I’ve been spending lot of time lurking in the aisles of big supermarkets recently. Here are some observations about how people shop – and how to get them to shop your product more…
Supermarket shopping is largely a case of getting the job done, and when people shop alone they use tactics to help them cope with the overload of products on offer in stores. These tactics include:
- Obvious ones like repeat purchasing – to save time on decision making
- Shopping zonally – cutting out big chunks of the store – even at category level to help limit choices
- Screening product information as quickly as possible
Screening is perhaps the most interesting tactic: We screen in and out visual information in order to get the job done. So in the blink of an eye consumers…
- Screen in for brand signifiers – is this the one I want – or is this close to the one I want? (copy cat brands)
- Consumers screen in and notice colour differences easily – so it’s a good way to differentiate variants – particularly when colours are significantly different – but beware, colours are strong signifiers too – so if you choose the wrong colour for your variant you may be screened out as ‘wrong’
- Consumers seem able to screen in visual ‘tabs’ or ‘roundals’ – the eye can grab at them quickly – particularly when they contain information we care about (e.g fat stats)
- Consumers want to screen in for ‘right size pack’ but size impression is hard for the brain to absorb quickly – so anything that helps give ‘size impression’ is useful
- Consumers screen in for ‘fit with need’ – they search out price and nutritional information if that’s important to them (so motivating them in this regard is important)
- And then…consumers screen out nearly everything else – so lots of other on-pack messaging is just lost on the consumer
It’s a mistake to think that there is a decision making hierarchy going on – this all pretty much happens at the same time – in the blink of an eye…with perhaps only ‘fit for need’ taking a bit more consideration time.
‘Zoning’ and ‘Repeating’ are pretty self-explanatory – we cut through the clutter by missing out as much of the store as possible. It means, of course, it’s really hard to launch ‘new’ products because they can be ‘cut out’ of the action by shopper so easily.
So how do we create more attention for new products?
We need to create the conditions for browsing, for a different mindset that is willing to absorb information, and consider ‘new stuff’. The brain likes to get the job done, (efficient activity), but the mind loves to wonder too, to mooch, to be languid…
Some ways to get people to notice you…(beyond advertising)
- Encourage shoppers to shop together – companions talk to each other about choices, they debate what they want and extend where they look at in the store, so anything and everything retailers and brands can do to get people to share the shop… will increase exposure to more stuff (I think there’s clever deals to be done here to get people to pair up)
- Be part of a dynamic category – customers will slow down and explore parts of the store where they see lots of new things, it becomes a place that’s worth investing in exploration
- Be pick-up-able – once something is in the consumers hand, they half own it, so be tempting to pick up and explore, be the easiest thing to grab on the shelf
- Be one of a limited number of ‘hot spot’ products within the aisle that are recommended products – voted best sellers or ‘winners’ as consumers are interested in what is popular and new in order to keep up with the pack…
- Be interactive and fun – it’s mostly families who use price scanners in store to check prices because it’s a fun thing to do (yes really!) – if you product or category can create a quick, fun moment – it will jolt the shopper out of their autopilot shopping mode
- Disrupt – look different, be different, stand out from the crowd
