WHAT'S YOUR RETAIL IQ?

   We all know them.  Perhaps you’re one, too.  They are the Smart Shoppers: people who know retail stores inside out.  Best store for double coupons?  Best place to find 2% milk on sale?  Nikes in narrow widths?  What time is Extreme Couponing on TLC this week?  Where are the pimentos?  (midway down Aisle 7 on the right on the top shelf)  These people – OK, they are most often women – are Shopping Savants.

   Few people have the time, talent and patience to aspire to that level of shopping supremacy but we all have a Retail IQ.  What’s yours?

   Do you know how to best navigate a store to find what you need and want?  Do you understand how a store uses discounts, coupons, weekly specials, shelf position, special displays and other techniques to prompt you to notice it, try it and come back and buy it again?  Do you know when a “sale” doesn’t actually save you money?

   Retail IQ has little to do with education, career or gender.  Your Retail IQ has more to do with observing, learning and applying what you learn in retail environments. 

   Next time you visit a store, ask yourself, “How is this store moving me around, presenting product choices and shaping my purchase decisions?”  The better you understand how a store (and its brand partners) unites you with their products while separating you from your money, the higher your Retail IQ.

RETAIL AS THEATER

   Imagine attending a live performance of some great play or musical.  Many things make it great.  The script must engage the audience.  Actors must know their lines, hit their marks and play their parts well.  The theater surroundings themselves must be comfortable, sight lines clear, lighting and sound right, seats comfortable.  Costumes and props matter, too.

   Stores are like theaters, don’t you agree?  The products are the scripts and actors the staffs.  The store environment is like the theater building itself.  Costumes are the packaging.  And the props?  They are what our industry provides to “set the stage,” to highlight the action and to help make the entire experience compelling.

   Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies want their products to have a good, long run.  When they bring together the right Product, Price, Promotion and Place – the proverbial Four P’s of the marketing mix – magic happens.

   Display and store fixture designers and producers play a pivotal role in two of the four P’s: Promotion and Place.  If shoppers are drawn to a product, can find it easily and see it attractively presented, the probability of purchase increases dramatically.

   When the show must go on (and we know that it must), great displays play a part in the mix.  Marketers that miss this critical point don’t play well in Peoria and have short runs.