Neutralize Shopper Excuses for Petty Crimes

Consumer behavior research is distinguished by its broad interdisciplinary nature, incorporating theories and findings from psychology, sociology, marketing, economics, and more. Include criminology in the blend, say researchers at Queensland University of Technology as they apply principles from that field to propose ways to curb consumer behaviors destructive to retailers. These behaviors range from thievery, such as shoplifting and fraudulent merchandise returns, to disruptions such as jumping queues and verbally abusing store staff.
     Consider these as deviance from acceptable norms in the society of retailing, say the researchers, and so adapt to the society of retailing selected tactics which have worked to curb misdemeanor criminal behavior in our overall society
     Here’s my version of their recommendations:

• Broadly announce that you punish thievery. Then do it. The most compelling evidence is criminal prosecution and then posting store announcements of successful convictions. Because this is not optimal overall for most retailers, it can be useful to post announcements of other retail theft convictions, maintain obvious surveillance of shoppers you suspect of thievery, and conduct thorough interrogation of shoppers who abuse liberal return policies. 
• Humanize the retailer. Spend at least a little time chatting with shoppers, post photos of store staff on the store website or in-store with brief stories about them, and publicize news about developments in your business. 
• Thank your shoppers for customer citizenship behavior, in which shoppers assist others who happen to be shopping in the store at the same time, give suggestions to the store owner in the presence of other shoppers for improvements, and enforce store standards, such as tipping off staff about a shoplifter. Peer pressure can encourage deviant behavior, and it also can discourage it. 
• Explain the reasons for store policies in terms of people-to-people relationships. To support this, keep the policies easy to understand and prepare all store staff to succinctly answer questions about the policies. A major motivation for deviant behavior is a feeling that the perpetrator is being treated unfairly or arbitrarily. 

     These four are interrelated and all are successful because they help challenge the excuses retail shoppers give themselves for engaging in petty crimes. In another set of studies, consumer behavior researchers at Northern Illinois University, University of Tampa, and University of Texas-Tyler were struck by the large number of reasons people give themselves to justify deviance and by the fragility of the reasons people give themselves for refraining from it.

For your success: Retailer’s Edge: Boost Profits Using Shopper Psychology

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Retire Impatience with Seniors’ Price Decisions

Advanced age brings deterioration in hearing, agility, and other sensory and motor abilities. Your senior consumers proceed less briskly than do your younger customers and clients. Still, University of Potsdam researchers find that when it comes to comparing retail prices, the slowdown is not just because of deficits in abilities. It also is due to seniors’ preferences for reducing risk by taking their time. As a result, older adults are generally more accurate than are younger adults in evaluating complicated price-quality balances among purchase alternatives. Serve those older adults well by relaxing any impatience you have with their deliberative decision making.
     The degree to which various sorts of risk are avoided by seniors also can be distinctive. Consumer psychologists describe six types of risk:

• Financial. “Am I paying too much money?”
• Functional. “Will the product or service solve my problem or meet my needs effectively and efficiently?”
• Time. “If I make this purchase, does it mean investing too much time for what I gain?”
• Physical. “Is my health or safety or that of those I love in danger if I use this product or service?”
• Social. “If the people I admire know I’m using this product or service, am I in danger of falling out of favor with them?”
• Psychological. “Does using this product or service conflict with the image I want to maintain of myself?”

     Even with the reduced risk tolerance among seniors, this population of consumers can be misled at retail. Emotional arousal interferes with critical thinking skills. It happens in adults of all ages, but the effects grow worse as we age.
     Older consumers respond to emotion-laden sales messages (“The aroma of our coffee brings waves of contentment”) more strongly than to purely rational ones (“Award-winning taste at a lower price”). Emotional appeals also result in seniors better remembering details about sources of sales messages. This helps correct for the generally inferior memory in the aged of where they learned particular items. Seniors are especially receptive to positive emotions. In a fraudulent sales pitch, they’ll pay more attention to the touted benefits than to signs of danger and will remember those benefits more clearly.
     The upshot of all this is we can help elderly customers by encouraging them to enter the consumer situation calmly, maintain calmness during the transactions, and insist on enough time to calmly consider all the trade-offs prior to finalizing a purchase decision.

