Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Give a Vocabulary for Richer Shopping

Let's say you operate a wine shop. A customer you don't recall having seen before inquires if you carry a wine he had recently tried at a restaurant and truly enjoyed. The trouble is he can't remember the name of the wine. You ask him to describe what it tasted like. Your thought is that if you don't carry that particular wine, you can find something with parallel characteristics.
     Unfortunately, the man shakes his head side to side and says, "I'll know it when I taste it."
     You can't open every bottle. If only this shopper had a vocabulary to describe wine tastes. Dry. Sweet. Smooth. Pungent. Big. With such a vocabulary, you might not need to turn your question from "Can you describe the wine?" into "Can you describe the wine bottle label?"
     Consumer researchers talk about helping customers develop a consumption vocabulary so they can better describe to the salesperson what they're looking for. This can speed up the purchase of the item, and the faster you can take care of each customer, the more rapidly the profits can flow in. But actually, research finds that shoppers with consumption vocabularies don't spend less time in the store on average. They spend more time and they end up buying more items than the customer who lacks the vocabulary. This is because the vocabulary allows the shopper to appreciate the differences among products. To someone without the words, it all tastes the same.
     If you're that wine shop operator, you could run some wine tasting events to teach a consumption vocabulary. And whatever line of merchandise your store carries, you can develop for each major product category a vocabulary that will make the shopping experience richer for the customer and thereby the amount of the total sale richer for you.

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