Shoppers often make decisions without great deliberation. A shopper observation study of laundry detergent purchases found that half the number took no more than 8.5 seconds to select their item. It's with these low-involvement decisions where you as a retailer can have the easiest time changing shopping habits into ones more profitable for you.
But it's best if the changes are done gradually. Suppose you want to build in the customer a habit for buying a certain house brand product. You might start out with a coupon good for a free sample of the house brand. If your recordkeeping system allows, offer this free sample at checkout only to those customers who purchase a competing brand in the same product category. That's for two reasons. First, research says that giving a free sample to people already buying the house brand decreases the value of the house brand in that shopper's mind. Second, your prime audience for building the new purchase habit is among people already using the product category.
The next step could be a coupon for an item that's imprinted with the house brand name, with the item given when the shopper purchases the product at full price. For example, the customer could get a free cloth shopping bag when they purchase two units of the product. Each time the customer takes their bag into your store, they'll be reminded of the pleasant experience of receiving a gift. Also, they and other shoppers seeing the bag will be reminded of the house brand.
In this example, the last step would be a few coupons that give what amounts to a 20% discount on the price. Research indicates that 20% is just sufficient to motivate action.
If the product quality is good enough, you've now built a new purchase habit.
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