Consumers pay more attention to circulars than other advertising

Two reports highlight the growing importance of in-store marketing. The first (noted by Progressive Grocer) was released by Vertis Communications two weeks ago and noted that, "47 percent of Americans cited inserts and circulars as the most effective, a 9 percent increase since 2003. Also according to the report, inserts and circulars have surpassed TV advertising as the medium most able to draw consumer attention." Further, "Forty-three percent of those surveyed said TV advertising interested them the most, but that was a 10 percent decline from five years ago. Meanwhile, 38 percent of respondents thought newspaper advertising best grabbed their attention, down from 45 percent in 2003."

Helping to confirm those results are new findings from BIGresearch that also point to the increasing importance of marketing at retail. Across all demographic groups, 27.4% of those surveyed said in-store promotions influenced their decisions, up 0.5% from last year. That compares favorably to TV/Broadcast at 27.9%, though still ranks behind traditional forms of retail promotion like newspaper inserts (30.5%) and word of moutn (42.6%). Of course, the influence of newspaper inserts have also been falling steadily the last few years, and plunged -4.5% last year lone (the influence of word of mouth promotion remained steady).

Tags: retail marketing, in-store advertising

Reenergizing Starbucks

You know a company is good when the mere suggestion that a tiny fraction of its stores may be closing in the next 12 months is taken as a sign of general economic malaise. After all, if it's not the force of the global economy slowing down, how else might Starbucks explain the sudden deceleration of their growth? Surely it can't have something to do with their expensive, mediocre coffee (especially compared with much cheaper fare from McDonald's), right?

Well, according to this article in Business Week, maybe it actually does. I know, I know, this would mean that throngs of Wall St analysts and FOX News personnel would be wrong, but apparently CEO Howard Schultz thinks that yes, maybe Starbucks has been doing a few things wrong the past couple of years. Business Week's Matt Vella does a great job of outlining the current problems facing the company (the biggest of which being deteriorating customer experiences at existing stores, and a playing field crowded by the likes of Dunkin' Donuts, Burger King and McDonald's), but also notes some possible solutions:

Brian Collins, chief creative officer of New York's Collins design research firm, thinks "technology seems underleveraged at Starbucks." Collins says the company could better use its digital resources to learn the tastes of regular customers. "Somebody call Facebook," he jokes, suggesting the company should create social networking tools to foster communities and facilitate social interaction at individual Starbucks stores.

Others, however, remain adamant that it's the coffee, not the technology, that will see Starbucks through. Geoff Vuleta, CEO of New York innovation consultancy Fahrenheit 212, says he has a radical solution that will solve the chain's problems even as it soothes Wall Street's jangled nerves: Open a chain of microstores devoted solely to making coffee. "No travel cups, no music, no machines, just amazing beans and a narrow range of the best-in-the-world coffee drinks," he envisions. Such microstores, he says, could hone the Starbucks experience—and result in a smaller, less costly footprint than regular stores which change at a slower pace. Jeneanne Rae, president of the Alexandria (Va.) service innovation consultancy Peer Insight, agrees, saying, "They can't move away from the essence of the brand; they have to focus on getting back to the basics."

I've spoken to folks at Starbucks a number of times about kiosk and digital signage projects, and in general their opinion has been that less is always more, especially when it comes to any form of 3rd party advertising. While I'm generally bullish on the use of in-store technology, I think the idea of microstores that focus on a few key coffee products is the best idea of the bunch. While admittedly it's going to be tough cramming lots of Starbucks style and panache into a couple hundred square feet, working with a small environment and limited product range will allow the company to identify and enhance the most core elements of the Starbucks brand in a cost effective fashion. These findings, of course, can then travel back up the chain into their regular format stores quickly and with little risk, since they essentially will have been vetted by hardcore Starbucks fans frequenting the microsites.

There's lots of speculation as to what direction the firm will take. But we're going to have to wait until March 19th to find out the truth: that's when CEO Schulz will announce his plans for rescuing the company from mediocrity.

Tags: starbucks, store experience, microstores

Will lickable ads help take product experience home?

