Make Your Shoppers Feel Smart

Sy Syms's recent death gives us in retailing an opportunity to remember the value of treating our shoppers as smart and helping them to feel smart. At the time of Sy's death, the company was operating thirty Syms stores in thirteen states. For about 35 years, his TV commercials had told viewers that, "an educated consumer is our best customer."
     His discounting policy for women's dresses certainly kept the customers informed. Stamped on the back of each price ticket was the date the item had been placed on the sales floor, and stamped on the front was a series of dollar amounts in descending order. Every ten selling days, the price would move to the next lower amount on the ticket. No hidden surprises there.
     But the Syms business model was also a point of controversy. A 1985 article in Forbes said that contrary to what the motto suggested, the stores did, in fact, mislead consumers by putting the brand names of top quality merchandise on items of much lesser quality under less than honorable agreements with the manufacturers. Syms contracted with top brands to produce special versions of their products for sale in Syms stores. Syms promised to not put brand names in advertising and to snip off labels at the point of sale.
     Rather than decide the degree to which Syms honored the motto, let's focus on honoring it ourselves. Every retailer is tempted from time to time to withhold information from customers in order to gain an advantage. The lesson from Sy's motto is that trying to keep the shopper stupid ends up in the long term with the shopper thinking the retailer is trying to make them feel stupid. Nobody wants to give their money to a retailer like that.
     Instead, make your shoppers feel smart.