Crack Ecommerce Brains for the Holidays

A recent Bloomberg Businessweek posting describes how the growth of ecommerce has turned Possibilities Shoppers into Mission Shoppers. The Mission Shoppers go right for a particular item and, if the value is acceptable, they want to buy the item as soon as possible. The other category loves to look through the possibilities. Even if they've specific items in mind, they enjoy digesting the alternatives, discovering and analyzing what’s new.
     Because consumers are now accustomed to learning all about the products, the alternatives, and the prices before entering the store, many more of them bullet in with a target in mind, and then leave without even as much as a ricochet toward impulse items.
     Since research indicates your Possibilities Shoppers average higher holiday cart totals than do your Mission Shoppers, use what we know about the ecommerce brain to shift the balance:

• Help shoppers avoid unwanted crowds. Many people find enjoyment in the busy bustle of holiday shopping. The ecommerce brain—especially the female ecommerce brain—finds that being with others who are in a holiday mood gives a sense of community energy. But although these women love the bustle, they hate to be jostled. It’s the unwanted crowds which make the shopper choose to run home to the computer to finish the purchases. In your bricks-and-mortar store, establish operating hours that spread out any crowds. Up the merchandise density for the holidays, but reserve enough spaces—such as pristine restrooms—to which shoppers can retreat from crowds for a few minutes.
• Integrate the e. Teen clothing retailer Pacific Sunwear of California outfits their salespeople with mobile devices so that the Mission Shopper for a single item can promptly be shown the possibilities for creating a whole outfit around the item. Brookside is using Wi-Fi and iPads to demonstrate toy helicopters controlled with mobile applications, merchandise even ripe technophobes with raw fingertips may not have previously considered as holiday gift possibilities.
• Let customers thank you. Customers wish to deal with retailers who help them out, and one way customers express this wish is to say thanks to store staff. Research findings from Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi and another set from University of Maryland and Yale University together suggest that giving the customer an opportunity to express gratitude to staff facilitates loyalty to the retailer. This seems to become more important during the holiday season because of the spirit of giving.

Click below for more:
Have Shoppers On a Mission Look at Possibilities
Appeal to Holiday Shoppers’ Ecommerce Brains