This is one of those stories that's a little too bizarre not to mention. According to this Wall Street Journal article, Welch's is taking out full page ads in People magazine this month that feature a lickable patch that supposedly tastes like its grape juice. Innovative, gross, or both? You decide:

Marketers are excited about the prospects for lickable ads, but also have to deal with the "ick" factor. Since magazines are often passed from reader to reader (think doctors' offices) there is a good chance that saliva could be left on the ad. Readers are supposed to peel off the entire sticker on the Welch's ad before licking, says First Flavor, the company that developed the technology used in the ad. If someone doesn't rip off the whole sticker, First Flavor says, the flap can't reseal, giving people an easy way to know whether the ad has already been licked....

Well, that addresses at least one concern. And kudos to the WSJ for pulling out perhaps the worst example -- sharing lickable ads at a doctor's office -- to make sure readers think twice about whether the idea of a magazine ad that goes in your mouth is really a good idea. However, Welch's seems to be excited by the prospect of offering prospective customers a taste of their products without having to get them into a store first. At least, they certainly seem to have put a lot of effort into the campaign:

[Welch's], which is owned by a cooperative of grape growers, says it went to great lengths to make sure the ad tasted good and that the ingredients used in the lickable strip met safety guidelines laid out by the Food and Drug Administration. It says it spent weeks conducting consumer taste tests and enlisted more than 50 company employees to try the lickable ad. The ad was created by WPP Group's JWT.

Print ads present a unique challenge for marketers because they don't typically have "sound or motion," the two things that tend to make ads stand out, says Paul Caine, president of Time Inc.'s Entertainment Group, which includes People magazine. Adding taste is one way to create a new way to grab reader attention, he says. People has experimented with adding sound chips to some print ads.

Welch's says the ad costs a couple hundred thousand dollars more to create than a normal national print ad because it had to pay to make the sticker plus an additional fee to People for the added production costs. The ad will appear in the Feb. 18 issue of the magazine, which has a circulation of about 3.6 million.

Getting people to use multiple senses to process ads is a good way to build a stronger connection with consumers, ad experts say. "It's hard to forget whose brand you are licking," says Lisa Haverty, a cognitive scientist who works in the marketing field.

Of course as we've all talked about before, being able to really interact with products is one of the big draws of brick-and-mortar retailers today, and that will likely remain the case for some time (even if lickable ads do become all the rage). But it's pretty cool to see a company recognize that their print advertisements were only so effective, and trying out some out-of-the-box solutions to see if they could bring benefits traditionally associated with the in-store environment into a consumer's home.

As for me... well, I think I'm going to avoid any ads that have a "your tongue goes here" sticker on them. At least for now :)

Tags: advertising, lickable, Welch's

Guessing the impact of mobile media at retail

I've been watching a conversation at RetailWire about mobile device integration develop for a few days. It seems like the data is finally in and most opinions are settled, and I wanted to draw some attention to what the folks in the discussion -- arguably some of the better-informed, savvy retail analysts and consultants out there -- are saying about the future of mobile phones and devices for the typical retailer. To begin with, Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor for the website Retail TouchPoints, asked what seemed like a simple enough question: Within the next five years, what percentage of Americans will have used mobile devices as part of their shopping experience?

Surprisingly, as you can see from the chart, 40% of those who responded think that within five years, at least 60% of shoppers will be using mobile phones to aid and improve their experiences. Almost another 30% of respondents think that it 40-60% of shoppers will do so. No matter how you slice it, these people think that mobile integration is going to be big, soon.

I'm not quite so sure. Yes, I've had a WAP-capable phone since 1999, and I clearly remember trying to do some comparison shopping while at a Barnes & Noble store. Most clearly, I remember the bewildered look of the clerk as I tried to explain that bn.com was selling the same book for less, and I wanted the lower price. Needless to say, the five or six lines of text on the tiny black-and-white screen wasn't the best visual aid to help make a compelling argument.

Anyway, the point is that I've been hoping for better use of mobile devices by retailers for a while. And despite nearly a decade of technological advances, trying to use mobile in a store today isn't much different than it was in 1999. Sure, the mobile Internet is now faster, prettier, and generally more like the regular Internet than ever before (heck, on an iPhone it is the real Internet). But very few are using their devices to try and connect the virtual and real worlds, which I think is a major component of all of these retail-oriented programs I've been reading about and waiting for.

Will mobile devices become a big part of the shopping experience? Sure. We all have them. They keep getting more useful (we can use them as phones, computers, GPS tracking systems, and even payment devices right now). And for the most part, they work pretty well. But in 5 years I expect things to look much the same as they do now: people carrying around gadgets, stores talking about using said gadgets to get better access to the customer and provide better service, and deployments of useful and usable in-store mobile integration systems still very few and far between.

