be a problem. They get bored, they want to get out.
A woman shopping with a friend spends twice as much time in store as woman with a bloke!
So if you want to sell to a woman, give him something to do. Maybe that’s a male crèche, maybe it’s being next door to a man shop.
Men like information, they certainly don’t like talking to staff. Give him something useful to read!
In some cases, you can get the man involved in the shop. Usually, it helps to think of the flipside of the female experience:
•A woman cares about what a sofa looks like. He wants am armrest big enough to balance the remote on. He’ll appreciate how stuff was made. Imagine a furniture store with loads of info on how the stuff got made – he’ll appreciate something to read, and you’re selling to him.
•If they’re both in a supermarket, get him off her back with beertasting.
•Men have to cook these days – wow them with the coolness of the appliances.
•Men want to know about the suction of a hoover – POWER!!!.
•In general, as men lose more machismo, the stuff they buy needs to make up for it.
•
•
…and there’s no point excluding women from traditional male strongholds anymore.
As women buy their own homes, and couples share more tasks, bloke shops need to be more women friendly.
Like B&Q purposely becoming more lifestylee. Like paints becoming a style choice.
People that sell technology should be mindful of this. Women don’t worship gadgets, they want to know how technology can make their life better – and simpler. So a phone, a computer or even a car just has to work, and be practical.
Car retailers do this really badly. The other week, I saw a couple looking at a Ford Ka. The MALE salesman sold to the MALE partner while his other half quietly burned. Single women buy their own cars, and married women still want to choose their own. And how many car dealers are remotely family friendly?
And imagine going into a car servicing garage and being served by a women. What a difference it would make!
Imagine Sony bringing out some laptops that look pretty, with different shells to match the woman’s mood. Imagine an ad campaign lampooning men buying gadgets they don’t need, or really understand?
Children go everywhere these days. Shopping has to be done in family time, so shopping has to be a legitimate leisure pursuit.
So if a store doesn’t look like it welcomes children, it misses out on the parents too. That means aisles wide enough for prams, automatic doors and avoiding steps.
Anything we can do to keep kids happy will pay off. And they can help us sell stuff through pester power.
Just as adult stuff needs to go to eye level, kids stuff needs to be on THEIR level. Kids are the main market for pet treats, so they are best on the bottom shelf.
But if you really want a parent’s attention, occupy the child. That might mean a crèche (but how many parents really want to leave their children with a stranger), it could mean a lollypop, an activity book like they give out on planes, or even video screens from every wall.
In a coffee shop or other places that are BREAKS, anything that will give parents a break from entertaining their child will be very, very, welcome.
Teenagers are another breed altogether though.
Sometimes a retailer wants them around. But force only strengthens resolve. One retailer got loiterers out if its car park by playing classical music!
Unlike the trend for self expression in older people, teenagers want to fit in. They do this through the brands they choose. They are far more expert at spying lies and bad ads too.
The love finding stuff that’s intended for them and not grown ups. They love to browse with friends, but hate being seen with the parent they come back with to buy it. Discreet checkouts and layaway would really help this.
This ‘really for them’ thing can be very powerful. Imagine merchandising for a Lynx competitor that was advice on sexual technique. Or how to pull.
Imagine student bank that gave ‘life lessons’, or a free library.
And while kids don’t want grown ups around, it works the other way too. At all costs, keep stuff for teenagers well away from grown up stuff.
If you're able to read this, you are not the future....The Baby Boomer generation is a new type of old. Unlike their parents, they don’t deny themselves anything. And they certainly don’t want age to get in the way of self gratification.
And thanks to the ageing population it’s them who will have all the cash.
•They look and feel better for their age.
•Retailers will have to adapt to them.
•Eyesight falters at around forty. All our packaging and POS, not to mention websites will have to get bigger.
•Colour gets harder to see. We’ll need more contrast and less dim light.
•We’ll need stores that require less bending and stretching.
•Larger sizes will have to be more easy to reach.
•Mobile phones, DVD remotes, everything will have to get bigger.
•The stuff we sell to young people will have to be made relevant to the old. From trainers replacing old fashioned comfy shoes, to making computers more idiot proof.
•
So that’s the end of part one. That’s the environment made friendly. But what about the stuff that really makes people buy. So far we’ve covered the things that will just make people stay for awhile.
People walk around a store unaware of what they’re doing. But they follow pretty universal rules. In the end, it’s not about what you put in front of people, it’s how they react to what they can see, feel, touch and smell.
In the end, it’s love that makes the retail world go around – not least because we rarely buy for ourselves. Even when we buy something for just us, we have someone else’s image of ourselves in mind. But there are also some specific things that shoppers love to DO:
Touch
We live in a society deprived of tactility. So no wonder unplanned buying depends on what you can touch, smell and see. That’s why the web will never totally replace stores.
Mirrors
These will quite literally stop shoppers in their tracks
Talking
Friends buy more when they shop together. An atmosphere conducive to this helps
Recognition
Any contact with shoppers helps.
Bargains
Not cheapness! Rather the sense of discovering a well kept secret.
