April 27, 2007
Making Customers Want to Stay and Shop
Retailers understand that customers who stay in a store longer will spend more. But, as a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report points out, the key for retailers is how to get customers to want to stay in the store rather than have them feel as though they can’t get out.
For OfficeMax, achieving that goal includes a new prototype that has lower shelves to give shoppers greater visual access to the interior of the store from a main aisle that circles around the perimeter. The thought is that opening up the interior aisles will lead more shoppers to choose another, longer route.
The office supply chain has also created an area where it makes no attempt to sell shoppers anything. The area is located near the printing center and it offers free Wi-Fi access and coffee to shoppers. The theory is simple. If customers have to wait on a printing job, make it more enjoyable to wait. Take the drudgery out and shoppers will return more often.
Stein Mart has taken another approach to making customers feel at home in its stores. The chain hires women to work one day a week serving iced tea and cookies while handing out fashion advice in its boutique clothing department.
Macy’s has expanded its dressing room and adjacent waiting areas to put shoppers at ease. The chain recently announced it was testing restaurants operated by famous chefs such as Wolfgang Puck and Todd English in its stores.
“We’re creating a place for shoppers to rest and refresh, and another point of differentiation for us,” said Tom Cole, vice chairman of Federated Department Stores told the St. Petersburg Times. “We have to keep changing to make department stores more interesting.”
Discussion Questions: Should retailers be thinking in terms of forcing traffic patterns or other strategies to extend the length of the shopping trip? What stores do the best job of keeping customers shopping without making them feel as if they are being detained? Are there commonalities shared by these businesses?
BrainTrust
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
Poll
Of course, the longer people stay in stores, the more they’ll probably buy, except for cafes like Starbucks, where people linger for hours with one cup of coffee. It has to be much more than aisles or traffic pattern. One of the best stores I’ve shopped in lately is Wegmans (East Coast) Supermarket. Wegmans gives a whole new meaning to the word “supermarket.” There are so many interesting things to see and shop for, from a gourmet food court with an awesome Chinese buffet to aisles of International foods by country to a bonanza of tabletop products and housewares that rival any you would see in Crate and Barrel or Bed Bath & Beyond. It also has a cafe with WIFI, a children’s play area and sampling stations. Wegmans is truly a shopping experience. It’s hard to leave. Safeway could learn a lot.
Also, color and lighting plays a role in whether people will linger. Too much red causes people to not linger, which is why QSR’s use it. Too many bright signs and florescent lights can be visually fatiguing. Music also plays a role. I have been driven out of stores because of music that is too loud or too annoying. It has cut short my shopping trip on more than one occasion. Music needs to be appropriate for the store and time of day, but not overbearing.
Also, stores–especially department stores–tend to locate their restrooms in out of the way places. Having the ladies room near the women’s apparel instead of on another floor or clear across the store in the mens department, would allow for trying on more clothes and shopping longer. Instead the location shortens the shopping trip.
And it would be nice if retailers would put some rules into place regarding cell phones, like some restaurants do. Being followed from aisle to aisle by someone with a cell phone glued to their ear, when you’re just trying to shop is very annoying.
At the end of the day, it’s about the WHOLE experience.
The book stores have been somewhat leaders in this area. By putting the cafes in the stores, they have given customers a natural reason to linger (while selling some good margin products). Putting chairs throughout runs the risk of turning the store into a library rather than a store, but it also gives customers a reason to linger, start reading a book and decide to buy.
The idea of understaffing checkout lines to keep customers in the store longer is just wrong. Once the customer hits the checkout process, stores need to be efficient or run the risk of alienating the customer – forcing me to wait when I am ready to leave does no good.
The underlying tension is dollar sales per square foot versus “unproductive” space. As retailers have increased their efforts to maximize the dollars realized per square foot, they have taken out some of the comfort items that encouraged longer stays. Whether that translated to higher sales, or less sales than would be realized by having the comfort area, has not been well studied.