Tags: store experience, retail media, mobile marketing

Will Starbucks's $1 cup o' joe help or hurt?

So by now of course everyone has heard that after besting Starbucks in the taste category (according to Consumer Reports, at least), McDonald's is planning to bring barristas and high-end coffee machines to a good number of franchise locations this year and next. Gearing up for the new competition, Starbucks has decided on a decidedly low-tech approach: compete on price. While the company has always offered an off-menu "short" coffee (what everyone else would just call "small") for those who knew to ask, they'll now be pushing the product for a mere dollar or so as a test in a number of key locations. As Visual Store tells us:

"The test will be conducted in many of its Seattle-area stores, though the retailer did not say how many stores are part of it, whether it’s considering a similar promotion for any other products or whether any new test markets are on the horizon.

"A Starbucks spokeswoman said the test 'is not indicative of any new business strategy.' Among its rivals in the suddenly heated-up coffee wars, McDonald’s sells a 12-ounce cup of premium roast for $1.07 and Dunkin' Donuts sells a 10-ounce cup for $1.39. Starbucks' normal price for the 'short' cup had been $1.50.

"'Testing is a way of life for us, as we are constantly looking for new ways to connect with the customer and provide the best Starbucks experience,' the spokeswoman said."

Considering that McDonald's is known for low-cost fare (on top of having great-tasting coffee, apparently, I wonder if this approach is something that could actually work for Starbuck's. On the plus side, their product has virtually zero marginal cost -- I mean, how much can a few ounces of plain ol' coffee cost to make, especially when the company controls the entire supply chain and manufacturing process.

On the other hand, though, as many people go to Starbucks for the atmosphere and image as they do to feed their caffeine addictions. For them, making the shops extra-crowded with lines full of people waiting for their $1 cups might make the trip less enticing.

Having started out upmarket, my guess is that trying to grab a larger slice of the low-end market is at best not going to generate a lot of additional income, and at worst could alienate their core customer demographic or even sully their finely-honed brand image.

Tags: starbucks, retail media, marketing at retail

Remodel your living space, Apple style

I saw this article at Advertising Lab and had to share: apparently the folks at oobject investigated a number of the products in-use at many Apple stores, tracked down the suppliers that made them, and put together a list on the web for those of us with slightly less free time :) If you're planning to remodel soon and have tastes that skew towards neo-Scandinavian minimalism, this might be a good source of ideas for you.

Of course, it's also possible that just a few of those Baleri Italia chairs will be enough to break the bank :)

Tags: apple, visual merchandising, store design

IBM touts tech as the key to customer experience

Via David Polinchock at Brand Experience Labs comes a new research paper published by IBM entitled "how immersive technology can revitalize the shopping experience." Given IBM's role in providing back-end software, POS systems and interactive kiosks to a huge swath of retailers across the globe the insights from the paper are not exactly startling (technology -> better personalization -> improved customer experience). But one line I found particularly noteworthy was:

"Truly immersive experiences—which connect with shoppers on an
emotional level through personalized dialogues and give them greater
control over the shopping experience—are the new frontier in retailing."

After all, that can pretty much be done without any (modern) technology. In fact, the best examples of an emotional connection, personalized dialogs and immersive environments that I've experienced have all come from interactions in small shops that don't use high-tech gadgetry and in some cases don't even have an electronic cash register. Of course, that experience doesn't typically translate well into the modern retail era of huge megamarts and suburban sprawl, and that's certainly where IBM is focusing its attention with this report. One thing I will agree with, though, is that retailers must continue to evolve their experience if they want to stay relevant and competitive. As IBM notes:

"Walt Disney said, 'whenever I go on a ride, I'm always thinking of what's wrong with the thing and how it can be improved.' Disney knew: you must constantly improve the experience in order to stay relevant."

The particular tenet holds true regardless of a retailer's size -- the mom & pop shop has to continually refine their experience to keep customers loyal and happy, just as the big box guys and department stores do. IBM's take, of course, is that with the right technology, even the biggest retailers can create the same kind of personalized environment and custom-tailored atmosphere that small retailers use to their advantage to woo shoppers looking for some added attention.

