What should the Pied Pier of Retail play?

It's no new news that the lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the country has greatly affected retail business. With the easing of restrictions, there are signs of recovery, yet most shoppers seem to restrict themselves to 'purposeful' shopping for the store visits. On the other hand, online sales are on a high, festive sales on e-commerce shot up as shoppers loosened their purse strings unleashing the pent-up demand.

There's no denying the shopping experience has truly transformed over time and the change has accelerated due to the pandemic. However, it's important to appreciate that the in-store shopping experience is irreplaceable to any online alternative. At least as of yet. Retailers invest heavily in in-store interventions to influence shoppers and often these are critical brand differentiation. The online world often irons out these unique elements and puts all brands in one pile. Thus bringing shoppers back to the stores continues to be vital.

A little bit of understanding of how our brains are wired helps to understand what we can do to manipulate them. I'm being a nerd for a wee bit here, but please stay with me.

The prefrontal cortex of the brain contributes to a variety of executive functions, including predicting the consequences of one's actions and anticipating events in the environment. The role of the nucleus accumbens is to process and analyse the rewarding and reinforcing stimuli. Its operation is based chiefly on two essential neurotransmitters: dopamine, which promotes desire, and serotonin which affects satiety. The amygdala is part of the limbic system of the brain, which is involved with emotions and other reactions to stimuli. Anxiety occurs when the amygdala senses environmental stressors that stimulate a fight or flight response.

Stepping out = chances of getting the virus = fear = trigger for the Amygdala. What happens is known as an Amygdala hijack - the emotional information travels directly to the amygdala without engaging the neocortex, or higher brain regions. This causes a strong emotional response that precedes more rational thought. In plain English, we ‘freak out’.

Here, the Nucleus Accumbens and the brain’s reward system can come to the rescue. The neurotransmitters Dopamine = sense of accomplishment, Serotonin = feeling valued. And these together combat the fear and anxiety.

Thus call to action for retailers: elevating ‘reward anticipation’ and dialling up ‘value’ 

Store environment - Preempting safety: Ensuring that shoppers feel confident of stepping in with no contact shopping being communicated proactively. Keeping transactions transparent to make shoppers feel in control.

Staff support - Stimulating nostalgia: Making shoppers feel taken care of, the key aspect they have missed in the functional shopping during lockdown – making them feel invited back to the stores.

Relevant promotions - Thrill of the hunt: Heightening the anticipation by triggering the motivation to search for coveted items. Thus not making all details of available promotions obvious pre-store.

Communication - Reinstating value: Shoppers are likely to be more discerning and ready to loosen purse strings for tangible benefits. Educating them of RTBs and taking them up the value chain. 

Wish we had someone like the Pied Piper of Hamlin to lead the lost shoppers to the stores. Since we don't, we would have to work slighter harder to bring them back.