IN-STORE WILL BE MORE LIKE ONLINE

   Think of your favorite store.  Do the people who work there know you?  Bet they do - and that's partly why you like to shop there.  My daughter loves our local Subway because they always know that she’s “six-inch Italian chicken breast toasted with lettuce & lite mayo.”  They know her.  And that’s part of the reason we like online shopping.  We share information online and feel amazed that they know what we’ve bought before, what others like us have bought and when we have a birthday!  Duh.  They capture and leverage information.

   In-store experiences will become more like online – interactive and personalized – as we get comfortable sharing more information and doing so becomes seamless.  Imagine someone greeting you in a store with a tablet that includes, with your permission, your recent online searches, purchase history, sizes, preferences, etc.  They could help you successfully find and purchase goods.  Shopping becomes better.  Everybody wins.  

   The technology is already available to make these in-store experiences more online-like.  Barriers are (a) retailers investing in equipment, (b) staff training and (c) shoppers getting comfortable with the intimacy.  Since we already share much online, notwithstanding Target’s recent security breach, and we actually appreciate feeling like we matter to the store associate, I don’t see the last one stopping in-store shoppers from having in-store experiences that rival – or exceed – the best online shopping experiences.

   What examples are YOU seeing of in-store becoming more like online shopping?

5 NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS FOR THE RETAIL MARKETER

   EMBRACE THE OMNICHANNEL SHOPPER.  People gather information from more sources than ever and want to survey the virtual landscape from their phone, tablet, laptop, desktop – and through the unalloyed advice of others.  It’s a brave, multi-dimensional world, retailers and brands.  Stop obsessing over showrooming and start obsessing over connecting with your shopper.

   IMPROVE YOUR ANTENNAE.  Consumers aren’t the only ones employing technology; so are your competitors.  Big Data is a big competitive advantage to more than the NSA.  Are you winning at understanding the big picture?  If you’re unsure, you’re losing.

   DON’T FEAR CHANGE.  The Ron Johnson and JCP debacle notwithstanding, marketing at retail is an inherently experimental, experiential realm.  If you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind.  Test.  Analyze.  Repeat. 

   BE AUTHENTIC.  Don’t stuff the ballot box and use black hat techniques to influence purchase decisions based on trumped up input.  Instead, find ways to genuinely engage shoppers, understand their needs beyond a survey or focus group.  You’ll be rewarded with greater loyalty – and results.

   SHOP.  I’m continually amazed at marketers who spend so little time in the marketplace.  Are you in stores every week?  If you’re not, no matter what your job is, you’re not doing your job.  There’s no substitute for spending time in stores, soaking up the experience, seeing what works and what doesn’t, observing behaviors firsthand.

   Do these things and 2014 can be your best year yet.

AMAZON MEETS THE JETSONS

On 60 Minutes last night, Amazon's tireless founder, Jeff Bezos, introduced an R&D project that could reshape the delivery of their products:  Amazon Prime Air.  Though some years off and still in early-stage development, Amazon is clearly trying to attack one of their challenges: how to get products to shoppers sooner and cheaper.

Using "octocopters" - I suppose "drones" sounds too militaristic and menacing - Amazon envisions moving products to shoppers within a ten-mile radius of an Amazon fulfillment center within 30 minutes of order placement.  Here's their video promoting the idea:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98BIu9dpwHU.  Pretty cool idea, eh?

Such a solution would theoretically allow Amazon to dramatically reduce logistical costs, one of their largest cost drivers.  It's visionary and just a little bit crazy.  Of course, people said the same thing of Fred Smith when he birthed Federal Express.  And, like FedEx that had government contracts moving checks for the banking system to underwrite the cost of rolling out a delivery system to business and individual customers, Amazon has their existing book of business that they can use to support this move.

One of my consistent beliefs has been that Amazon won't kill retail in part because their logistics model requires someone bearing the last-mile cost of delivery.  Today, YOU the shopper are the final mile delivery agent and you largely ignore your cost of cartage.  If Amazon overcomes that hurdle, they become even more formidable.  It still doesn't eliminate some of the other advantages that retailers have, e.g., touch/smell/taste before committing to a purchase, social aspect of shopping, selection curation, but it's a fascinating move.

Amazon has prided itself on experimenting and disrupting markets in the service of superior customer value.  Octocopters may or may not "fly" at the end of the day but you have to love their chutzpah and envelope-pushing behavior.  George Jetson would be right at home at Amazon.

