Pair Contributions with Purchases

Fulfill your social responsibilities as a retailer by making charitable contributions. To increase sales at the same time, announce to your target markets that you’ll donate a certain amount of money for purchases from your store. Building on University of Texas-Austin and University of Wisconsin–Madison findings from a study of 3,500 consumers, here are some tips about pairing contributions with purchases:

• Limit how frequently you announce that you’ll be pairing a contribution to charity with the purchase of an item. Just as with price discounts, if it’s done too frequently, it becomes less likely to boost sales. But as long as you don’t do it too often, your promise of a charitable contribution of $1 for each item purchased at the regular price will produce a higher average percentage gain in sales than offering a discount of $1 off the regular item price.
• Make the offer for moderately popular products and/or brands. The percentage increase in sales for items that are already selling well won’t be as great as with less popular items, so don’t make the offer for items that are already quite popular. But because we’re talking about percentage increases, also don’t make the offer for products and/or brands that are not selling well at all. A 20% increase in unit sales of 100 is much less than a 10% increase in unit sales of 500.
• Make your offer of the donation for an item where you carry products with the same brand name in different product categories. By allowing the customer to feel they’re contributing to a worthy cause, you build in the customer a good feeling toward the brand they purchase. This good feeling spreads to other items in different product categories that carry the same brand name, so makes sales of those other items more likely.
• For the most efficient sales increases, make the offer on a branded item in only one product category. Announcing that you’ll make the donation for items in three different product categories that carry the same brand name won’t triple brand attractiveness compared to the effect of doing it with a product from a single category. If you want to make the offer for three different products, do it for products in three different categories, each one carrying a different brand name.

Click below for more:
Introduce Unknown Products with Charity
Show Fair Pricing by Contributing

Show Customers the Right Picture

Whether you’re asking me to purchase something from your store or contribute money to your charity, I’m probably more likely to agree if you show me the right picture.
     University of Chicago undergraduates were told that UChicago zoology students had been soliciting donations to rescue an endangered panda they’d found in a remote Asian area. On a form asking the undergraduate the most they’d be willing to donate, some of the study participants were shown a picture of a panda, while others were shown just a dot to represent the panda to be rescued.
     Students shown the picture said they’d donate $19.49 on average. The average for the dot group was $11.67. It looked like the picture increased the willingness to contribute. The lesson for retailers? Show customers what they’re getting for their money.
     Pictures are especially important with ecommerce and with the website of a bricks-and-mortar store. Here, you can’t directly stimulate the senses of touch, smell, and taste as you can in the store, and the more senses you pleasantly stimulate—even if indirectly through a picture—the greater the chance of you closing the sale.
     But realize that pictures don’t always make a difference. In another part of the UChicago study, participants were told that the number of pandas to be rescued was four, not one. In this case, the average donation amount was statistically the same with four dots as with four identical pictures of a panda. The researchers speculate that if the picture had been cuter, it would have made a difference.
     Sometimes pictures can hurt. In comparative ads, show a picture of the product or product package you want the person to select, but don’t show pictures of people using the product. University of Maryland researchers discovered that such pictures lead shoppers to start thinking about using the products themselves. When they do this, the shoppers put too much mental energy into thinking about just the recommended product. They forget to pay attention to the comparative advantages, so the power of the comparative ad fades away.
     Why is that bad? I think you get the picture.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Advertise What Products Look Like
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In Comparative Ads, Don’t Show Users

Monitor Your Community Involvement Payoffs

I recommend that retailers do well by doing good: By contributing to your community, you fulfill your ethical obligations as a member of the community as well as earn the sort of gratitude from your target markets that can build lasting profitability.
     There are many ways to contribute to your community and many factors you’ll want to consider when deciding which of those ways to implement. University of South Florida research indicates that pairing charitable contributions with the sale of brands unfamiliar to the consumer will boost sales of those unfamiliar brands. It doesn’t seem to matter much whether there’s any logical connection between the product or service category of the unfamiliar brand and the cause supported by the contribution.
     On the other hand, the charity you select does seem to make a difference if your contribution is to head off any suspicions of price gouging. Suppose major flooding hits a store’s target market area, resulting in a demand spike for flashlight batteries. If the store increases the price of batteries, but announces how a portion of the profits will be contributed to the Red Cross, acceptance of the price increase could be a slam dunk.
     In addition, whenever you organize a charitable activity, offer a variety of ways for your older customers to pitch in to help. Researchers find that altruism is especially important to elderly consumers. Seniors like to give their business to retailers who are compassionate, and seniors like to view themselves as generous.
     In all these cases, what counts is that the cause is something important to the customers. And that’s where it’s valuable to monitor the payoffs from your community involvement. Regularly assess how to allocate your charitable donations and how to publicize those partnerships to attain the most profitable payoffs.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Peddle Unfamiliar Brands Using Contributions
Show Fair Pricing By Contributing
Help Older Customers to Help Others