They hate:
Too many mirrors
Waiting
Having to ask dumb questions
Goods out of stock
Obscure price tags
Bad service – intimidating, rude,slow, unintelligent, lazy, surly. Bad service can undo everything else you might do well!
Ultimately, if we choose to buy something new, we’re buying into the idea that it’s promising something – and we want to trial it.
If you look at children, they learn by touching. Looking at shoppers, that’s largely the same.
Of course that stands for fabric based stuff, but we pick up lotions and lipstick, to feel what it will be like to dispense. We want to know how it will feel on the skin. When we design packaging, maybe part of the brief should be about FEEL.
•You ‘heft’ a hammer before buying.
•You put a bag over your shoulder before purchase.
•You pick up a bottle of wine to feel the glass, and the shape of the bottle.
Ultimately, if it’s high involvement, you need to investigate. So while no one needs to trial own Carling, they want to taste expensive Armenian beer.
90% of new US grocery products fail – mostly because no one tries them. In food, and beauty, sampling is everything.
What’s the point of wrapping quality paper or bog roll in plastic? How are you supposed to feel the quality?
Imagine impregnating baby powder packaging with the smell, or shampoo.
Imagine new beds smelling of fresh linen.
We all have a healthy scepticism these days. We want to put stuff to the test.
•How many computer store let you really use a computer before you buy it? They should.
•People always pick up books and feel them in book shops.
•We all squeeze bread.
For a woman trying on clothes should be the best bit. But most changing rooms are soulless and a drudge. Imagine what a difference even fresh flowers would make.
Shopping conversion goes up 100% with contact with staff AND a visit to the changing room. So it makes sense to make them inviting.
How damaging to sales is it to keep digital cameras behind a glass wall?
Why can’t phone stores have phones you can play with and make a call on? Or test the download speed?
Imagine if HMV gave you fully loaded Ipods to wander around with.
Imagine being able to trial a bed in private.
Or watch TV on a sofa.
Shoppers need to know it’s okay to touch by the way. Sometimes a store can be TOO neat.
And imagine a supermarket handing out free samples of stuff in the checkout, as opposed to interrupting the flow of their shop….or those double glazing salesmen leaving something to read here, where people want a distraction!
In the end these are the big three things to think about:
1.Design (premises)
2.Merchandising
3.Operations (staff)
They are TOTALLY INTERELATED. Whatever you do in one area impacts on the other.
So the policy in Gap of keeping everything neatly folded needs well trained staff to do it – and takes up a lot of time.
In supermarkets, a decision to leave checkouts sparsely manned means a big effort through POS and leaflets to keep people occupied.
This means that people involved in one area need to consider the others carefully. Architects and design agencies need to consider staffing levels, and each other’s jobs! And visit the bloody store.
Designers might light rich, dark shades, but they show wear and tear very quickly in brightly lit stores.
Most stores have minimum staff these days to keep margins low,. How can merchandising lighten their load? Or architecture? Like self service checkouts, or shelves that require less tidying (imagine keeping aspirin in bins under a big blow up of the label).
Shoppers hate waiting – and the funny thing about waiting is that it doesn’t conform to Greenwich Mean Time. After 90 seconds of waiting, human perceptions of time start to go awry. If you ask a shopper who’s been waiting 2 minutes how long they’ve been there, they’re likely to tell you 4.
That’s why drive thru’s work so well. They feel faster because you tend to be moving. Just like ‘short cuts’ when you’re driving. There are ways to bend time the other way though..
Interaction
Time goes quicker after you’ve spoken to an employee – and telling them the wait will be finite and controlled helps too.
Orderliness
Seeing that a queue is crisp and fair. Worrying about which queue will be the the quickest does not help
Companionship
It helps to have someone to talk to. Target waiting lone shoppers first.
Diversion
ANYTHING. Free samples, something to read.
And stopping shoplifting can HARM profit. If it stops trial and keeps people waiting, is it really saving you money?
Finally, checkouts are the FINAL impression. They need to be as dazzling as they can be but….
Hotels make checking out a living hell!
The co-op makes food buyers wait for people buying lottery tickets!!!
But when you get to the heart of shopping there are some magic acts that can encourage people to buy without really thinking about it.
1.We’ve been over having shelves facing people when they walk already.
2.But adjacencies work a treat. Things that go together in life, but don’t seem to get put together in shops – like fragrances and clothes, chocolate and books, books with coffee. Belts should match shoes – and women notice hair and shoes on men first!! Is lipstick supposed to go with clothes?
What about meat with correct herbs? Garlic with lamb? Healthy stuff never gets put with full fat – but surely a slice of cake is a reward for a salad?
By the way, in cafes, crisps and drinks should always go after the sandwiches – they choose and sandwich and THEN what to have with it.
Imagine powertools in a supermarket paint section.
Or imagine POS that was useful as well as ‘selly’. Like a spice section that would tell you what the spices were like- and what they would add to a meal – or why they may be healthy. Imagine some POS that took the place of what’s too embarrassing to talk about – like men buying underwear for men, or a baby shop that gave free guides to kids – for parents who won’t admit they haven’t a clue.
SEDUCE THEM.
No banks really help demystify finances – yet we’re under more pressure to decide for ourselves than ever.
