How shoppers behave and what they want compared to how retailers are executing are sometimes at variance. ShopAbility discuss the opportunities and benefits of playing to innate shopper behaviours. For Retail World Magazine.
Our previous article on shopper insights, way back in January last year, looked at deriving applicable findings from shopper research.
This time around we thought we’d take a more practical, hands on approach and look at the grocery shopping experience and behaviours from the shopper’s point of view to highlight gaps between what shoppers want and what retailers are currently providing. In other words, opportunities to improve execution and therefore sales.
Get me in and out quick
After location (‘Closest to my home/work’), the top reasons shoppers choose a grocery store are Range (‘they have what I want and need’) and Convenience (‘I know where everything is and can get in and out quick’). Price is further down the list.
You’ll retain shoppers over time if your store is laid out in a way that makes sense to them and makes it easy to navigate. (This is something to bear in mind for renewal stores, which can take shoppers up to a month to acclimatise to and ‘learn’ the new layout).
The biggest irritation factor in supermarkets is usually checkout waiting times. These average 6 minutes – and (ironically) longer for the ‘express checkouts’ queues in late afternoons/early evenings for all the Dinner Tonight shoppers (who have smaller baskets). There’s a relationship between the time to shop vs the time at checkout, a bit like reward vs time spent. The quicker the shopping time (the fewer the items in the basket) the faster the shopper expects to get out of the store. I’ve recently changed my preferred supermarket for this reason (along with one to do with better range).
My local supermarket always has long queues. Their competitor recently opened a store 10 doors up the road, and this new store has more checkouts open more of the time, and importantly (for me) self-scan checkouts. I don’t go back to the ‘old’ supermarket any more because it’s too much hassle. The only time is when I need items that the new competitor supermarket doesn’t stock … which is once in a blue moon. So the ‘old’ supermarket has effectively lost me as a shopper for logistical reasons. Nothing to do with price.
So aside from opening more checkouts at peak periods and adding self-scan checkouts, what can you do? Well, give shoppers something to DO at the checkout to keep them entertained whilst they’re waiting. Magazines, sure. But what else? There’s a role for digital media here – recipes, informercials, education about complex categories. ‘Did you know?’ type stuff, not just playing manufacturers’ or retailers’ brand ads. Also, sampling and demonstrations could be conducted at, along or near checkouts, with displays of the sampled stock near the checkouts so the shopper doesn’t have to break out of the queue and go back into the centre store to get the sampled item. Better yet, the sampling company could physically hand the desired item to those wanting them. This is a way to create further impulse opportunities without cluttering the checkouts with more gum, softdrinks, batteries etc.
My Fruit & Veg is getting squashed
In other words, lay it out in the order they shop it.
This one comes up a lot in shopper research. It arises from retailers putting supermarket entry through fresh fruit & veg as a way to position themselves as ‘owning’ fresh. Trouble is, unless you’re on a Dinner Tonight shopping trip (around 20% of trips) the reality is you’re going to be buying a whole lot of other stuff that winds up going on top of the fruit & veg in the trolley/basket because it’s been shopped first.
Supermarkets need to think about having multiple points of entry to mitigate this, and a proper compartmentalised trolley and basket solution.
Shopping traffic direction will vary based on the entry points of the store, but as a general rule shoppers move around a store according to the side of the road they drive on. Ie Australian shoppers will tend to shop from left to right of store, where Americans will do the reverse.
Anything that’s likely to melt or thaw out (ice cream, frozen meals) is generally shopped last.
So you could argue that the ideal departmental layout for a shopper would actually go something like this (from point of entry):
- Non-food & General Merchandise
- Ambient/shelf food
- Fresh fruit & veg plus bread
- Frozen foods.
(This will obviously change a bit based on trip type, there’s no perfect solution so the above is the closest to one-size-fits-all).
As many non-food items are at the higher value and margin end (think Personal Care) and/or are items purchased ‘so we don’t run out’ (like toilet paper), encouraging more traffic through this area upfront could net you profitable impulse sales.
