RESEARCH | REFLECT | REACT
Impacts
Almost all areas of a retail company have an impact on the brick and mortar customer experience. The cooperation of the Product Management, Marketing, Merchandise Management, Supply Chain, Visual Merchandising and the coordination of the different sales channels form the basis of a successful In-Store Customer Experience (ICX).
Challenges
ICX is not measurable with classical methods!
Neither KPIs - no matter whether frequency, purchase rate, turnover/receipt or quantity/receipt - nor mystery shopping can provide meaningful data about ICX. Therefore, targeted optimisation is not possible and is based on the experience and hypotheses of those responsible. Even if tests are carried out, classical methods fail to produce a usable result. How is the measurement performed? What is to be measured? What are the results?
There is always a lack of essential customer information —> the realistic behaviour!
Approach
Only through observation can the actual behaviour be ascertained. Classical surveys, group discussions or innovation laboratories are very important in the preparation, but do not provide any information about the behaviour at the moment of shopping. Can you remember how you oriented yourself in a particular store during your last purchase (2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months ago)?
—> Increase of sales rate by 3% points in the test store.
—> Increase of the relative non movement in the test store.
—> More even distribution of the customer paths in the test store.
Psychologically relevant characteristics (gestalt principles, shopping confusion, consumer confusion and crowding effect) for perception at the POS could be defined here. By means of photo documentation, the presentations are evaluated on the basis of gestalt (design and form) principles. This enables a professional analysis of the design of the POS and creates scalability.
This requires two steps. On the one hand, a survey of the customers was carried out on site on their perception and satisfaction. On the other hand, the competitors were analysed according to their orientation premium/discount and conservative/progressive.
—> The worse the evaluation of the local circumstances, the worse the gestalt pricipels but the higher customer´s satisfaction.
Visual merchandising, shop layout, imagery, wayfinding, scenting, music, . . .
Gestalt (design and form) principles in theory and practice
Operational implementation of a harmonious and congruent shop atmosphere.
© Markus Obermair, 2020
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