Retailers win when they have a floor plan that allows the consumer to pick the route they want to go rather than forcing them along a set track. There will be times when this results in a consumer not spending as much money due to a floor plan that does not force consumers to visit certain aisles or sections. However, in the long-run, due to the amount of channel blurring and the ability for the consumer to choose between numerous stores, it means the retailer who wins will be the one the consumer values the most. Value for many customers is the ability to get in and out of a store quickly. If trapping people in a store is the secret to increasing sales then why is Safeway–and so many others–building c-stores in the parking lots of their existing stores?
The paper got it right–it’s all about having customers want to stay in the store of course. Whether or not that involves “forced shopping patterns” depends. Stew Leonard’s is the granddaddy of retailtainment, at least in the grocery business. Marketers journeyed from near and far to wonder at the brilliance of the “forced pattern” where it seemed you literally couldn’t get out of the store without following the entire maze. And shoppers were delighted–not disgusted–because Stew provided a delightful surprise at every turn. Regardless of how you get there, meet that standard and consumers will “choose to use” your store.
Absolutely, and the more creative the better. This is certainly a fool proof way of getting the average consumer to increase their spend and to insure that your store is the first stop for the next shopping trip. Inviting restrooms, coffee areas, play rooms for mothers, dressing room waiting areas, sampling areas are all good steps to insure you extend the length of stay.
Many times you’ll hear people say, “I went in for one thing and now I have a full cart,” or “This is my favorite store, I just like to come in and browse.” Getting comments like these are the goal of most retailers; a positive response from creating a great experience.
Sometimes those creative ways to keep customers in the store can be so annoying that it turns customers off. One of the most annoying tactics is the zigzag produce aisle which is the only access to the rear of the store. Another annoying tactic is the understaffed checkout lanes which require customers to remain longer in the store. One of my more successful clients does just the opposite. His goal is to get the customers out of his store as fast as he can. His store does so much business that he needs to get the cars rotated out of the parking lot to avoid bottlenecks. This means straight grocery aisles and having all checkouts open all the time. It really depends on the type of retailing involved. Some of the newer Whole Foods stores have complicated traffic patterns but they also have an interesting store to explore. I haven’t been to Jungle Jim’s in Ohio in several years but I recall that being an interesting maze to maneuver.
There’s a big difference between encouraging shoppers to linger versus forcing them to spend extra time or walk extra steps. People don’t like “force.” They don’t like having to enter the convenience store to pay for gas when other places allow payment at the pump. They don’t like running 1,250 feet out of their way (in certain “forced traffic” layouts) to get the item they came for. The bookstores offer coffee, and they’re smart enough to charge for it. That’s a great achievement: getting the customers to pay extra for lingering. Macy’s is improving the fitting rooms? How about installing a coat check so winter customers don’t have to carry their coats for 2 hours while shopping? Are high-end restaurants and night clubs the only places where customers bring their coats? Isn’t it amazing that almost no indoor shopping malls offer to hold your coat and packages while you shop? Ever see those mall “concierges”? Wouldn’t the mall do better if those folks became coat check room operators?
Should someone “force their customers?” I am offended that the question should even be asked although this line of thinking permeates retailing. The single most common number of items purchased in any supermarket is ONE. That’s right, before you react, check the T-log, please, as in the facts. Those one and two item purchases are being made by stock up shoppers ON OTHER TRIPS TO THE STORE! So just go ahead and “force” them to spend longer in the store. But they won’t, they’ll just pick those items up elsewhere, like maybe a C-store. Maybe they’ll need your store even less in the future. Oh well, you can always complain about the competition. :>)
The line of thinking suggested by the question has contributed to the deteriorating state of the supermarket industry, and has directly helped create the C-store industry. Force??? Great Ceasar’s ghost!
Fly paper makes ’em stick around, but it doesn’t mean they like it.
Interpreters of statistics that associate longer shopping trips with higher rings have probably got their cause and effect backwards to a large degree. Shoppers who plan to buy more probably take longer to get it done.
