December 13, 2006
Personal Shoppers Relieve Holiday Stress
There’s so much to do around the holidays and very little time to do it in. That’s why retailers such as Barneys New York, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, FAO Schwarz and Bergdorf Goodman are looking to make life and buying a little easier for their well-heeled customers through the use of personal shoppers.
According to a BusinessWeek Online article, stores are expanding personal shopper services and doing so for free as affluent consumers spend big simply to avoid the hassle of hunting for the right holiday gift themselves.
Jose Parron, a style specialist for Barneys, said, “People go into panic mode around this time of the year — I’m going to make it less stressful and help them give with style.”
Bergdorf Goodman has gone several steps further than most by opening 15 new personal shopping rooms with dining facilities and a gift expert.
“We not only save you time, but make you feel like a queen for a day,” said Elaine Mack, Bergdorf’s head personal shopper.
Macy’s web site tells visitors to, “Let us do the shopping!” The company touts its free personal-shopping service, saying it works to the budget and personal tastes of the consumer. The service includes individual appointments with a personal shopper, development of a personal profile of the consumer’s gift and wardrobe preferences, fashion consultations, reminders of special occasions, advance notice of special events, invitations to shopping parties and custom gift-wrapping services.
Discussion Questions: Stores serving affluent, but not absurdly rich, consumers such as Macy’s and FAO Schwarz offer personal shopper services at no
charge. Do you see personal shopper services expanding to a wider group of consumers? Do you see opportunities for growth outside of the department store sector?
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This is crazy, I say! Not in the spirit of the holidays at all! What retailers should be doing is starting Christmas registries, so shoppers throughout the year can make a list of all the things they can’t afford to buy themselves and then have their friends and loved ones buy them as gifts for the holidays! That cures everyone’s holiday blues — lazy gift givers just go online and check off a few items and don’t have to think about the recipients at all, and ungrateful gift recipients never have to worry about receiving a thoughtful but useless gift!
Personal shoppers are fine and should help both the busy consumer and increase sales for the retailer. But, who is the personal shopper allegiance too? Well, the store, obviously. Then just how “personal” is this shopper and do they have the customer’s best interests in mind? Just looking ahead and — although this isn’t a new situation — as more consumers are offered this service, problems with conflicts of interest (in more ways than one) will be brought to the masses…and then…?
Okay, the hassle of hunting for gifts has become too much for a growing group of consumers. Thus, “personal shoppers” will probably increase in more retail stores beyond department stores because one’s time has become a tighter quantity than dollars with many shoppers. Ease and convenience have become a bigger part of the American “personal” shopping equation.
That brings me to a quality perspective. Who among us when compelled to give a personal gift is so absorbed that we let time, that ever-encroaching demand, pre-empt our direct involvement in buying a gift for a special person? I guess that question answers itself.
This is a service which is truly looking for a problem. Stores offer this to differentiate themselves from the competition. However, to be truly effective, the personal shopper needs to know the specific needs, nuances and desires of the people they shop for. This is difficult in a public setting. It sounds good to offer this service, but it really is no more than a shopping service that fills orders.
Isn’t it a wonderful country? Aren’t we blessed! For centuries, men of power and wealth have had minions to look after the mundane chores of life. Kings, Queens, Princes, Pashas, Tsars, Popes, etc. have been the managers of personal assistants. Any nation of a hundred thousand had at least one of these specialists. To imagine that we, as a people, have grown so wealthy that the personal shopper category might occupy 11 pages in the NY yellow pages directory is wonderful. As wealth is created it provides more opportunity for all of us. Now all you retailers out there, find out who those personal shoppers are in your area and start offering them kickbacks to do their shopping with you. Tell them how you can do their job for them (select the gifts, wrap them and deliver them), tell them you will give them credit so they won’t have to pay you anything until after they get reimbursed for their services and that they will receive a % of the sales they generate in addition to the “fee” they receive for throwing the business your way. Hey, this is the only way a real personal shopper can accumulate an annual income of $100,000 for three weeks work! America… ain’t it great?!
Personal shopping services can offer great promises, but their actual delivery may be disappointing. When I called Macy’s personal shopping service in the past, their hours of operation were less than the stores’ hours. So I left a message for a callback, which never came. Nordstrom commissions their salespeople for all departments. They’ve made every salesperson into a personal shopping service. Doesn’t that seem more productive?
