Provide Portability for Your Shoppers

Chances are your target customers want portability, so give it to them.
     In a recent interview with Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness,” Susan Lyne, CEO of Gilt Groupe, Inc. and former CEO of Martha Stewart Living, said, “People expect to be able to shop where and when they want…. [B]eing able to have your iPhone, pull it out,… shop at that moment.”
     Gilt Groupe is a “flash retailer,” at which a product is offered at a substantial discount for a limited number of hours. Ms. Lyne reports that although the percentage of online transactions with Gilt Groupe made via mobile devices is still less than 10%, she expects that percentage to grow rapidly.

• If you sell any sort of mobile devices, select your merchandise on the basis of long battery lives. Although we might remember the Apple iPod as having been an instant success, the truth is that first-generation models frustrated purchasers because they needed such frequent recharges. Micromax, which took on cell phone giant Nokia in India, made initial gains in market share by equipping the phone with a large battery.
• Accommodate the drive to portability for each stage of consumer behavior. Think of ways you can enable your customers and potential customers to be flexible in when and where they seek out information about you and your products; complete a purchase; use the product; and dispose of the product, such as making a return or exchange.
• Be ready for the appeal of portability to stay especially high for as long as our current era of economic and social uncertainty lasts. It’s not just improved mobile technology that’s motivating the trend. Research at University of South Carolina finds that during times of stress and upheaval, we become more anxious to wander to different possibilities.
• Because it’s getting harder to pin down your target markets in their purchasing habits, assess for changes regularly. Where and how they’ll be shopping next month has a fair chance of being at least a bit different from where and how they shopped last month. Don’t overreact to small changes. But do assess.

Click below for more:
Use Customer Life Changes to Switch Brands
Slow Switching By Asking About Prior Choices
Know Your Potential Customers’ Intentions
Be Creative, But Only Sometimes