BETTER INTERACTIVITY

In-store marketing is rooted in bringing the consumer and product together in one place.  Improving that interactive experience remains a focus of in-store marketing professionals.  This technology shows the direction in which we are all moving as we bring the power of connectivity and the point of purchase together.

WEBROOMING

   Many observers and participants in the retail realm wring their hands and burn up brain cells wondering if online will make in-store obsolete.  I’ve expressed my judgment many times and can sum it up in one word:  poppycock.

   In reality, those with eyes to see understand that the difference between online and in-store is dissolving as the two become one.  Amazon builds retail lockers for customer pickup.  Toys’R’Us has long offered order-online-pickup-in-store services.  Best Buy develops ship-from-store capabilities.  People use online resources to make the in-store shopping experience better!

   An emerging term for the convergence of in-store and online is webrooming: researching online before purchasing in a store.  This builds off of the concept of showrooming whereby people go to a physical store, examine their product options but then buy online.  Bricks-and-mortar retailers like Best Buy have felt harmed by the practice because they provide the showroom without the benefit of selling the product.

   Shoppers are inventive.  They will find the best way to get the best deal.  In-store can deliver the best value (i.e., price, convenience, instant gratification, tactile interaction, expert advice, etc) shoppers seek.  Retailers – and the store fixture companies who love them – are up to the challenge of evolving to meet shoppers’ needs.

QUESTIONS OR ANSWERS?

   Asking great questions is both an art and a science.  Done well, it leads to truth, trust and value.  At Tusco Display, there’s no greater compliment from a client or supply chain partner than to have them say, “You ask the best questions!”

   People often make a mistake about questions.  They feel that asking them shows weakness, uncertainty and ignorance.  Perhaps it goes back to our school days when raising our hands meant opening ourselves to potential ridicule by classmates or showing our teachers that we hadn’t understood something.  Yes, technically, questions indicate that you don’t have all of the answers.  Do you really think that others believe that you already know everything?  Ask your spouse, child, parent or true friend for that answer.

   We so often focus on developing great answers that we miss that it’s time spent developing the great questions that lead to great answers.  Ask the right questions, get the right answers.  Ask the wrong questions and…well, you know that answer.

   Effective in-store marketing isn't so much about answering every question that a shopper may have as they cruise down an aisle.  More often, it's about getting them to stop and wonder about what they see, feel, smell, hear, sense.  It's about letting THEM supply an answer to the question your product display presents.  "Hey, I could use that product when I..."

   Worry less about how you’ll answer questions and focus instead on asking great ones - in-store and in life.  From great questions spring great answers.

FRIENDS

   Each adult American knows, on average, 600 people, Andrew Gelman of Columbia University writes in The New York Times. The estimate is based on an ingenious method: Asking a sample of individuals how many people they know with a variety of memorable names such as Brenda and Keith (because people with such names are easily recalled), then factoring in the prevalence of those names in U.S. society. Despite the large number of acquaintances, Gelman says, most Americans know just 10 to 25 people well enough to trust them. Source: The Average American Knows How Many People?

   How many BRANDS do you count as friends?  Jeep?  Nike?  Fruit of the Loom?  Ford?  Starbucks?  LL Bean?  Kelloggs?  Zappos?  You may be familiar with dozens – even hundreds – of brands.  How many do you really trust?

   One of the ways we develop brand trust is similar to the way in which we develop trust in friends: we put them to the test.  How do they wear?  How do they hold up under duress?  How much can I rely on them?  How do they make me feel?

   Whether we’re going with a tried-and-true product or something completely new, the point of purchase interaction is a key one for shoppers.  It’s often a key first step toward establishing brand trust.

OWN OR RENT?

   “Who owns those shelves?”  Seth Godin writes one of the most widely-read and influential marketing blogs in the world.  He recently hit close to home with a post on owning vs renting.  

   Retailers and brand marketers alike tussle over who owns a customer.  If you go to Lowes to buy a Therma-Tru door, are you a Lowes customer or are you a Therma-Tru customer?  I suggest that the answer is that you are both – and neither.

   You could buy another brand of door at Lowes or you could go to Home Depot or Menards to buy a Therma-Tru door.  If neither the consumer goods company nor the retailer serves you well, you will be captured by neither.  You can “fire” them at any time.