I have a negative reaction to stores that are designed as fly traps or gauntlets and especially to so-called “sticky” Web sites. Trapping shoppers against their will or setting up barriers to exit or forcing them to walk a mile for quart of milk doesn’t win points for customer experience.
Now, providing experiential incentives to stick around is another matter entirely. Starbucks’ “third place” strategy is appropriate for its target customer and trip type. I’ve had dozens of meetings in Starbucks over the years, and nearly all resulted in the purchase of a $4 beverage.
But hanging out at a department store or a supermarket just isn’t my cup of latte. I value clear, quick way-finding and an efficient path to purchasing success. Even entertaining Stew Leonard’s designed “escape paths” into its forced traffic pattern. And its checkouts are numerous and quick – possibly the best in the business. That’s a major reason why its shoppers return so consistently.
Should retailers be thinking in terms of forcing traffic patterns or other strategies to extend the length of the shopping trip? No, they should not because most efforts result in exasperating customers to the point where they will choose other stores in the future.
What stores do the best job of keeping customers shopping without making them feel as if they are being detained? There are different reasons and different approaches that work well. Wal-Mart doesn’t use blatant store patterns to keep shoppers in the store because they don’t need to resort to such things. The shopping experience is very alluring simply because the stores are rich in variety and EDLP across all categories. Target stores are clean, bright, trendy, upbeat and fun. No one feels pressured to stay but most shoppers want to stick around.
Walgreen’s does a great job putting up irresistible displays for niche items to keep it interesting. CVS mixes and matches OTC, foods, HBC, and interesting store brands on display aisles to hold attention. Grocery stores like Harris Teeter, HEB, Publix, and others keep the consumer in the stores with very inviting foods and displays in traffic areas, a great aroma, sunny and bright stores, with lots of room and upscale environment for a friendly atmosphere. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s make it impossible to want to leave because the stores are filled with so many interesting things.
Many of the ways retailers try to keep shoppers longer in the store are gimmickry. Consumers see through this after a while and rebel against it. I submit that instead of calculating ways to keep shoppers in the store longer, the retailer should focus on how to improve the customer conversion rate.
The retailer needs to understand why the shopper doesn’t buy and then change those factors or behaviors. Deloitte & Touche, in a recent study, determined that a 2% increase in conversion rate means a 10% sales gain.
What good is keeping a shopper in the store longer if they don’t make a purchase? We at ICC Decision Services have developed a program that has proven successful at helping retailers increase the conversion rate.
I guess there are two broad approaches–forced patterns or self-guided patterns. Go to a museum–how many have the headsets and follow the pattern of which painting to see next, vs. how many are browsing on their own?
If you go the route of forced patterns, you better make it like a theme park experience, or shoppers will get ticked off pretty quickly.
Using a self-guided approach can also lead to shoppers being in your store longer. In groceries, our R&D work has identified products that shoppers tend to browse and find fun to shop for. A retailer might want to create “exploration zones” that are centered around such products. We also found certain product categories that are linked thematically but are never merchandised together. If they were, it might present a theme to a shopper that they would find intriguing.
There are really a lot of new ideas out there without “forcing” shoppers to do anything they don’t naturally want to do.
IKEA. Enuff said. For the IKEA lovers – there is no better shopping experience. For those of an alternate view – it’s a jungle and a maze out there…
For me, personally, it’s kinda overwhelming to go there but once there I kinda enjoy the experience – other than the jostling crowds..and sometimes Out of Stock items…
It seems strange that we hear so much about how time starved consumers are which is driving the move towards convenience as well as the massive gains in clicks’n mortar at the expense of bricks’n mortar.
I have a hard time thus reconciling the marketing theory that offering customers a more comfortable place to shop, relax and drink coffee and eat cookies fits with consumers’ lack of time.
Providing a balance of amenities, value and service is more likely, in my mind, to provide a superior customer experience than focusing on one over the others.
