6 Strategies to Win Shoppers’ Hearts by Bonnie Janzen

Retailers face a myriad of challenges, including omnichannel delivery to numerous locations/partners, the need to get product innovations to market swiftly, as well as all the supply chain disruptions over the past few years.

Therefore, it is crucial that retailers keep an enduring place in the hearts and minds of consumers. How can retailers position their brands and retail operations for success in a hypercompetitive and extremely fast-moving environment?

When consulting with our retail clients, we focus on strategies in these key areas:

1. Customer Experience: What delights your shoppers and your prospects? What do you offer that is truly unique? What does your brand and retail experience promise? What do you offer that customers can customize or make their own? What can you deliver to shoppers that satisfies as many relevant senses as possible—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. How can you deliver those experiences in-store, online, with an app, through virtual e-commerce, and by augmented reality?
2. Product Experience: What are all the ways that the customer would like to interact with the product: in-person, by watching a video, by reading reviews, or by seeing images? Can you provide a tech solution that makes it easier for customers to try out the products with less effort? How can they use VR or AR to see the product in their home, or picture apparel on their bodies, etc., which might motivate them to buy the product right now? VR and AR might also minimize returns for wrong sizes or because the product “just didn’t look right” when the customer tried it on at home.
3. Pricing Strategy: It is important to determine and continually test the optimal pricing strategy. This includes finding the items that shoppers are most likely to compare or price-shop and making sure you are competitive on these items. Then, it is important to keep tabs on the total amount of the typical basket for your average shopper. If there are 8 or 10 items that are frequently purchased, and each has increased by 5%, the shopper will feel significant overall sticker shock at checkout. It is important to conduct choice modeling or other pricing research to better position your key product lines with optimal pricing, so that customers do not experience “sticker shock.”
4. Merchandising: What products and categories do you “own”? In which areas do you excel? How can you push the envelope to get new and interesting products to market faster? How can you get consumer feedback sooner to improve decision-making for your buyers and merchandisers? How can you make buying these products and categories easier or more fun for the shopper? You might create packaging that drives the shopper to turn the package over and read the details/facts. How can you seamlessly integrate online and in-person experiences to enhance each other? How do you also manage the inventory and supply chain to minimize out-of-stocks?
5. Delivery Optimization: How can you deliver the product to the customer faster and in a more convenient way? Should it be pick-up, delivery to store, delivery to home or office, to the jobsite for construction, or to a nearby store where they will be shopping for something else? You should interact with the customer at the time and with the method they prefer, such as in-store, with Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple Siri, via mobile app, or via company website. How can you fulfill a consumer need even before the customer has requested it? Automated refill or email to remind them? If you are offering a new product or brand, how do you disrupt the “reorder” where the shopper automatically refills a previous shopping list? How can you generate significant trial among your target audience?
6. Communication: What is the most helpful and useful way that the customer would like to interact with the retailer? It’s the shopper who makes the rules about their interactions with a retailer, not vice versa. Is it via app, website, Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Siri, or do they like a choice of multiple ways to communicate with a retailer? Is there a way to anticipate that, when the customer is searching online for specific products or events, the marketing campaign would be perfectly timed to tell them about the products just as they recognize their need? Communication on all media, websites, and apps, including mass and social, must stay consistent with the brand strategy and image.

Final Thoughts

Identifying the best methodology to uncover the most meaningful consumer insights at every step of the customer journey is vital. Customers know great experiences, authentic brands, and exceptional products when they experience them. Pricing strategy and communication also has to be consistent with branding.

The world of retail is fast-paced and ever-changing—consumer insights techniques and solutions must change as well. Based on the right consumer insights, retailers can continue to evolve and develop successful strategies! In the final analysis, it all comes down to this: how can you innovate in the retail space to win shoppers’ hearts?

Your Shopper Research Expert

Bonnie Janzen , President

Bonnie helps drive growth for client companies based on strategic consumer insights, innovation, and analytics to shape customer experience, marketing campaigns and new product development programs.

Shopper insights and retail is a major focus of the work she and the Decision Analyst team does in North America and globally.