Experiential Recruitment Process?

Closing the deal in the showroom

Given the massive advantage of having potential mobile-consumers actually in the store, obviously in the market, albeit showrooming on price, it seems a no-brainer that conversion of the visits into a sale can be more productive than closing down the instore wifi and driving the customer further online…

Latest thinking indicates that many potential purchasers want immediacy of access to the product, advice and real-world assurance of the wisdom of the purchase at a price that is not too far out of line with available alternatives.

In ‘olden days’, this would have been more than an opportunity for an instore salesman to close a sale. Nowadays we are supported by a wealth of consumer-shopper insights to make it that much easier…

If your business is about helping the offline retailer to optimise mobile-driven sales in the aisle, then latest research (September 2013) on ‘Showrooming and the Rise of the Mobile-Assisted Shopper’ by the Columbia Business School will help.

The research profiles and explores the five types of mobile shopper, but even more interestingly, reveals why some consumers prefer to shop offline…

This 35 page report will tell you all you need to know, but if you simply need some key insights, then see the Econsultancy site where their summaries of the findings, and interviews with the CBS authors can take the busy NAM a long way forward.

Mobile-assistance may have made the buying a little more complicated,  but deep down, selling is still about needs-based-persuasion…

19:33 is wine-time for NAMs also?

New, intensive and dedicated research by the International Wine Challenge reveals the exact time of wine o'clock.

The survey commissioned by the prestigious wine competition investigated the habits of British wine drinkers, unveiling that this exact time was the average time for a glass of vino in the UK.

Key findings indicate:

• Men were most likely to crack open a bottle first, with almost twice as many men (14%) as women (8%) taking their first sip before 6pm
• Age also proved to be an important factor when deciding when to reach for the Rioja. Over 65s perhaps relishing the relaxed pace of ‘retired’ life reported the earliest time for wine o'clock at 7:12pm, and were three times more likely to indulge in a glass before 4pm
• Around a third (30%) of 25-34 year olds would have their first glass of wine before 7pm, while 45-54 year olds were most likely to wait until after the wineshed to take a sip
• Wine drinkers in the capital and Wales proved to be the thirstiest, with the average wine o'clock for both regions being 7:18pm
• Welsh drinkers were also most likely to have an early evening slurp, with 10% saying they would enjoy a glass before 6pm
• Residents in the North West of England were least likely to indulge in an early vino with only 2% admitting to drinking wine before 6pm

Given the 24/7 nature of the job, and the possibility of wine being regarded as an antidote, we believe that NAMs and KAMs should continue to stand apart from the crowd, avoid the above obsession with the clock, and imbibe (with appropriate KPIs) to match felt-need, in line with their dedication and professional approach to other aspects of the role, regardless….

Have a timeless and forgettable weekend, from the NamNews Team!

More here

DIY Omnichanneling at Retailers' Expense...

New Omnico research quoted by PCR-Online indicates that because some retailers are not joining up channels properly, consumers are using their smartphones to join up channels their own way – and this means often using their mobiles in store to go to the retailers’ competitors to get advice and find the best deal.

As 10% of customers buy from competitors by mobile in-store, this new iteration of showrooming represents an additional threat to those retailers that try to preventing showrooming by ignoring consumers’ desire for free Wi-Fi or even blocking mobile signals. However, this is patently a short sighted view. Instead, it can be embraced, by offering assisted selling and integrating their mobile and web channels to offer genuine omni-channel retail.

In other words, the key issue for retailers is that if they don't face up to the reality of omnichanneling, someone will do it for them...

Thieving below the shop-radar

On a recent Saturday morning trip to Debenhams, I was bemused to find a consumer (not shopper) squatting down in the cosmetic department, out of sight of the demonstrators and counter-staff.

She then proceeded to liberally apply almost a 200ml bottle of upmarket skin lotion to the exposed parts of her child and herself, before returning the empty container to the counter, and nodding at the counter staff before departing into the bright sunshine…neither staff nor consumer knowing, and probably not caring, that her ‘sampling’ of a £29 bottle of upmarket body lotion would require incremental sales of £500 to restore Debenhams (Net Margin = 5.8%) to the square one that existed before her visit…  

One minute's noise reduction?

May we please have one minute's noise reduction to honour the passing of Ray Dolby?
Any further explanation means you don't need any further explanation...

Heating up the carbonated drinks category?

World’s first hot carbonated drink to go on sale for Y130 (76p) from October in vending machines across Japan. The innovative new product produced by Coca-Cola in Japan will be the first carbonated drink to be served hot.

The self-heating product is called Canada Dry Hot Ginger Ale and, though some of us may balk at the idea of a hot fizzy beverage, the producers say the result is “an intensely spicy, cinnamon and apple-flavoured drink”.

Those with residual knowledge of school chemistry may choose to busy themselves this weekend with a simple experiment to prove that dissolved gas comes out of solution faster from warm water than cold. The reverse is also true: Dissolved gas tends to stay dissolved better in cold water, thus showing why five years of research have gone into the technology behind successfully containing heat and bubbles in a can…. (The article also contains a download giving the full chemical background)

Incidentally, those who are interrupted in the assimilation of their heated carbonated drink may regret that evolution has moved us on from that stage when our former gills would have allowed us to copy our fishy cousins in absorbing miniscule amounts of residual gas from cooled liquid… 

Who owns the Consumer?

Building on Seth Godin’s idea about ownership of customers it can be useful to compare UK retailers’ shopper-insight with that of a brand owner…

Retailer’s knowledge of the consumer:
- Name, address, age, sex, family size
- Occupation, income
- Health, insurance cover
- Finances
- Shopping behaviour
- Pass-times/hobbies/travel-behaviour

Supplier’s knowledge of consumer:
- Little grey-haired old lady, living alone (with dog + 2 cats) on the outskirts of Oxford, 2 children having left home…

If knowledge defines ownership, who now owns the consumer..and sells everything a consumer needs…?

Moreover, are we as brand owners capable of managing a retailer’s degree of consumer-shopper insight?