No, no, no, no, no! A store that uses any means to slow me down when I know exactly what I want is a store that gets crossed off my list permanently. Same for shopping malls. I think one of the reasons Water Tower Place is more successful than nearby 900 North Michigan or Chicago Place is because the developers of the latter two created an escalator pattern that slows down shoppers and forces them to walk past every store in order to get to their destinations on the higher floors.
I have an idea. How about compelling merchandise, eye-catching displays, knowledgeable salespeople and product demonstrations? Isn’t THAT what retail is supposed to be all about? Leave the obstacle courses to the Marines.
We may see, in the various points of view expressed here, the differing assumptions about how business operates. One view is that business operates to serve the needs of customers (customer-focus; meet needs in every way that follows the business purpose of the organization, from meeting core service and product expectations, to offering very high levels of service based on what customers need and want); another view is that business operates to meet the needs of the organization (organization-focus; meet the needs of the organization in every way, such as make as much money as possible with as little expense as possible, etc.). Very few organizations are purely one or the other, and very few see clearly their ACTUAL operating assumptions (which explains why so many organizations have a higher regard for their customer service than their customers do). Each view has its pluses and minuses, but the real treasure is to understand the third-level and fourth-level system consequences of each assumption, which is where we see the two models widely diverge, and which is where many organization-focused businesses create their own problems that are extremely difficult to understand and solve.
I think Central Market does an amazing job of guiding customers deeper into the store and more or less trapping them there. That would be a recipe for rebellion were it not for the store’s fantastic selection of quality products and tantalizing treats. There you are, surrounded by food items that weren’t on your list yet you can’t live without. Not even tempting to walk upstream and out…following the flow is just too fun.
On the other side: Am I the only one annoyed by Kohl’s famous “race track?” Kohl’s lemming layout combined with generic assortments (with the exception of its terrific Beauty Bank program in cosmetics) makes it my last choice in softlines.
Costco always gets more of my time than they deserve by offering hiqh quality bargains. I might not buy many of them but I sure spend some time looking. Time in the store inevitably leads to a thought springing into my head that requires I dart to another part of the store just to check something out. I have even been tempted to buy new tires when my current ones have less than 20,000 miles on them JUST BECAUSE the value was so good. The key is that Costco makes me want to stay. I never feel trapped.
Convenience is key and differentiation is an opportunity. My advice is give consumers a choice of various ways to visit your store and provide many areas to “entertain” and enlighten them along the way.
As a simple example, Bloom stores now offer cup holders on their shopping carts and you can purchase fresh coffee as you enter the store. That’s convenience.
More Discussions
Has Same-Day Delivery Become an Expectation Across Retail?
Are expectations around retail delivery speed in flux?OpenAI Names the Infrastructure Standard for Agentic Commerce
Will OpenAI or Google (or another entity) set the gold standard for agentic commerce?Is Five Below Poised For Even Greater Growth?
Five Below is hitting serious growth numbers. Can this trend continue?
Of course, the longer people stay in stores, the more they’ll probably buy, except for cafes like Starbucks, where people linger for hours with one cup of coffee. It has to be much more than aisles or traffic pattern. One of the best stores I’ve shopped in lately is Wegmans (East Coast) Supermarket. Wegmans gives a whole new meaning to the word “supermarket.” There are so many interesting things to see and shop for, from a gourmet food court with an awesome Chinese buffet to aisles of International foods by country to a bonanza of tabletop products and housewares that rival any you would see in Crate and Barrel or Bed Bath & Beyond. It also has a cafe with WIFI, a children’s play area and sampling stations. Wegmans is truly a shopping experience. It’s hard to leave. Safeway could learn a lot.
Also, color and lighting plays a role in whether people will linger. Too much red causes people to not linger, which is why QSR’s use it. Too many bright signs and florescent lights can be visually fatiguing. Music also plays a role. I have been driven out of stores because of music that is too loud or too annoying. It has cut short my shopping trip on more than one occasion. Music needs to be appropriate for the store and time of day, but not overbearing.
