Inform Consumers, But Don’t Intrude

Retailers can achieve a distinctive edge by providing advice to consumers when asked. When the consumer doesn’t ask and the retailer provides the advice anyway, the consumer might see that as intrusive. So my advice to retailers is not to give advice to shoppers unless asked. Inform without intruding.
     I do make an exception from that general rule when it comes to safety issues. Warn your customer if you believe they are about to make a clearly dangerous purchase decision. Retailer’s Edge readers might recall my true-life failure-to-warn story on pages 57-58 as an example.
     That story concerned a chain saw. Okay, does the same exception apply when it comes to personal safety issues from eating an unhealthy diet? Last week, an article in the Wall Street Journal described a trend for supermarkets to highlight health ratings of items. Kroger, Price Chopper, and Meijer stores are using the NuVal scale, which is maintained and licensed by a joint venture of a nonprofit community hospital and a retailing cooperative. Each food item rated has a number from 1 to 100 inside a double-hexagon emblem on the shelf tag next to the price. The higher the score, the better the claimed nutritional value.
     From your perspective as a professional retailer, what do you think of providing this additional information? Well, then, let’s move it up a notch: Safeway, Giant Eagle, and ShopRite are testing systems in which loyalty-card data is used to suggest healthier alternatives to shoppers via coupons, for instance. Does that cross the line into intrusiveness?
     From a shopper psychology perspective, here are a few suggestions about advice systems:

• A scale ranging from 1 to 100 risks conveying a misleading precision. Is there really that much difference between a rating of 35 and 38? A one-star to five-star rating system might be more accurate and meaningful for the shopper.
• Make it easy for the shopper to ignore the advice if they want to. If your shoppers are using the ratings as a primary purchase aid, sure, put the ratings in a double-hexagon emblem on the price tag. Otherwise, put the ratings in a brochure in-store or on an easily accessible web page.
• Give advice before the purchase. After the purchase, give reassurance that the shopper has made a good decision.

Click below for more:
Protect Customers From Dangerous Decisions
Reduce Unwanted Risks for Your Shoppers
Acknowledge Customers’ Willful Ignorance
Have Post-Sale Product Literature