Tags: customer experience, shopping experience

More retailers discover the benefits of in-store TV

Promo magazine has put together a piece that focuses on a handful of retailers and their experience with in-store TV. According to the article, "About 630,000 TV screens are now housed in 97,000 U.S. retail stores, estimates PowerPact, a consumer marketing agency. That number is projected to grow by 20% a year."

Obviously, this is good news. But even more interesting is the fact that "hipper" stores like Borders (whose in-store TV developments we wrote about in early December), Ecko Unltd and Limited Too are following in the steps of Wal-Mart, who already has 120,000 screens according to Promo. It's even more reassuring that these retailers are working to develop unique content for the in-store TV's instead of just settling for glorified versions of late-night infomercials.

According to the article, "Ecko Unltd teamed up with Channel M to launch 'ecko TV' last October. It uses short-form content -- everything from sports and shout-outs from celebrities -- to 'stop people in their tracks,' says Eric Hebel, president and COO of Channel M."

This is exactly the kind of approach that all companies should take when developing in-store TV project plans: make it eye-catching and entertaining above all else. If a customer stops to watch a video because they are genuinely interested in its content, there's a better chance of the content's message being imparted (rather than if the customer is aware that they are shamelessly being sold a product and decide not to even glance at the screens).

The article also gives lip service to a critic of this kind of advertising: "'It is an intrusion,' says Susan Linn, the group's co-founder. 'This is part of a targeted device by corporations to get brands in our face 24 hours, seven days a week. It may benefit marketers, but it doesn't do the rest of us a lot of good.'"

I don't buy this argument. After all, we are talking about in-store advertising here, so I don't know how that aims to keep "brands in our face 24 hours, seven days a week." Nobody is ever forced to walk into a store. The only time I'd be exposed to in-store TV from Wal-Mart or Borders is if I make the conscious decision to give them my time.

Once a customer is in a store, should it not be the goal of any retailer to enforce their brand and make a sale while they have our attention? Moreover, isn't it better for all of us (customers and retailers) if the store projects an attractive and possibly even entertaining atmosphere? If in-store TV can accomplish both tasks, then why should retailers back off of it? It seems to me like Ms. Linn has a beef with advertising in general and merely looks at this as an illustration of the increasing pervasion of ads.

On the off-chance that you're not familiar with in-store TV networks (which is the subject of one of our other blogs, Digital Signage News), I recommend you check out WireSpring's digital signage primer, and specifically the section on Retail TV.

Tags: digital signage, store experience, in-store TV

Circuit City to experiment with small-format stores?

TWICE, This Week in Consumer Electronics, reports that Circuit City may begin testing smaller stores in an effort to catch up with industry-leader Best Buy. While not exactly boutiques, the stores, dubbed "The City" will be about a third smaller than typical stores, or 20,000 sq.ft. instead of the usual 33,000 sq.ft.

While the stores will be a bit smaller, they'll still be packed full of merchandise. In fact, the ever-shrinking size of today's consumer electronics products was actually cited as one reason why smaller stores might work well. You're probably wondering why Circuit City thinks their approach will work. TWICE says this:

What makes The City different? It's 20,000-square-foot size,
for one. Tests showed that the smaller footprint is more productive
than the chain's typical 33,000-square-foot box, Pappas said, thanks to
shrinking product dimensions. The new stores are also merchandised more
efficiently, with narrower but deeper assortments of best-selling,
high-margin products. Modular fixtures allow The City stores to quickly
alter the mix as demand changes, and greater integration with online
inventory allows in-store customers to choose from 1 million SKUs and
have their purchases delivered free of charge.

Other
innovations include prepackaged product bundles, and high-tech tools
like wireless tablet PCs, which sales associates or "partners" use to
check inventory, schedule Firedog appointments and walk shoppers or
"guests" through the sales encounter. The tablets' "guided selling
application" helps identify products and services appropriate for each
customer by drilling down through a hierarchy of circumstances,
explained Brian Leach, The City's regional VP. This allows associates
to cover multiple categories ("You'll never hear 'It's not my
department,'" Leach said), while addressing the training issues
associated with non-commissioned sales staffs.

So in large part it sounds like the smaller format is part of a bid to improve both perceived and actual customer service by making service personnel more knowledgeable (or at least giving them more/better access to information) and more efficient by un-tethering them from their sales registers. After this Christmas shopping season, I'll be the first to say that better customer service would be a very welcome change, as both Circuit City and Best Buy gave me some headaches while trying to buy a few high-margin (I'm sure) items. Amazon.com didn't, so ultimately they got my money, even though the bricks-and-mortars guys gave me the opportunity to actually try out the kit I was shopping for.