Serve the Underserved

According to an AP article appearing in today’s Miami Herald, a highly unusual event for American retailing occurred within the past few days: Dawn Frierdich, age 52, wanted to purchase three loaves of Panera bread and an iced tea. But when she asked how much it would cost, she was told by cashier Michael Miller, age 21, she didn’t have to pay anything if she didn’t want to.
     What’s going on here? Flexible pricing is an accepted retailing practice, in which different customers are charged different prices for the same item or service. However, in flexible pricing, the charge is generally thought of as based on criteria such as the size of the order or the prior business relationship with the customer. Quantity discounts and introductory offers.
     Another variety of flexible pricing involves the shopper bidding a price that is then accepted by the seller. In the case of Ms. Frierdich, it happens that the seller would accept a bid of any amount, no matter how small.
     The back story is that Panera Bread Co. has opened the first of many planned stores to serve the underserved. The concept is by no means new. I remember when I was a young kid, my Uncle Jack—an attorney who was as interested in justice being served as in charging prevailing rates—would take me to eat at Clifton’s Cafeteria on Olive Street in Los Angeles, where a neon sign flashed “PAY WHAT YOU WISH.”
     In my opinion, each retailer has an obligation to help their community. At the base, this means respecting business fundamentals so that you maintain profitability sufficient to stay open. You can’t serve your customers and employees if you close your doors. Beyond this base, though, always have in mind ways you can provide service to the underserved.

Distribute Worksheets for Child Consumers

Want to build a deep appreciation among your shoppers who are parents? Do it by helping the parents teach their children to be better consumers. And one tactic for accomplishing this is to—in consultation with educators from your community—develop and distribute worksheets to build consumer skills at different age ranges. University of Minnesota research findings suggest this:

• Ages 3 to 6. These children are learning how to classify products. For the younger children, it’s by size and color, which lets the child select the right product to assist in shopping and meal preparation. For children closer to age 6, the classification is by function. This helps the child accept a substitute product when a desired one isn’t available. Worksheets could show pictures of actual products in your store and ask the child to draw lines between ones that are similar.
• Ages 7 to 11. Around age 7, children’s consumer skills start to blossom. They become better at recognizing the benefits made possible by product features, moving beyond a focus on the features themselves. Their understanding increases for the correlation between money and value. They gain a greater ability to compare products and to do it on more than one dimension (such as ease of use and duration of use) at the same time. Worksheets could present a task that products in your store could be used to accomplish and then ask the child to select which of the pictured items would be the best set and write why.
• Ages 12 to 16. Consumer skills to develop for this age range include an appreciation of multiple perspectives. Worksheet themes might include asking the future adult shopper to propose return/exchange policies and pricing structures which take account of the interests of both the customer and the retailer.

Give Coupons Early and Proudly

According to a March 31 press release from Valassis, the use of discount coupons by shoppers is climbing significantly. Because a major revenue source for Valassis is managing coupon distribution and redemption for their retailing and manufacturing clients—including through the Valassis RedPlum Network—you might choose to discount the press release’s enthusiasm a little. Still, the evidence from other sources is that your potential customers love their coupons. Valassis says that more than three out of four of the consumers they surveyed report using coupons regularly.

      Here are a few shopper psychology tips to get the most from your coupon programs:

• Distribute coupons as early in the shopping process as possible. Researchers at MIT found that coupons presented at the store entrance drive up sales much more than do coupons available in the aisles of stores. RedPlum.com distributes coupons online before the customer even leaves home for the store.
• Use conditions on coupons to influence the size of the entire store purchase. Those MIT researchers also found that when coupon redemption required the customer to spend more on an item than they’d planned to, the customer tends to increase the total shopping trip amount.
• Help people be proud to use their coupons. Being thrifty has gotten more stylish. Still, a psychological stigma is associated with coupon use. Researchers at University of Colorado-Boulder, University of Virginia, Duke University, and University of Bologna described associations between coupon use and being a tightwad. Researchers at University of Alberta and University of Manitoba found that when people in a store saw someone using a coupon, judgments of the coupon-users were tugged in a negative direction. One way to add status is to hook a noble cause to coupon use. RedPlum brags about their sponsorship of a missing children location program.