Also, stores–especially department stores–tend to locate their restrooms in out of the way places. Having the ladies room near the women’s apparel instead of on another floor or clear across the store in the mens department, would allow for trying on more clothes and shopping longer. Instead the location shortens the shopping trip.
And it would be nice if retailers would put some rules into place regarding cell phones, like some restaurants do. Being followed from aisle to aisle by someone with a cell phone glued to their ear, when you’re just trying to shop is very annoying.
At the end of the day, it’s about the WHOLE experience.
The book stores have been somewhat leaders in this area. By putting the cafes in the stores, they have given customers a natural reason to linger (while selling some good margin products). Putting chairs throughout runs the risk of turning the store into a library rather than a store, but it also gives customers a reason to linger, start reading a book and decide to buy.
The idea of understaffing checkout lines to keep customers in the store longer is just wrong. Once the customer hits the checkout process, stores need to be efficient or run the risk of alienating the customer – forcing me to wait when I am ready to leave does no good.
The underlying tension is dollar sales per square foot versus “unproductive” space. As retailers have increased their efforts to maximize the dollars realized per square foot, they have taken out some of the comfort items that encouraged longer stays. Whether that translated to higher sales, or less sales than would be realized by having the comfort area, has not been well studied.
Retailers win when they have a floor plan that allows the consumer to pick the route they want to go rather than forcing them along a set track. There will be times when this results in a consumer not spending as much money due to a floor plan that does not force consumers to visit certain aisles or sections. However, in the long-run, due to the amount of channel blurring and the ability for the consumer to choose between numerous stores, it means the retailer who wins will be the one the consumer values the most. Value for many customers is the ability to get in and out of a store quickly. If trapping people in a store is the secret to increasing sales then why is Safeway–and so many others–building c-stores in the parking lots of their existing stores?
The paper got it right–it’s all about having customers want to stay in the store of course. Whether or not that involves “forced shopping patterns” depends. Stew Leonard’s is the granddaddy of retailtainment, at least in the grocery business. Marketers journeyed from near and far to wonder at the brilliance of the “forced pattern” where it seemed you literally couldn’t get out of the store without following the entire maze. And shoppers were delighted–not disgusted–because Stew provided a delightful surprise at every turn. Regardless of how you get there, meet that standard and consumers will “choose to use” your store.
Absolutely, and the more creative the better. This is certainly a fool proof way of getting the average consumer to increase their spend and to insure that your store is the first stop for the next shopping trip. Inviting restrooms, coffee areas, play rooms for mothers, dressing room waiting areas, sampling areas are all good steps to insure you extend the length of stay.
Many times you’ll hear people say, “I went in for one thing and now I have a full cart,” or “This is my favorite store, I just like to come in and browse.” Getting comments like these are the goal of most retailers; a positive response from creating a great experience.
Sometimes those creative ways to keep customers in the store can be so annoying that it turns customers off. One of the most annoying tactics is the zigzag produce aisle which is the only access to the rear of the store. Another annoying tactic is the understaffed checkout lanes which require customers to remain longer in the store. One of my more successful clients does just the opposite. His goal is to get the customers out of his store as fast as he can. His store does so much business that he needs to get the cars rotated out of the parking lot to avoid bottlenecks. This means straight grocery aisles and having all checkouts open all the time. It really depends on the type of retailing involved. Some of the newer Whole Foods stores have complicated traffic patterns but they also have an interesting store to explore. I haven’t been to Jungle Jim’s in Ohio in several years but I recall that being an interesting maze to maneuver.