For your success: Retailer’s Edge: Boost Profits Using Shopper Psychology

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Compensate Group Service Failure Collectively

When running your business well, failures to service your customers won’t occur frequently, and when a service failure occurs, it will usually be a matter of resolving the issue with an individual shopper. Still, there are times in any business when a significantly sized group of your customers are impacted by the service failure. Maybe a large number of your employees call in sick so service slows down. Maybe a traffic accident or a bad storm causes late deliveries or a power outage in your store.
     Findings from consumer studies clearly indicate financial compensation for the shortfall heads off ill feelings toward the business. Researchers at University of Alabama, Copenhagen Business School, and Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena had a question about the circumstance where a group has been impacted: Should you tell shoppers in the group that all are receiving the same compensation for the service failure? The alternative is to tell each individually only what they are receiving.
     In answering this question, the researchers confirmed findings from previous studies concluding the relationship between the size of financial compensation and preservation of satisfaction follows a concave curve. At low levels of compensation, the more you give, the better the results. But at higher levels, the curve flattens out. You won’t get much better results by offering more.
     Attentiveness to customer reactions can tell you the point where the curve flattens. The research findings show this point occurs earlier when everyone in the group knows that all are receiving the same amount. You’ll need to spend less on giving credits toward future purchases or providing a discount on the current purchase.
     The explanation is that a sense of fairness itself enhances satisfaction. Knowing all have been compensated the same portrays fairness.

For your success: Retailer’s Edge: Boost Profits Using Shopper Psychology

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Cause Donations to Enhance Business Credit

In cause-related marketing, you address social responsibilities by making charitable contributions. For example, you announce to your target markets you’ll donate a certain amount of money based on purchases from your store.
     Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis point out that another example consists of donating goods rather than money. Their studies conclude this is a better alternative if consumers view your business as lacking warmth. You’ll earn more credit in consumers’ minds by contributing items, with the monetary value of each donation stated as what the cost to your business is.
     The explanation is that people are prone to attribute hidden, exploitive motives to low-warmth organizations. Donations of appropriate goods instead of money show warmth via you attending to the distinctive needs of others. In the studies, donors lacking warmth were defined as those low in the communal characteristics of friendliness and trustworthiness.
     The researchers muse that charities probably prefer monetary contributions to donations of merchandise, since the money gives the charity more flexibility. So it could be in the interest of all parties for a business experiencing perceptions of low warmth to improve these perceptions. In the meantime, though, give goods. Still another alternative is to pay your employees to do work at the charity. For many situations, donations of time give impressions of warmth.
     Another issue is what charity to contribute to. It would seem you’d want to choose a recipient consistent with your store’s brand image. But studies at North Carolina State University and University of South Carolina make a case for including charities which don’t fit the personality of the store operations. The reason is that this has been found to give the consumers more of a sense of personal participation in helping the cause through their purchases. They feel noble, and a sense of nobility facilitates buying intentions.
     If you follow this advice, the specific mission of the charity probably differs from the specifics of the mission of your business. Therefore, your business may want to give merchandise different from what your store usually carries. This is because studies at National Sun Yat‐Sen University, Nanjing University, and CTBC Bank verify how the match between the charity’s mission and the nature of the donation is most important in leading consumers to consider the motives of the business to be genuinely altruistic. It is this consideration which maximizes intentions to buy from the business.

For your success: Retailer’s Edge: Boost Profits Using Shopper Psychology

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Welcome the Stigmatized

When you chase away shoppers your current customers don’t want to associate with, purchase commitment from many of those current customers increases. People shopping in luxury outlets prefer not to rub shoulders with the shabbily dressed. Consumers who strongly oppose homosexuality like to count on not seeing same-sex couples in retail establishments they patronize. Physically ugly shoppers put off the physically beautiful ones.
     That’s the truth. But it’s clear this truth can itself turn ugly. Researchers at Rutgers University address the case for the opposite approach to business profitability: Expand your sales by signaling to the stigmatized how you welcome them spending their money and time with you. The effects of doing this go beyond increasing business from the specific target. The researchers point to studies showing that when it’s clear one stigmatized group is welcomed, others come to feel they’re welcomed, too. 
     Please recognize the exceptions to this when a stigmatized group itself stigmatizes. If your store signals that they’d love to have the shopping aisles filled with white supremacists—a group which is quite rightfully stigmatized—I’m thinking that disenfranchised racial minorities would read this as being stepped on rather than as a welcome mat. But the general rule still generally holds. Moreover, other studies describe how the broad audience of the non-stigmatized are attracted to retailers who eschew discrimination.
     The Rutgers researchers also note that a brand image which projected danger toward one or more stigmatized groups led to boycotts of the brand. If you’re subject to a boycott by a community action group, determine the group’s objectives before deciding on actions. In my experience, community action groups initiating a boycott are usually less interested in doing economic damage to the offender than in forcing changes to the behavior of all businesses engaging in the offensive action. If you find this is indeed the objective of an organized boycott of your retail business, publicize all the ways in which you share common ground with the group.
     The Rutgers researchers conclude that the essential element in welcoming the stigmatized is deeper than carrying items which likely appeal to the target population, such as the hijab-wearing Black Muslim Barbie from Mattel, or in the décor, such as advertising showing women who are full-figured. The essential element is a message of safety as the consumer reinforces their identity during their shopping.

For your success: Retailer’s Edge: Boost Profits Using Shopper Psychology

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