Quick Trip - Dinner Tonight

Did you know that shopper's are spending more than money in your store?
According to the work done by Herb Sorensen, he describes the three currencies being spent in your store as money, time and angst.

Most of the research to date has been spent looking at the money being spent, but what happens when we start considering the other currencies of time and angst. There are relatively easy solutions a retailer could execute to address these challenges that wouldn't involve massive changes and cost to the store. To help paint the picture, think about a typical working mom solving tonight's dinner with a quick trip to the grocery store. By putting yourself in her shoes, and better understanding her challenges, what do you think the store could do to reduce time and angst.

It's Tuesday morning, she gets up, turns on the coffee, grabs a shower, gets dressed, gets her kids up, grabs her coffee, makes breakfast, makes the kids lunch, throws in some laundry, gets the kids in the car, drops them at school, heads to the office, works, heads to the gym at lunch, works some more, and heads home. On her way home to pick up her kids she wonders what she will provide her family for supper. She stops at the grocery store to pick up ingredients for a meal to serve her family that evening. She walks around the store frustrated, worried she'll be late to get her kids. She ends up picking up a few things she's made before, and heads on her way to get the kids. Tired, frustrated, and hoping she got everything she needs for tonight's dinner.

By understanding this shopper better, the grocery store could have reduced her time and angst and made her into a loyal shopper. Here's how:

1) In the meat aisle have 3-5 pictures and/or displays meals with the recipe cards and the ingredients.
2) In the produce section display a 2 vegetable dishes that take 5 minutes or less to prepare.
3) On an end cap, have a display showing healthy lunches for kids, along with the products
4) Change the meal suggestions and end caps regularly to keep it fresh and informative.

If this mom had this shopping experience, where do you think she would stop next time she needed a quick meal solution for her family?

Oh I wish grocery shopping could be more like clothes shopping! Don't you?!

Oh the joy of clothes shopping. Why couldn't grocery shopping be more like clothes shopping? I got to thinking about this question, and wondered whether manufacturers and grocers could learn a thing or two from clothing retailers. Here are a few points I came up with....


Here are a few things my favourite clothes store does well and how it could work at grocery!
Product at my favourite clothing store is always displayed prominently. This allows me to see, touch, and even try on the product!
1) Could manufacturers reduce the packaging and make the products themselves stand out more? It could be a great environmental move too with less wasted packaging.
Clothes are merchandised by outfit: this top, that skirt, this scarf, those tights & voila my 'Friday Night' outfit! I'll take it all!!
2) Wouldn't it be great if the grocery store had areas dedicated to meal solutions with all of the ingredients together?! I'll buy it all, and now I have my outfit and my dinner planned!
My favourite clothes store displays product perfectly in my line of vision, right between my knees and shoulders.
3) Grocers should do more merchandising in our site of vision. They have the right idea in fresh produce, now do more of that in other areas of the store.
Merchandise and displays are changed frequently at clothing stores.
4) You might point out that products are changed frequently at the grocery store too, but did anyone really notice? There is a big opportunity for the grocer who can do a better job displaying new items more prominently!

That's it for today, I think I will go shopping now! ; )

What makes a Customer Loyalty Program Successful

Today I want to share what are key criteria to creating a successful loyalty program and why it works for Tesco! This is based on information I learned from reading the book, Scoring Points! What do you think? Do you agree?!

What makes a successful loyalty program

1) The loyalty program has to be regarded as a strategic tool of the business.
2) It has to reflect the brand’s core strength.
3) It has to be tailored to the brand.
4) It has to reinforce and support the perceptions of the brand it is building loyalty in.
5) It has to be LOVED by the business.

Why it works for Tesco:

1) It fulfills their mission statement of creating value for customers to earn their lifetime loyalty.
2) It ties in with their brand positioning of ‘every little helps’.
3) They don’t treat it as an alternative to creating other types of value, like great customer service, but as a program that helps build and support the brand.

I agree that there would appear to an excellent link between the branding and the program from what I have learned about Tesco. Doesn't any strategy need to be embraced by the business, if it's truly going to be successful, Vs just another attempt by the business to execute the latest trend, like shopper marketing, for example ; ).

Love to hear your comments!

Source:
Humby,C, Hunt,T, Phillips, T. Scoring Points, How Tesco continues to win customer loyalty.Kogan Page 2009