While Circuit City will continue opening new stores in their regular format this year, Steve Pappas, the firm's Small-Stores President, noted that most of the new stores built this year would be of the smaller "The City" variety.

The idea has some merit, but will this be enough to improve their less-than-stellar image? And if the service enhancement portion of the changes work well enough to deploy into a bunch of new stores, why doesn't Circuit City deploy them to their existing (large) stores as well?

Tags: customer service, store experience, Circuit City

Can high-tech gadgets improve customer service?

Normally when I think/talking about high-tech innovation in retail over at Kiosk News or Digital Signage News, I'm usually referring to new options for self-service (on the former) or technical additions and improvement to the store itself (on the latter). But this article from the AP highlights another way that PDAs, WiFi and other gadgetry are helping out: by empowering store associates themselves. The article highlights an experiment at Macy's where,

"Without leaving the customer's side, Macy's sales associate Felicia
Dixon uses a small, handheld electronic device that essentially summons
the shoes in the right style, color and size, from the stockroom. It is
not quite magic: A clerk in the backroom receives the request
electronically and brings out the merchandise.

"The shopper does
not have to hunt around for a clerk each time she wants to try on a
different style or needs a different size. Better service means happier
customers, and that could lead to more sales.

"At least that is the hope, from the retailer's perspective."

We've certainly seen a good number of innovative electronic devices show up on the retail scene lately, but aside from a few notable exceptions (e.g. Apple store employees walking around with miniature POS terminals built into PDAs) most of it has skipped the store personnel in favor of going directly for the shoppers. While that strategy is certainly understandable (or at least not obviously wrong), I have noticed a number of retailers trying out hand-held devices this holiday season. I've seen Macy's and Lowe's employees (I think - after so many stores it's hard to remember) using hand-held scanners, along with a few different temporary mall kiosks set up to sell holiday giftware and baskets. The devices leave personnel free to roam the floor looking for people in obvious need of help, and in turn lets customers being helped avoid long lines. Aside from being able to offer more personalized service, I'd imagine that the tech-equipped salesforce could also encourage up-sells and cross-sells, potentially making the transaction a more profitable one for the retailer. So in the best possible scenario, it's a win-win.

It'll be a long time before handheld POS replaces the checkout line, since retailers are notorious slow movers and have tight budgets even in the best of times. But for the holiday rush it seems like a great way to increase checkout capacity without taking up more floor space. And who knows, with a few years of holiday data maybe the ROI of such an approach will cause a transition to this type of service during non holiday times.

Tags: customer service, POS, store experience

Retail stores try to stay relevant/compelling for web-savvy shoppers

Over at BusinessWeek they've taken a very comprehensive look at how the increasing amount of web-savvy shoppers is affecting the retail industry. They conclude that the big change in shopping behavior boils down to a lack of patience on the part of this new type of shopper. For example, if a customer can't find what she wants at a store or has trouble getting information about that product from store reps then she'll simply go online. This is obviously dangerous for bricks-and-mortar shops, since a customer shopping at Best Buy who leaves because she couldn't find what she wanted, won't necessarily make her purchase from BestBuy.com. She could just as easily go to Amazon, and Best Buy would have lost a costumer because their in-store experience was not up to snuff with the web (despite the store being much more costly to maintain).

This should be a wake up call for retail stores, especially during the biggest shopping season. The increasing power of the web must make retail outlets more prepared to serve customers if they want to remain relevant. The clichéd model of the pimple-faced teen with no product knowledge working behind the counter simply isn't going to cut it anymore. The store's power still lies in being able to provide personalized experiences and information to customers, and if somebody is shopping in-store they're basically saying they value that. They don't want to be bothered by no-nothing idiots. They want a very friendly and knowledgeable human being to assist them. No more jaded sales employees. If customers don't require (or don't value) that level of interaction, they're more likely to stay at home and do their shopping online.