Put similar things together
Old school retail thinking is to place unrelated categories in the same aisle for assumed ‘halo’ effect of increased traffic and strong category impact on the weak one. This makes for a confusing shopping experience. From the shopper’s point of view, unless it’s for a gifting occasion, why would (box) chocolates and confectionery be in the same aisle opposite gift cards and wrap?
To be fair, supermarkets have improved their category adjacencies within aisles in recent years so we now have most general merchandise together, most household cleaning together etc.
But what is not done here, and yes I am a broken record about this, is marketing by occasion (outside of major seasonal retail occasions like Easter, Xmas, Mothers’ Day and Back to School).
What I mean here is creating solutions around usage and consumption occasions rather than ranging by product, format or manufacturer type. Dinner Tonight, Entertaining, Lunchbox, Gifting, Ready Meals are just a few. These can be executed in-aisle and/or as secondary displays.
One of the major supermarket chains has started having a crack at this with a concept that combines cards, wrap, magazines, and DVDs. Given that these are mostly longer browse time type items in what is not traditionally a browse channel (certainly not to the extent that say Borders and book specialty is) I’d wager that the traffic in this area will be low but the browse to buy conversions for those shopping the area should be pretty good, and the value per item will be higher than in many other areas of the store.
Maximising impulse when 85% already do it
The traditional retail thinking is ‘Put milk at the back – make them walk the store as they might buy other things on the way’.
The reality is that more than 85% of shoppers deviate from (add to) their list anyway once they are in the store, irrespective of whether the list is a mental or written one.
So you’re already getting a high degree of impulse shopping. The question is how much per shopper. This is a function of trip type and dwell time.
Putting milk at the back of the store for a shopper only wanting 2 or 3 items is pointless, because they’ll be going to the convenience store for the milk anyway in this instance … see the point above about standing in checkout queues for only a few items. Back to Get Me In and Out Quick - shoppers prefer milk at the front of store. A study done a few years ago with a major independent grocer and major dairy supplier proved it when they dual located milk both in main dairy chiller AND in impulse fridges at front of store. Milk sales shot up by a double digit percentage.
But you can’t use the front of store for EVERYTHING. So aside from front of store and gondola ends/wing displays, then what?
Use the aisles.
Clean store policy is one thing, but hang sell and clip strips aren’t necessarily noticed in aisle by many shoppers. Without cluttering the aisles, I see a role for well-placed case stack displays of complimentary products to that category (not products from the category, all you’ll do then is create brand switch and trade down rather than an incremental sale).
Specific shopping missions (trip types) are more likely to get more impulse than others. Shoppers on stock up shops (approx 30% of shopping trips) will do an aisle by aisle shop regardless of what’s in each aisle (see Figure 1). These are the shoppers and trips likely to result in the most impulse.
Top up shoppers will potentially browse the aisles their destination products are in, but will avoid aisles that don’t have products on their list (see Figure 2). So you need to maximise the aisles they are likely to be in (or simply execute 1-2 small impulse displays in every aisle, that way you catch both the stock up and top up shoppers).
Dinner Tonight shoppers, depending on store layout, tend to ‘racetrack’ around the perimeter of the store. They concentrate on fresh fruit & veg, frozens, and shelf ready ambient and chilled meals. Your opportunity here is to put complimentary meal solution displays in these areas … salad dressings with the salads, chilled or shelf stable desserts near the pasta etc.
In summary, by reducing hassle (getting them in and out quick), laying out the store in the order they’d prefer to shop it, providing occasion based solutions by placing similar products together and providing impulse opportunities that make sense, you should not only increase your average basket values in the short term, but retain your shoppers’ business in the long term.
STOP PRESS – SHOPPER MARKETING SURVEY – CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
Following the response to our ‘Where to Shopper Marketing?’ article in the Feb 1 issue, POPAI and ShopAbility are running the first industry benchmark study into the status of the Shopper Marketing, Category Management and POP functions in Australia.
Interviews and online surveys will be conducted across April and May.
Study participants will receive a summary of the findings.
To register your interest in participating, email marketing@popai.com.au