Publicize Social Consciousness

What do the Catholic Church and Nike have in common? Both are pushing back against negative publicity for actions they’ve taken—or more accurately, actions they’ve not taken. With the Catholic Church, the issue is abuse of children. In a much less well-known matter, the issue with Nike is severance pay.
     Two Honduran subcontractors to Nike refused to pay a total of about $2.6 million to workers who lost their jobs when factories were suddenly closed. Protestors say the severance payments are required under Honduran law. Last week, University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that because of Nike’s failure to take action in the matter, the university is terminating its licensing agreement with Nike.
     The University of Wisconsin announcement read to me like the licensing termination was a negotiating tactic—not only with Nike, but also with the groups pressuring the university to take action. The chancellor praised Nike’s previous commitment to ethical working conditions worldwide and said she remains hopeful the severance pay matter can be resolved.
     If you find yourself subjected to negative publicity about your ethics, research suggests that one way to get out in front of the story is to demonstrate your social consciousness. Where to begin? Nike has said they’re paying for training and job placement for the displaced workers.
     But maybe you hesitate addressing employee rights because your business operates in societies which think government oversight is excessive. In this case, you might start with social responsibility issues designed to bring you largely supportive attention within the societies that matter to your business.
     For instance, almost everybody supports reducing the amount of trash we generate. Your first publicizing of social responsibility might involve ways you sell products which use refillable containers, favor vendors that minimize unnecessary packing, and accept old products for recycling. It's a start.

Show Commitment to the Underserved

A promising path to retailing success is to select an underserved target market and then show commitment to meeting their distinctive needs. In my opinion, there is no better example of that than La Curacao, the California-based chain with a target market of consumers of Latin American heritage. Based on what La Curacao has done, here are some tips for all retailers—regardless of where in the world you are located and what distinguishes your underserved target markets:

• Give help in gaining financial strength. La Curacao offers three credit plans, two of them specifically designed for customers without a strong credit history. It’s reported that 95% of purchases are made with a store credit card, and for 80% of the store credit card holders, the La Curacao card was the first one they ever had.
• Honor the family. Cultures place different amounts of importance on family, but every culture honors family to some degree. La Curacao gives college scholarships to children with Latin American roots, sponsors talent shows featuring young Latin American musicians and dancers, and provides ongoing Latin American-themed live-performance family entertainment in each store. The company spokescharacters are a gregarious family of penguins.
• Partner with others who have ties to the distinctive community. For their college scholarship program, La Curacao partnered with the University of Southern California Mexican-American Alumni Association. For an initiative that brings Latin American bands to the annual Tournament of Roses Parade in Southern California, La Curacao partnered with a local affiliate of the Spanish-language Univision TV network. Although the stores are probably best known for selling home appliances, computers, and furniture, La Curacao also partnered with suppliers of ethnic handcrafts. The company motto is “Un Poco De Su País,” which translates from the Spanish into “A Little Bit of Your Country.”

Introduce Unknown Products with Charity

Unknown brands can provide you higher profit margins. But the profit margins become profit dollars only if your customers turn those unknown brands into brands they get in the habit of buying. Among the more effective techniques for convincing customers to start using an unknown brand is to tie their trial to you contributing to a charity. Findings from University of South Florida indicate that pairing charitable contributions with the sale of brands unfamiliar to the customer will boost sales of those unfamiliar brands. The research finds that the boost is not nearly as great when it comes to brands already familiar to the shopper.
     When a vendor asks your business to purchase a selection of the unknown brand, negotiate with the vendor to share with you in sponsoring the charitable contributions. After all, building sales is in the interest of both the supplier and you. But you’ll get better results if you publicize the sponsor as being your store. Research at Michigan State University, Illinois Wesleyan University, and University of Texas-Austin suggests that when a store rather than a brand is publicized as the sponsor, consumers are more likely to see the sponsorship as a charitable act rather than only a selling technique.
     There’s nothing wrong with doing well by doing good, though. So also consider the charity sponsorship as an opportunity to prospect for new customers. Invite opinion leaders from the charity to visit your store to learn about all that you offer. Get senior citizens involved as volunteers. Researchers find that altruism is especially important to elderly consumers. Seniors like to give their business to retailers who are compassionate, and they like to view themselves as generous. Whenever you organize a charitable activity, offer a variety of ways for your older customers to pitch in to help.

Attract with Social Consciousness

Yesterday, Target Corporation announced that their stores will no longer sell farm-raised salmon. They said they’re doing it to help preserve the health of the salmon species. It’s one of a number of socially conscious initiatives by Target: Last spring, Target featured organic fashions. Target now sells what they call green-friendly home products along with more than 700 organic food items. And they say that environmentally sustainable merchandise with a designer’s touch will be appearing later in 2010.
     Even if you don’t work for Target, you might be planning your own sorts of socially conscious initiatives. But how to measure the payoff? The answer is to analyze results not just for those products where you’re touting your contributions to improving the world, but instead for overall business performance. Socially conscious initiatives help draw today’s consumers into your store, but there’s a good chance they’ll end up buying products which aren’t the most environmentally friendly or manufactured with fair trade practices.
     The presence of socially conscious products frequently makes it more likely the customer will purchase products that do not embody social consciousness. It is as if having chosen the store is enough to satisfy the values. Studies at City University of New York, Loyola College, and Duke University suggest that even when this sort of thing doesn’t occur within the same shopping trip, it can occur over subsequent shopping trips. That is, if someone purchases a socially conscious item on this trip, they become more likely to purchase next time an item that shows little attention to social consciousness.
     The lesson? Be ethical, but stock enough items to allow customers to choose how much attention they want to pay to social consciousness. If all you have is wild-caught salmon, you’ll miss out on some sales to people seeking the farm-raised.