There’s a big difference between encouraging shoppers to linger versus forcing them to spend extra time or walk extra steps. People don’t like “force.” They don’t like having to enter the convenience store to pay for gas when other places allow payment at the pump. They don’t like running 1,250 feet out of their way (in certain “forced traffic” layouts) to get the item they came for. The bookstores offer coffee, and they’re smart enough to charge for it. That’s a great achievement: getting the customers to pay extra for lingering. Macy’s is improving the fitting rooms? How about installing a coat check so winter customers don’t have to carry their coats for 2 hours while shopping? Are high-end restaurants and night clubs the only places where customers bring their coats? Isn’t it amazing that almost no indoor shopping malls offer to hold your coat and packages while you shop? Ever see those mall “concierges”? Wouldn’t the mall do better if those folks became coat check room operators?
Should someone “force their customers?” I am offended that the question should even be asked although this line of thinking permeates retailing. The single most common number of items purchased in any supermarket is ONE. That’s right, before you react, check the T-log, please, as in the facts. Those one and two item purchases are being made by stock up shoppers ON OTHER TRIPS TO THE STORE! So just go ahead and “force” them to spend longer in the store. But they won’t, they’ll just pick those items up elsewhere, like maybe a C-store. Maybe they’ll need your store even less in the future. Oh well, you can always complain about the competition. :>)
The line of thinking suggested by the question has contributed to the deteriorating state of the supermarket industry, and has directly helped create the C-store industry. Force??? Great Ceasar’s ghost!
Fly paper makes ’em stick around, but it doesn’t mean they like it.
Interpreters of statistics that associate longer shopping trips with higher rings have probably got their cause and effect backwards to a large degree. Shoppers who plan to buy more probably take longer to get it done.
I have a negative reaction to stores that are designed as fly traps or gauntlets and especially to so-called “sticky” Web sites. Trapping shoppers against their will or setting up barriers to exit or forcing them to walk a mile for quart of milk doesn’t win points for customer experience.
Now, providing experiential incentives to stick around is another matter entirely. Starbucks’ “third place” strategy is appropriate for its target customer and trip type. I’ve had dozens of meetings in Starbucks over the years, and nearly all resulted in the purchase of a $4 beverage.
But hanging out at a department store or a supermarket just isn’t my cup of latte. I value clear, quick way-finding and an efficient path to purchasing success. Even entertaining Stew Leonard’s designed “escape paths” into its forced traffic pattern. And its checkouts are numerous and quick – possibly the best in the business. That’s a major reason why its shoppers return so consistently.
Should retailers be thinking in terms of forcing traffic patterns or other strategies to extend the length of the shopping trip? No, they should not because most efforts result in exasperating customers to the point where they will choose other stores in the future.
What stores do the best job of keeping customers shopping without making them feel as if they are being detained? There are different reasons and different approaches that work well. Wal-Mart doesn’t use blatant store patterns to keep shoppers in the store because they don’t need to resort to such things. The shopping experience is very alluring simply because the stores are rich in variety and EDLP across all categories. Target stores are clean, bright, trendy, upbeat and fun. No one feels pressured to stay but most shoppers want to stick around.
Walgreen’s does a great job putting up irresistible displays for niche items to keep it interesting. CVS mixes and matches OTC, foods, HBC, and interesting store brands on display aisles to hold attention. Grocery stores like Harris Teeter, HEB, Publix, and others keep the consumer in the stores with very inviting foods and displays in traffic areas, a great aroma, sunny and bright stores, with lots of room and upscale environment for a friendly atmosphere. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s make it impossible to want to leave because the stores are filled with so many interesting things.
Many of the ways retailers try to keep shoppers longer in the store are gimmickry. Consumers see through this after a while and rebel against it. I submit that instead of calculating ways to keep shoppers in the store longer, the retailer should focus on how to improve the customer conversion rate.
The retailer needs to understand why the shopper doesn’t buy and then change those factors or behaviors. Deloitte & Touche, in a recent study, determined that a 2% increase in conversion rate means a 10% sales gain.
What good is keeping a shopper in the store longer if they don’t make a purchase? We at ICC Decision Services have developed a program that has proven successful at helping retailers increase the conversion rate.
