“Not being in tune with your customers is like living in an alternate reality; the way you think your customers feel about your product is not always the same as what your customers really think about your product.” – Bo Bennett One of the intriguing aspects of customers is why we choose one retail brand over another in our shopping patterns. Of course, to understand this and other motivations of us mere mortals in our shopping habits is one of the great keys to unlock.
When customers walk past a retail store, the retailer has a maximum of three seconds to attract the customer in store (and the same applies to attracting a shopper into a certain zone in the centre) – it’s love it or leave it.
So how do we maximise the impact we have in such a short period of time? And how do we measure this impact to understand if there is in fact a direct positive correlation between store display and ambience and sales?
Katharina Kuehn, director of RDG Insights, explains that understanding this means looking into how a stimulus like a window display, ambience, lighting, or certain fragrance in the entrance area etc. are processed by the consumer’s mind:
Source: RDG Insights Pty Ltd
Katharina says that: “in the very few seconds available, 95 per cent of these stimuli are processed subconsciously in the consumer’s minds.
“There is no time for careful consideration or reasoning. The subconscious limbic system in our brain works 200 times faster than the conscious mind, so before we become aware, we have long walked away from a retail store or zone in the shopping centre or gotten drawn into this space,” she says.
“If a retailer succeeds to attract more attention, and in turn traffic and sales, this is due to the fact that the ambience and experience stimuli have hit the mark with the consumer. That is, they have resonated subconsciously.”
Have you ever wondered why you are instantly attracted to one store, but barely notice the existence of another? This is your subconscious talking, and the message is different for everyone. This is why classic demographic or customer research is not nearly deep enough to explain consumer behaviour or motivation.
Capturing, for example age, gender, income, preferences, where they live, and possibly past purchase behaviour.
In a recent RDG retail consumer study, a series of stores were tested to see which personality types were most attracted to which displays. The results were very interesting.
Below are two examples of stores and the responses by the various limbic target segments.
Country Road – particularly attractive to the disciplined and traditionalist segments.
Fornarina – rejected by all but the hedonist segment.
Classical research methodology will tell us what a customer will like; a deeper understanding is required in methodologies such as Limbic to explain why consumers are drawn to certain brands and their delivery (eg. shop fit designs) that a classical research piece couldn’t show us.
Happy fit retailing
Brian Walker, Retail Doctor Group
* Brian and Retail Doctor Group can be contacted on 02 9460 2882 or by email on businessfitness@retaildoctor.com.au. For more information please visit www.retaildoctor.com.au