Most people don’t know how a car works – and haven’t a clue what to say to a garage. Good literature could take the staff out of the equation.
The INTERNET will be no substitute for the original.
As we’ve seen, too many purchasing decisions rely on the senses for us to ever do away with shops.
This is a whole section in itself, but we’ll cover off four things.
1.If you’re a retailer and you have a website it should do one of the following:
•Promote your image – offer some sort of brand experience.
•Maximise information about you and what you sell.
•Be a scaled down capsule version of your store.
•Offer a wide choice far beyond the limitations of a shop.
2. If it’s an e-commerce site, in essence you’re selling an online shop. That means all the environmental cues we’ve covered apply to a website!
3. Websites do not have to be independent of a store! Supermarkets are good at covering off staples online – so that people come in to shop for the sexy stuff.
Imagine DFS having something online that lets you see a few styles in your room- and makes the instore experience about feel and comfort.
4. If you’re going to have a web only business, it helps to maximise the IDEAS and added value online. Niches and specialists work very well. In the end, people will shop online to:
•Grab and go – they know exactly what the want
•Browse to waste time
•Search for stuff you cannot find on the high street – that is THE value of Ebay.
•Get in touch without a call centre
•Actually get info on what they’re thinking of buying in a shop – and find themselves completing anyway.
Choosing for yourself is hard - and lists online work very, very well.
People may like to think they choose for themselves, but people like to buy popular stuff, it’s simply less risk. That’s how Richard and Judy’s Book Club works so well.
But there is no reason why they shouldn’t work in a shop. That’s why record shops make sure you can always see the top tens.
So there we have it. The topline results of thousands of hours watching people shop.
These are good guides to follow and hopefully, some food for thought.
But don’t relax. Don’t sit back and think, “We’ve cracked it”. Even if we have.
Shopping does not stand still. Granted, humans don’t evolve quickly enough to make us worry too much about environmental changes.
Yet most 1970’s retailers are extinct. So will most 2000’s retailers. Who will die out? Will Starbucks disappear? Will Primark? Will DFS?
Shopping follows social change – and if it doesn’t, it dies. So it’s futile looking at the competition as the arch enemy – it’s LIFE!.
One final thing. Watts Wacker, futurologist du jour says, “Men are becoming exotic housepets”. Women are ruling the roost in every sense of the word. Right now we have to pay attention to how women want to live – or show men how to deal with this.
And that’s enough to be going on with now. Hope it helps.
In the end, shoppers will stay longer and therefore spend more in an amenable environment.
There are some hard and fast rules for this:
Give them a landing strip
Imagine someone rushing from the car park, or off the pavement. They are focused on the door – so imagine how much of the window display they take in!. For the first ten yards, they are getting their bearings. Any information above ‘go here first’ is a waste of time and money. But a friendly hello works a treat. You could take the landing strip outside of course…
Judging point of sale in boardroom is a waste of time – and store layout is everything
The only way to do it is put yourself if the same position as the people who will see it. That means going in store before and after you start. Will it work if you’re walking at speed? Will that pass the time in a queue?
POS is there to help people navigate around a store and tell them what they light like to investigate. It should mirror how customers move about the store – where are the natural pauses? Where are they bored and want something to read?
There is no need to give all the info at once, you can give it bit by bit as they walk around – seduce them!
By the way, mirrors slow people down!
There are some great places for leaflets and detail. Always when you’re waiting. Think of a café where people stand and wait for their order. Or people eating on their own who want a distraction (think of how we read the back of cereal packets). 75% of people re-read the menu while they wait for their order. And the self serve condiments bit is great to start people thinking about the next course!
But the checkout is THE place to give people a distraction – in any store!
i've actually read the whole post. It's absolutely great!
Posted by: Planner's Delight | September 05, 2007 at 06:25 PM
Thanks for the great info Andrew, really right on. I'm a woman who hates most kinds of shopping, so I've spent a lot of time thinking about the ways I'd improve retail spaces, many of which you mentioned. One thing that amazes me, particularly about grocery stores, is the lack of crossmerchandising around holidays, special events, etc. For instance, stores know full well (or should) that in the US many of us are going to have pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. So why are the ingredients always scattered all over the damn store?! If they're trying to drag me deeper into the store, why not at least give me a list of the likely pie ingredients and their aisle numbers when I step in the door? And what about the ramifications of this new research (http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2007/05/03/71831), which says that different ceiling heights affect consumer thinking in different ways? Are any stores paying attention to their shoppers??!!?
Sorry, that was a rant. But I feel much better now. :)
Posted by: Anitra | September 05, 2007 at 06:57 PM
thanks both and rant away Anitra, it's all good
Posted by: np | September 05, 2007 at 08:15 PM
I think I'm going to take a note of every time and place I look to read something out of boredom (which happens a lot).
Looking back at it will be a goldmine for ideas.
Posted by: David Mortimer | September 07, 2007 at 06:03 PM
Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!
Posted by: writing up dissertation | June 06, 2009 at 05:20 AM
Blogs are so interactive where we get lots of informative on any topics nice job keep it up !!
Posted by: Dissertation Examples | July 01, 2009 at 09:15 AM