Retailers recognize that services, free or for cost, also drive their core business. The trend to provide all types of services will grow as individuals do their own form of outsourcing. We recognize where we want to spend our core time and look for alternatives to handle what we no longer consider value added time.
The business folks may call it “personal shoppers,” but the consultants call it “agentry.” Any way you describe it, this thing is bound to grow and expand because it’s responsive to a nearly universal need, i.e., doing more in a fixed amount of time.
The only open questions for me are exactly what form it will take in different types of retail stores and which retailers will be first to use their own form of personal shopper support to win business and strengthen customer loyalty.
It serves as another vehicle for the retailers’ very prominent and loyal consumer to have! And for the retailer, it is untapped business, whether impersonal or not.
We in the academic world who understand consumers’ reality and retailers’ opportunities to further build the loyalty bond, speak of this activity as Consumer Engagement!
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This is crazy, I say! Not in the spirit of the holidays at all! What retailers should be doing is starting Christmas registries, so shoppers throughout the year can make a list of all the things they can’t afford to buy themselves and then have their friends and loved ones buy them as gifts for the holidays! That cures everyone’s holiday blues — lazy gift givers just go online and check off a few items and don’t have to think about the recipients at all, and ungrateful gift recipients never have to worry about receiving a thoughtful but useless gift!
Personal shoppers are fine and should help both the busy consumer and increase sales for the retailer. But, who is the personal shopper allegiance too? Well, the store, obviously. Then just how “personal” is this shopper and do they have the customer’s best interests in mind? Just looking ahead and — although this isn’t a new situation — as more consumers are offered this service, problems with conflicts of interest (in more ways than one) will be brought to the masses…and then…?
Okay, the hassle of hunting for gifts has become too much for a growing group of consumers. Thus, “personal shoppers” will probably increase in more retail stores beyond department stores because one’s time has become a tighter quantity than dollars with many shoppers. Ease and convenience have become a bigger part of the American “personal” shopping equation.
That brings me to a quality perspective. Who among us when compelled to give a personal gift is so absorbed that we let time, that ever-encroaching demand, pre-empt our direct involvement in buying a gift for a special person? I guess that question answers itself.
This is a service which is truly looking for a problem. Stores offer this to differentiate themselves from the competition. However, to be truly effective, the personal shopper needs to know the specific needs, nuances and desires of the people they shop for. This is difficult in a public setting. It sounds good to offer this service, but it really is no more than a shopping service that fills orders.
Isn’t it a wonderful country? Aren’t we blessed! For centuries, men of power and wealth have had minions to look after the mundane chores of life. Kings, Queens, Princes, Pashas, Tsars, Popes, etc. have been the managers of personal assistants. Any nation of a hundred thousand had at least one of these specialists. To imagine that we, as a people, have grown so wealthy that the personal shopper category might occupy 11 pages in the NY yellow pages directory is wonderful. As wealth is created it provides more opportunity for all of us. Now all you retailers out there, find out who those personal shoppers are in your area and start offering them kickbacks to do their shopping with you. Tell them how you can do their job for them (select the gifts, wrap them and deliver them), tell them you will give them credit so they won’t have to pay you anything until after they get reimbursed for their services and that they will receive a % of the sales they generate in addition to the “fee” they receive for throwing the business your way. Hey, this is the only way a real personal shopper can accumulate an annual income of $100,000 for three weeks work! America… ain’t it great?!
Personal shopping services can offer great promises, but their actual delivery may be disappointing. When I called Macy’s personal shopping service in the past, their hours of operation were less than the stores’ hours. So I left a message for a callback, which never came. Nordstrom commissions their salespeople for all departments. They’ve made every salesperson into a personal shopping service. Doesn’t that seem more productive?
Retailers recognize that services, free or for cost, also drive their core business. The trend to provide all types of services will grow as individuals do their own form of outsourcing. We recognize where we want to spend our core time and look for alternatives to handle what we no longer consider value added time.
The business folks may call it “personal shoppers,” but the consultants call it “agentry.” Any way you describe it, this thing is bound to grow and expand because it’s responsive to a nearly universal need, i.e., doing more in a fixed amount of time.
The only open questions for me are exactly what form it will take in different types of retail stores and which retailers will be first to use their own form of personal shopper support to win business and strengthen customer loyalty.
It serves as another vehicle for the retailers’ very prominent and loyal consumer to have! And for the retailer, it is untapped business, whether impersonal or not.
We in the academic world who understand consumers’ reality and retailers’ opportunities to further build the loyalty bond, speak of this activity as Consumer Engagement!