Gather Your Love Tribe Together

Combining bricks-and-mortar with online retailing is extremely common these days. Still, the pairing of eight Banana Republic B&M stores with online dating site Match.com does stand out. For this upcoming Valentine’s Day, the stores in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and five other locations are hosting shopper-to-shopper meet-and-greet events for Match.com subscribers.
     It could work out nicely for Banana Republic. People spend more, on average, when they shop in groups than when they shop individually. Research at University of Pittsburgh and University of Alberta suggests the effect is greater for men than for women. This seems to be because men are more interested in showing off by buying big than are women.
     But I’m thinking you might do even better by building among your special event guests deep love toward your store as much as toward each other. When a group of your customers share not only an allegiance to your store, but also a passion for shopping with you, and when those customers share their passion with each other, you’ve what researchers call a “consumer tribe.” Holding special events just for favored customers and encouraging group shopping are among the methods for nourishing consumer tribes.
     Historically, a substantial part of the consumer tribe’s social interactions would be conducted outside your presence at their own gatherings. This limited your influence with the tribe somewhat. Now social networking is frequently a medium for exchange among the tribe members. This lets you tune in. Use the opportunity. It isn’t a replacement for special events, though, in which you personally express your gratitude to your tribe.
     The passion happens more easily when your staff are as much in love with your store as you want your shoppers to be. So even if you don’t have time to do it before this Valentine’s Day, start using online resources for staff-store matchmaking. Social media channels allow the job seeker to assess the personality of your business from what you, the owner or operator, choose to show and tell.

• Include material on your social media sites to reflect the history and the culture of your store 
• Encourage your current employees to contribute material to the pages, and then comment as the owner/operator on what’s been contributed 
• Invite job seekers to ask questions via the site, and then answer the questions in ways appealing to the types of people you’d like to have working for you 

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Try Being a Tribe Without Reservations 
Matchmake with Social Media