   Doing a great job at the point of purchase – the only place where the customer, product and desire to buy intersect – is critical to both retailer and CPG.  But it’s also crucial to the shopper looking to fulfill a need, like a new front door for their home.

   Marketers may own their brands and retailers may own the shelves off of which you buy goods but the shopper owns both CPG and retailer – lock, stock and barrel.  YOU own the shelves.

PEOPLE ARE THE BEST P-O-P

   As shoppers crowd their local malls these days, basking in holiday spirit as the late Andy Williams croons “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” over the PA, some retail associates want to rip the speakers out of the walls after hearing that song dozens of times a day. For many of them, it’s the most dreadful time of the year.  

   And that’s a problem.  Retailers’ success or failure hinge on successful holiday sales.  How well they prepare, arm and treat their own employees can have a bigger impact on their corporate performance than having the best price on the hottest products.

   Retail clerks work longer hours, interact with more anxious, time-pressed shoppers and face more demands with a whirling array of special offers and discounts this time of year.  It’s not easy to keep a smile when you’re standing at a cash register for eight or 10 hours with a never-ending line of shoppers laden with too many packages and too little patience.

   Display and fixture designers, producers and installers can’t stop some crabby shopper from jumping down a sales clerk’s throat but we can – and DO – make the shopping AND selling experience better by presenting products effectively, helping the shopper find what they want and improving the retail environment.  As an industry, we make it a more wonderful time of the year for all.

   And, when you’re out shopping, take a moment to be extra kind to the people ringing up your purchases.  They can use some extra Christmas cheer this time of year.

HOLIDAY SEASON DASH

   Black Friday has traditionally been the start of major holiday buying but it has crept into what some now call Gray Thursday – Thanksgiving Day.  Did you shop in-person or online on Thanksgiving?  If you did, you joined 28% of all American shoppers who shopped before midnight Thu.  Over the entire weekend, three-quarters of all Americans – men, women & children, young and old - shopped.  Holy Kris Kringle!  Read more about it here. 

   Shopping has become a blood sport in American culture where people vie for the best deals, scramble for the hottest products and scheme to “win” at shopping.  Can you image anyone going to such lengths 30 years ago? 

   Throughout the year, displays and fixtures silently but effectively present products and services that shoppers may consider for purchase.  During the holiday season, though, retailers and brand marketers turn to megaphones – TV & radio ads, print campaigns, email blasts, online pop-up ads – to get our attention and possibly win our wallets in spite of knowing that 70% of all purchase decisions are made in-store.

   Not unlike the recently-ended political season, I hear people wishing for more civility, lower stress and less strident communications.  But, just like politicians, marketers know: noise works.  And, as long as we respond to that noise and vote with our dollars, we’ll keep getting it.   

CHIEF SALES OFFICER

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Mike Lauber

Tusco Display

Phone:  (740) 254-4343 x225

Fax:     (740) 254-4839

Email:  mrlauber@tuscodisplay.com

Web:    www.tuscodisplay.com

TUSCO DISPLAY NAMES TONY FERRANTE CHIEF SALES OFFICER

GHADENHUTTEN, OH; November12, 2012 – Tusco Display, manufacturer of award- winning custom fixtures and permanent displays, has named Tony Ferrante as its Chief Sales Officer.   Serving as the top client relationship officer, Mr. Ferrante will be responsible for profitably growing Tusco Display’s share of the custom fixture and permanent display market. 

Mr. Ferrante comes to Tusco Display after serving as Sr. Vice-President, Sales & Marketing for Garick, LLC, a manufacturer and distributor of sustainable natural resource products found  in the consumer and professional lawn & garden markets.  Prior to Garick, Mr. Ferrante has held senior sales & marketing positions with Rubbermaid, Wayne Dalton, Trex, Berkshire Hathaway and Lebanon Seaboard.  Ferrante has consistently delivered superior results primarily through:  dozens of successful new product introductions, developing new channels of growth, and recruiting and building high performing teams.

“Tony brings a unique perspective to Tusco Display given his broad experience in the consumer goods, building materials and  lawn & garden categories.  We look forward to leveraging Tony’s category strength, retail channel experience, and his success in building high performing sales organizations,” says Tusco Display chairman Mike Lauber.

Mr. Ferrante has an MBA from Case Western Reserve University and a BS in Industrial & Systems Engineering from The Ohio State University.