The article also discusses how Best Buy in particular is putting its employees through a much more rigorous training process which hopefully makes them better prepared to answer customer questions and provide more informed recommendations, as Bill noted two weeks ago. Best Buy's chief competitor, Circuit City, has also made it much easier for customers to order online and then pick up their purchase in the store, which makes for an effective integration between their web and retail shopping experience. So it's obvious they're paying attention to what's happening and trying to react. In-store pickup is a good example of using the web's wide net to funnel people into the bricks-and-mortar store, and has the potential to become the cornerstone of many multichannel marketing approaches in the future. But Best Buy gets my applause for understanding why people still shop in stores -- it's the people and the experience. And that's what they're trying to focus on and improve now.

Tags: retail marketing, customer service

Restrooms drive draffic, but is it the right kind?

I love this. I'm sitting here, up to my neck in high-tech systems and solutions for driving store traffic, imparting useful information and generally improving the in-store experience, and at RetailWire they're talking about restrooms. You know, toilets and plumbing and whatnot. Apparently in London there's a new trial service available that will tell you where the nearest public restroom (or friendly retailer with an open restroom) is when you text a message from your mobile phone. Using fancy cell triangulation tricks (or something) it simply gives you a list of addresses, ordered from nearest to furthest, and leaves you to decide where to go. Participants in the system agree that it's definitely driving traffic, which lead Bernice Hurst, the Managing Director at Fine Food Network, to ponder whether all of that new traffic is necessarily a good thing. After all, there are lots of people who might only be interested in your facilities, and not necessarily your products/services.

As expected, the comments range across the spectrum from "more traffic is always better traffic" to "there's no way I want a bunch of non-customers in my restrooms." With a few exceptions, I tend to agree with the latter group. However, if all public restrooms were handled like Charmin's (and there's a new one on Broadway between 45th and 46th streets right now, apparently), I might change my mind. Of course, it's nice when you have an army of 200 to clean the stalls after each use, and I'm sure a lot of the equipment and decor was donated by companies looking for a share of the brand recognition and positive glow that Charmin nabbed when it first tried out the high-end public toilets idea in Times Square last year.

That's really what it comes down to for me. Nice, free facilities can be a major differentiator, and if you're having trouble separating yourself from a close competitor, that might be enough of a reason to take the plunge (no pun intended). But doing so at the cost of a plummeting activation/conversion rate and the added expense of upkeep, maintenance and insurance (yes, even your liability insurance may go up if you have a public restroom) isn't likely to be profitable.

Tags: in-store experience, bathrooms, restrooms

The genius behind Apple's "Genius Bar"

Ever since Apple opened its first retail store just a few short years ago, there have been pundits heralding the demise of the fabulously stylish (still?) tech company. After all, retail presences had killed so many other, bigger computer firms in the past, so what made Apple unique?

Well, the answer, of course, is the focus on the customer experience. What lots of people failed to realize was that a company as obsessed with the user interface as Apple had probably figured out that that same attention to detail would be required to deliver a positive, memorable bricks-and-mortar shopping experience.

Fast-forward to late 2007 and what do we see? Over 200 Apple stores in operation around the world, massive growth on tap, fat margins, a wide selection of (still?) trendy products, and a stock price that shows no signs of coming down soon. But not content with their successes so far, Apple figured that their admittedly-great retail experience still has some room for improvement.

Thus I was pleased to see this announcement at Yahoo noting that the company would be putting more of a focus on their "geniuses" -- Store employees who are filled with Apple knowledge and ready to help, whether it's showing how to use a new iPod or figuring out what's wrong with a Mac. Where other stores routinely have difficulty getting their staff to connect with shoppers, Apple actually asks you to go online and book time with geniuses before making your way to a store.

So let's look at what Apple has done: They've built a retail experience around having great staff. They hired great staff. Sure enough, people don't treat the great staff like a bunch of lepers or used car salespeople. In fact, customers now come to the stores specifically because of the staff in many cases. In response, Apple's latest store has a Genius bar capable of handling up to 50 shoppers at once, and they've added a "personal shopper" service.

While Apple's product line and core demographic lends itself particularly well to guided selling and in-house support, it doesn't seem like the success of Apple's geniuses should be limited to that one company, or even the home/personal electronics industry. There are plenty of other stores that I go to where the staff is truly excellent -- they're knowledgeable, friendly, courteous, and they know when to intrude and when not to. But it seems like there are few other brands who have made great products, great service, great stores a core part of their marketing strategy. Down here in Florida, the Publix grocery chain is trying. They've been big on service since their inception, but only recently have they started focusing on the overall store experience more. I know people are in love with Trader Joe's, and they certainly have a strong reputation, but I haven't shopped there enough myself. Wholefoods has a solid brand, and their stores are pretty to look at, but while free cheese and cracker samples are nice, I haven't found the staff to be up to snuff on many occasions, and their store layouts leave a lot to be desired.