I guess there are two broad approaches–forced patterns or self-guided patterns. Go to a museum–how many have the headsets and follow the pattern of which painting to see next, vs. how many are browsing on their own?
If you go the route of forced patterns, you better make it like a theme park experience, or shoppers will get ticked off pretty quickly.
Using a self-guided approach can also lead to shoppers being in your store longer. In groceries, our R&D work has identified products that shoppers tend to browse and find fun to shop for. A retailer might want to create “exploration zones” that are centered around such products. We also found certain product categories that are linked thematically but are never merchandised together. If they were, it might present a theme to a shopper that they would find intriguing.
There are really a lot of new ideas out there without “forcing” shoppers to do anything they don’t naturally want to do.
IKEA. Enuff said. For the IKEA lovers – there is no better shopping experience. For those of an alternate view – it’s a jungle and a maze out there…
For me, personally, it’s kinda overwhelming to go there but once there I kinda enjoy the experience – other than the jostling crowds..and sometimes Out of Stock items…
It seems strange that we hear so much about how time starved consumers are which is driving the move towards convenience as well as the massive gains in clicks’n mortar at the expense of bricks’n mortar.
I have a hard time thus reconciling the marketing theory that offering customers a more comfortable place to shop, relax and drink coffee and eat cookies fits with consumers’ lack of time.
Providing a balance of amenities, value and service is more likely, in my mind, to provide a superior customer experience than focusing on one over the others.
No, no, no, no, no! A store that uses any means to slow me down when I know exactly what I want is a store that gets crossed off my list permanently. Same for shopping malls. I think one of the reasons Water Tower Place is more successful than nearby 900 North Michigan or Chicago Place is because the developers of the latter two created an escalator pattern that slows down shoppers and forces them to walk past every store in order to get to their destinations on the higher floors.
I have an idea. How about compelling merchandise, eye-catching displays, knowledgeable salespeople and product demonstrations? Isn’t THAT what retail is supposed to be all about? Leave the obstacle courses to the Marines.
We may see, in the various points of view expressed here, the differing assumptions about how business operates. One view is that business operates to serve the needs of customers (customer-focus; meet needs in every way that follows the business purpose of the organization, from meeting core service and product expectations, to offering very high levels of service based on what customers need and want); another view is that business operates to meet the needs of the organization (organization-focus; meet the needs of the organization in every way, such as make as much money as possible with as little expense as possible, etc.). Very few organizations are purely one or the other, and very few see clearly their ACTUAL operating assumptions (which explains why so many organizations have a higher regard for their customer service than their customers do). Each view has its pluses and minuses, but the real treasure is to understand the third-level and fourth-level system consequences of each assumption, which is where we see the two models widely diverge, and which is where many organization-focused businesses create their own problems that are extremely difficult to understand and solve.
I think Central Market does an amazing job of guiding customers deeper into the store and more or less trapping them there. That would be a recipe for rebellion were it not for the store’s fantastic selection of quality products and tantalizing treats. There you are, surrounded by food items that weren’t on your list yet you can’t live without. Not even tempting to walk upstream and out…following the flow is just too fun.
On the other side: Am I the only one annoyed by Kohl’s famous “race track?” Kohl’s lemming layout combined with generic assortments (with the exception of its terrific Beauty Bank program in cosmetics) makes it my last choice in softlines.
Costco always gets more of my time than they deserve by offering hiqh quality bargains. I might not buy many of them but I sure spend some time looking. Time in the store inevitably leads to a thought springing into my head that requires I dart to another part of the store just to check something out. I have even been tempted to buy new tires when my current ones have less than 20,000 miles on them JUST BECAUSE the value was so good. The key is that Costco makes me want to stay. I never feel trapped.
Convenience is key and differentiation is an opportunity. My advice is give consumers a choice of various ways to visit your store and provide many areas to “entertain” and enlighten them along the way.
As a simple example, Bloom stores now offer cup holders on their shopping carts and you can purchase fresh coffee as you enter the store. That’s convenience.