About TUSCO DISPLAY

For over 60 years, Tusco Display has been an award-winning designer and producer of custom fixtures and  permanent displays. Tusco Display works with brand marketers, agencies, retailers and other display companies to build a brand's retail presence and deliver superior sales results in-store. The company’s vision is to be the most reliable, nimble producer of custom fixtures and permanent displays in North America

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CONSUMERS, SHOPPERS OR JUST PLAIN PEOPLE?

Steve Schildwachter's recent piece deserves wider play so I'm posting it here.  As we think about influencing behavior in-store, it's worth recalling that we're dealing with people with varying degrees of Retail IQ, different tools, e.g., smartphone, and a variety of shopping goals.

MORE RETAIL IQ

   Are you curious, observant and persistent in your shopping habits?  If you are, chances are you are adding to your Retail IQ on every shopping trip. 

   Do you like to explore new stores or wander down different aisles in stores you know well?  These are signs of a healthy Retail IQ.  Do you pick a checkout lane at a grocery store based on the length of the line, the skill of the bagger or the number of items in the carts of those ahead of you?  Do you even think of ANY of those factors?  People with higher Retail IQs observe the subtle differences.  And great retailers manage those factors.

   What type of stores do you frequent?  Barbershops or beauty salons?  Hardware stores or Hallmark shops?  Claire’s or Costco?  Quick-service restaurants or self-service gas stations?  Wherever you go, be aware of the messages and methods employed to influence your decisions.  What happens in those stores doesn’t stay in those stores – some of it goes home in your trunk!

   There’s no magic formula to calculating a Retail IQ and it varies from store to store, format to format and shopper to shopper.  It also varies widely between producers of point-of-purchase equipment.  If you buy or sell displays or fixtures, consider the Retail IQ of those with whom you work, too.  They can make the difference between a smart investment and one that pays poor dividends.

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.

COME TO HER SENSES

Most brands and retailers sell inanimate objects.  Tusco Display markets no puppies, no goldfish, no hydrangea.  Instead, our displays and fixtures sell tools & tires, sporting goods & spices, cosmetics & calendars, food & flooring, shoes & services, paint & apparel, baseball bats, ballcaps & bathroom fixtures.

   Anecdotally, we know that pet stores that sell kittens find that their “inventory” moves quickly.  Why?  In part it’s because these animate objects create an emotional connection with shoppers.  Meow.

   Those connections most often arrive through a shopper's senses. A sensory connection with a shopper can be tough – but powerful.  This is where physical stores have a massive advantage over their online brethren.  Retailers and brands can appeal to more of a shopper’s senses.  When she touches that towel, a connection happens.  When she smells that fruit, she’s emotionally engaged.  When she tastes a sample, hears the music or sees the HDTV image, she’s drawn into a relationship with the product.  And if she likes what she perceives, she’s more likely to buy.

   When we come to her senses, we’re actually in the relationship business, building connections at the point-of-purchase.  Move over, Dr Phil.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON SHOPPING

...and it's not very smart.

Most people who shop know the silliness of some pricing.  From BOGO deals to the .9 cents on every gallon of gasoline we buy, we know that pricing plays many roles: it implies value, it encourages behavior ("Buy me!"), it provides context.

The Atlantic's Derek Thompson shows us some of the ways in which we as shoppers are led - and sometimes misled - by pricing tactics.  http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/the-11-ways-that-consumers-are-hopeless-at-math/259479/

CONSUMER INTERACTION AT THE POINT OF PURCHASE IS ALIVE AND WELL

Despite the fact that internet sales are way up over this time last year or even in the last three years, people are still attracted to and interact with point of sale and are willing to do so even at the expense of their own pride and dignity. Australian snack maker Fantastic Delites prove that human interaction at the point of sale can be accomplished with nothing more than a big red button, a video screen, and some music.

Obviously I am over simplifying things and if this experiment wasn’t a staged publicity stunt it further underscores the notion that point of purchase advertising and displays are not going away or even on their death bed. Watch the video and let me know if you think bricks and mortar retail are going to dry up and go away anytime soon in the comments section.

 

Here at Tusco Display we continue to see hands on innovations and ingenious customer interactions as an evolving trend in consumer behaviors and continue to create point of purchase displays that excite, inform, and compel shoppers to buy your products today, not Next Day Air or 2nd Day Ground shipping.