When you walk the retail rounds you always see appetising displays, innovative layouts, compelling new packaging, attention grabbing promotions or just truly “must have” items for sale. In a few cases you can stop and talk to the store owner, floor manager or department head and find out who did what and why, and say “Great work, that really does create a great shopper experience” or, perhaps, “As a shopper, I like what you’ve done with this.”
However, most times it’s not possible to talk to the merchant who saw the beautiful bathrobe at a trade show in Frankfurt and brought it to the store you’re in, or to shake the hand of the young packaging expert who put organic soup into tough, clear, biodegradable re-sealable plastic. These people rarely work in the local store.
Personally, I would like to shake the hand of the 21 year old who designed Harley Davidson’s 883 Iron, a motor cycle that just made that whole brand relevant to aspirational 20-somethings. But I won’t be able to because he doesn’t work in my local dealership.
Last week at dinner celebrating a friend’s 40th, I did have the chance to shake the hand of the owner and creative director of a company responsible for one of the clearest and most successful pieces of display material I have seen in a long time. It was so good that three years ago my company used it as an example, or the catalyst, with which to re-shape the go-to-market strategy for a major telco.
This man’s point of sale displays had managed to take a complicated technology service and simplify it, taking the product out of the box and allowing customers to use it to surf the net.
The POS was large, bright and simple, with white and green colour fields that were very different to any other in the wireless internet space at that time. The displays “spoke” to the shopper in the store in a clear, simple and confident manner.
Better yet, of great importance in the technology retailing space, the displays provided a simple product knowledge resource that store staff could refer to and interact with when answering shopper enquiries about wireless internet.
The POS was so clear, so simple and so right for the shopping environment, that this small wireless internet company was increasing market share quickly, one store and one sale at a time.
Why? Because shoppers walked in with a need, and could either serve themselves using the displays and technology in store, or be helped quickly by an informed retail sales person. The sale time dropped, the time in store dropped, the average sales revenue for the department grew, and all around what had previously been an involved, complex and high value sales transaction was simplified.
As a result, this very impressive situation for one particular brand was wreaking havoc on its competitors, including my telco client. My client’s market share was falling, and so we had to react.
We innovated our client’s displays. We applied the learning from the competitor’s brilliant new displays and technology into the telco’s tired stores, lifting the customer experience again to a competitive level. Very quickly sales stabilised, then again grew, and my client’s market share once again began to grow.
Sadly for this dinner party acquaintance of mine, his client didn’t see the value (or competitive threat) that his innovative displays and technology were having in the marketplace, despite the fact that it catalysed his competitors to react. Soon after, the retailer changed suppliers.
Perhaps they hadn’t spent enough time out in retail, thinking like a shopper, experiencing the store as a shopper would or talking to the shoppers and store staff on the front line. If they had, they would have seen the value he was bringing to the customer and continued with his services, asking him for more. This up and coming retailer would have stayed ahead and continued to shave market share off the bigger retailers.
I gather, from our recent dinner conversation, that they are back talking. It’s a small world.
In his role as CEO of CROSSMARK, Kevin Moore looks at the world of retailing from grocery to pharmacy, bottle shops to car dealers, corner store to department stores. In this insightful blog, Kevin covers retail news, ideas, companies and emerging opportunities in Australia, NZ, the US and Europe. His international career in sales and marketing has seen him responsible for business in over 40 countries, which has earned him grey hair and a wealth of expertise in international retailers and brands. CROSSMARK Asia Pacific is Australasia’s largest provider of retail marketing services, consulting to and servicing some of Australasia’s biggest retailers and manufacturers.
Smart Company is the leading online publication in Australia for free news, information and resources catering to Australia’s entrepreneurs, small and medium business owners and business managers.
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