What’s new in shopper experience research? (Part 3)
Last Oct. 31, we made two promises.
One was to give current examples of observation studies about consumer purchase and usage behavior experience for store marketing.
The other was to explain why there is this resurgence in store marketing and store marketing research.
Our examples in the two previous columns were from the 1970s.
Getting examples from the past was meant to show that customer experience research and store marketing research have been with us for generations.
So what about in today’s setting?
The first example is an observation study of purchase experience in a Bench store in Glorietta, Makati.
I can give examples based only on what my MBA students uncovered as they completed my elective course on marketing research.
I cannot cite examples from my survey research clients as I signed non-disclosure agreements with them.
At this observed Bench outlet, my students reported that 7 to 8 out of 10 shoppers would first stop and look at the display window before entering. After going around the shop, from one shelf display to the next, 4-5 out of 10 would buy something.
The rest left without buying anything.
My students also reported that they saw how store service staff kept note of what shoppers bought, how long they browsed through a display, what questions they asked, and whether they were shopping alone or with somebody else.
When these students first presented to their classmates, I called attention to the fact that there was no information about the 5-6 out of the 10 observed customers who left the store without buying anything.
So I asked the group to go back and interview those non-buying shoppers.
When the students came back, their report said that most of those shoppers who spent time before the window display and then entered and spent time going around but left without having bought anything just said that they didn’t find what they thought the Bench store had inside. Asked what they were looking for, they said shoes, socks, men’s cosmetics and perfume, and even confectioneries.
Almost a year later, my own visit to a Bench outlet in Town Center in Alabang revealed that Bench was carrying shoes and socks and perfume.
Here’s another simple but insight-rich example. It’s again about a consumer’s purchase experience.
I guess because of Paco Underhill’s best-selling book on “The Science of Shopping” that focused on the consumer’s shopping experience and less on usage experience, there have been more studies on purchase—rather than usage—experience.
This second example was an observation study in an Abenson appliance store. This was when National first came out with its airconditioner brand.
In their report, my students said they overheard two consumers looking for an airconditioner asking a sales assistant about how the National airconditioner sounded like.
The sales assistant was smart enough to bring the inquiring shoppers to the National airconditioner in the store that was switched on.
When they got to the National airconditioner, the two inquiring shoppers listened intently. Two or three minutes later, one of the two shoppers was heard saying to the other: “Pare galing! Humming lang sya. Hindi banda.” (Hey friend, it’s terrific. It’s just humming. It’s not like there’s a band playing.”
Presumably that was how Abenson sales assistants later positioned and sold National aironditioners.
We now proceed to our second promise. That’s to explain why there’s this resurgence in store marketing and store marketing research.
Several reasons have been cited.
One of the most mentioned is about how the retail store has realized that the final link between supply and demand for goods was in their hands. Or in marketing terms, the consumer decision to purchase and the producer’s attempt to sell happens in the retail store. That explains why there is this resurgence in store marketing and store marketing research. If, for one reason or another, the retail store decides to deny space or even narrow the space for a consumer good, it will have little or no sales. That most certainly is true.
But what about the store marketing research end of the story?
From the side of research, since the mid 1980s, both doers and users of market research have talked about the idea of “single source research.”
The idea was in response to questions that mostly users and buyers of market research have asked such as this.
“Why do I have to buy research on my brand’s TVC viewership rating from one source and my brand’s retail audit score from another? Why not from just one source?” they asked.
Similarly, a research buyer asked: “Why is my research agency doing my brand’s research regarding consumer purchasing experience in the store while another agency does the research on my brand’s home usage experience? Why two agencies? Why not just one?”
The big picture should show the consumer’s total experience with a brand before, during, and after purchase as well as before, during, and after that brand’s usage, and then back to purchase over again. Why can’t one research source take care of all consumer experience insighting? There’s economy in that idea not to mention research efficiency and effectiveness.
In a previous column, I wrote about failed attempts in the 1990s to do “single source research” by AC Nielsen in the United States and IRI in Europe. That’s more than a decade ago.
We should soon see a revival of the idea in a better and more innovative version.
(Keep your questions coming. Send them to me at [email protected].)
