Recent statements by Sainsbury's, Asda and Tesco implying that discounters are adopting some aspects of conventional supermarkets -including costs - but will not match them on range and service miss a point that may be worth considering.
A visit to your nearest Aldi/Lidl will confirm that 'Wow' is a significant ingredient in the discounter offering that may have been bred out of multiple offerings by EDLP and 100% availability...
Furthermore, as the mults increasingly cut prices to match the discounters, they might need to consider possible consumer-shopper reaction in each business model:
If 'wow' is now the missing ingredient, the way back for the mults is surely via customer service, something the discounters can never hope to match...
In other words, why not aim at evoking the aisle-response 'Wow, imagine them giving me this degree of personal attention on a simple request!'
A visit to your nearest Aldi/Lidl will confirm that 'Wow' is a significant ingredient in the discounter offering that may have been bred out of multiple offerings by EDLP and 100% availability...
Furthermore, as the mults increasingly cut prices to match the discounters, they might need to consider possible consumer-shopper reaction in each business model:
- When prices are lowered from the long-established 'norm' in a conventional supermarket, the reaction may be 'why are they only charging this price for such good quality?'
- ...whereas, in a discounter offering the same quality at a slightly lower or even the same price may cause a shopper to ask 'Wow, imagine this quality for this price'...!
If 'wow' is now the missing ingredient, the way back for the mults is surely via customer service, something the discounters can never hope to match...
In other words, why not aim at evoking the aisle-response 'Wow, imagine them giving me this degree of personal attention on a simple request!'
