Experience the Profitability

An Adweek posting a few days ago recommends that retailers consider how to sell experiences for Mother’s Day and gives examples of retailers who have followed such advice:

• Big Apple Florist in NYC combines scones, mimosas, and floral arranging lessons into a participative Mother’s Day gift.
• Cloud 9 Living, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado and specializing in experiential gifts for all occasions, is listing bull-riding lessons, a cardio-conditioning strip tease dance package, and a ride in a fighter jet as options for Mom this year.
• Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek arranges, at an extra charge, for the child guests to prepare a breakfast for Mom in the hotel kitchen under supervision of the executive chef. 

     That third one would probably provide a more memorable experience for the kids than for their mom, which is fine. Possibilities Shoppers are more likely than Mission Shoppers to be impressed by store experiences, and children are more likely than adults to be Possibilities Shoppers.
     When you watch shoppers entering your store—or track their browsing patterns on your website—do you notice how some of them are clearly on a mission? They go right for a particular item and, if the value is right, they want to buy the item as soon as possible. Other shoppers love to look through the possibilities. Even if they've a specific item in mind, they enjoy digesting the alternatives.
     The archetype of experiential appeal to kids as Possibilities Shoppers is the stick for sale at Universal Studios, up the road from the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek. In the mind of a child, a stick becomes a sword, a baton, a big league slugger’s baseball bat, or some other variety of magic wand. All of these the stuff of exciting experiences.
     Still, why would anybody pay $30 for a stick? I’m talking here about a plain stick. Not a pogo stick, a hockey stick, or a pool stick. Well, kids lobby for the $30 outlay when the stick is imbued with valued memories, making it more than only an object. And thereby is how this becomes an object lesson for you, the retailer. This basic stick in a simple box is labeled as a Harry Potter wand.
     Of course, women do have a fair likelihood of being Possibilities Shoppers, more so than men. So including the moms in the Mother’s Day breakfast experience does make sense for that Hilton hotel.

Click below for more:
Have Shoppers On a Mission Look at Possibilities
Use Store Décor to Create Shopper Excitement 
Stick It to Shoppers with In-Store Experiences