So who else is out there? What other brands offer solid store experiences backed up with first-rate staff bent on making shoppers feel good? I'm sure there are lots of local guys, but are there any other national (or even regional) guys making this a priority right now?

Tags: store experience, apple

Borders adds original film & music content to in-store video

According to this article in Variety, Hollywood is taking some tentative steps into the store, with Borders announcing that they'll be featuring videos of live musicians as well an interviews with prominent filmmakers like Wes Anderson, or as they put it, "real entertainment programming -- not ads."

While I think this is great idea, when it comes to Hollywood the line between entertainment and advertising is very hard to define. Take for instance late-night talk shows. Yes, they are entertaining, but actors and musicians appear on them for the purposes of selling a new product of theirs. So let's be honest and look at the implications of showing this kind of content in store... You can't put interviews and live shows on a screen in a Borders and not call it an ad, no matter how entertaining and informative it may be.

I'm a Borders junkie myself. I can't walk into the store without buying something, so anecdotally I think this kind of advertising has a good chance of being successful. There have been plenty of times when I've lingered inside while unable to make a purchase decision. If I were to see a particularly interesting interview or a great live performance, it could easily sway me. "Entertainment" as a concept is much easier to sell in video form than other media, so the producers of this content no doubt see an opportunity to get their pitch across in the best way possible, and to an audience that's already receptive to making purchases.

However, people also go to Borders to get away -- it's a haven for a lot of people. So if the content isn't truly entertaining, and it's just thinly-veiled advertising, it will be a turn-off for a big contingent of Borders shoppers. That will be the toughest part of this project: making sure that the content, if it has to lean more towards the direction of entertaining people than trying to sell to them.

Tags: Borders, digital signage, retail advertising

Best Buy to wow customers this holiday, but the right way?

On the one hand, this press release from electronics retailer Best Buy detailing the results of their annual holiday survey seems to make plenty of sense. Faced with making a big-ticket electronics purchase, the vast majority of survey respondents indicated that a good return policy, attentive phone service and lots of customer assistance available on the sales floor would be the most useful changes that Best Buy could make this season. So, not surprisingly, these are the areas that Best Buy has been focusing on. They've extended their return policy for holiday purchases through January 31st. They've converted a third of their sales floor staff to "Customer Assistants" who will hopefully provide knowledgeable, reassuring service to bewildered buyers. And they enhanced their phone support options by letting callers connect to live store operators that can consult on purchases, check product inventory, etc. These are all good things, right? Surely they'll impact the firm's bottom line (in a good way) while improving the in-store experience, right?

Well, maybe not. At least not necessarily if you believe what the Integer Group found (according to this AdAge article) recently when it came to making consumer electronics purchases. Specifically:

[A]mong all shoppers, almost one-third bought electronics based on an offer or promotion, the most popular being rebates and sale prices. Also, most of the buyers (75%) browsed on the web before purchasing. Shoppers went online an average of more than three times to do research before buying, and it was "not uncommon" for the shoppers to make 10 or more internet visits.

...However, even more important are effective in-store displays. When the buyers in the survey rated the in-store displays as effective, their purchase satisfaction went up by almost 300%.

So essentially what Best Buy's survey found to be important doesn't seem to jive with what Integer's survey found to be important when making a sale. Normally I'd say that improving the in-store experience and driving sales aren't mutually exclusive goals, with the former often driving the latter. But these results are pretty weird. The availability of trained sales staff on the floor did little to promote sales, whereas it was #1 on the list of things customers hoped to see from a new and improved Best Buy performance. On the other hand, nobody in the Best Buy survey was clamoring for new or better POP displays. Nor did they mention they wanted lower prices or better promotions (though that was probably due to the way the survey questions were presented). Yet Integer's survey indicated that these devices were best at driving sales.

So who's right here? Are people assigning some mental value to items on a survey page that don't translate in the real world? Or is it simply futile to try and compare the results of two different surveys, one trying to improve customer satisfaction and the other trying to understand the sales process and key triggers?

Tags: retail marketing, retail advertising