Aim to Donate, Not Destroy, Merchandise

H&M, the international fashion retailer, is enduring heavy criticism now. A graduate student at City University of New York found bags of unused H&M clothing on the streets of New York. It turns out that staff at the store on 34th Street had taken box cutters and razors to excess merchandise and then trashed the remains.
     Why weren’t these clothes donated to charity? How could the fingers be cut off gloves and insulation ripped from jackets at a time that NYC has been struggling to open up shelter space for the homeless in the face of freezing winter temperatures? Outrage exploded in the media and across the Internet. Considering that H&M has stores in about 35 countries, reaction was international.
     H&M replied that over the past year, they’ve donated about 500,000 clothing items to myriad charitable organizations. A spokeswoman said destroying unsold clothing was against company policy, she was unaware that it was being done, and the company would now check to be sure no other H&M stores were doing it.
     Perhaps left unsaid was that retailers need to take care when giving away merchandise: The unscrupulous could get hold of items and try to return them for store credit. If the donated merchandise works its way to potential customers, this would undercut sales.
     We’ll see how it plays out for H&M. Comments on the New York magazine site—posted by people who claim to have worked for the company—say that the spokeswoman lied and the policy was in fact to destroy clothing which could have been donated. Other postings claim that a great many other retailers do the same sort of thing.
     Whatever the outcome, this is a high-profile time for you to take care that whenever you dispose of merchandise, you aim to donate, not to destroy.

Be Clear What You Mean by Going Green

Many retailers adopt environmentally-friendly practices in hopes of achieving business advantages. But going green will lead to misunderstandings with your customers if they expect more than you're willing to do. This can produce public anger instead of good will. The public feels you're claiming credentials you don't deserve.
     Be clear with yourself and with your target markets about what you mean by going green. Along with this, be clear within your business about why you're doing it. Is it to contribute good without expecting any profit in return? Is it to win admiration from your customers so they'll buy more from you? Is it to earn good will with planning commissions so you can build new stores or gain permission to expand your current store?
     If it is to impress others, realize it will take a period of time to get the word out. Consider what has happened to McDonald's Corporation. Most objective observers would agree that the world's largest fast food chain does have the credentials to claim friendliness to the environment. They're at rank 22 on the Newsweek Magazine 2009 "Greenest Companies in America" list.
     Even with all that, the food retailer continues to draw criticism for not showing sufficient social consciousness. It seems to me that people are confusing overall social consciousness with specific environmentalism.
     This week's response from McDonald's Corporation has been to announce that they're redoing the décor for about 100 of their restaurants in Germany. The change is from a red backdrop to a green interior. The objective, says McDonald's, is to dramatize their commitment to the environment. Trouble is, they've already been changing from red toward green and issuing press releases since at least 2003.
     Recognize the publicity advantages from going green, but realize it might take years to fully achieve those advantages.

Deal with Compulsive Shopping Disorder

Does your store take measures to help customers who suffer disabilities? How about accommodating wheelchairs and holding special shopping events for people with intellectual impairments? Well, what if the disability consists of a compelling urge to keep on buying products or services in self-destructive ways? That problem is called Compulsive Shopping Disorder.
     People with CSD tell researchers things like, "It's not that I want it, because sometimes I'll just buy it and I'll think, 'Ugh, another sweatshirt.'" and "I couldn't tell you what I bought or where I bought it. It was like I was on automatic." Does it sound like an addiction? You see, people with the disorder often recognize something's terribly wrong with them.
     Compared to your other customers, they are less likely to pay their bills and more likely to return items. Those are a couple of the reasons retailers should care about CSD. In addition, there are mental health professionals who want CSD to be added to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). If this happens, the legal obligations for retailers might increase. Think about how judges have held bars responsible for keeping patrons from drinking alcohol to excess and how Harrah's casinos post notices reading " Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-522-4700."
     I'd never suggest to a retailer that they refuse to sell an item to a customer because the retailer suspects the person has CSD. But I would suggest that you and your staff refrain from sales pressure on customers who seem to be struggling to keep from buying while they're emotionally upset.
     Have I convinced you to think about ways to handle customers who show signs of CSD? Okay then, let's move on to DSM diagnosis 312.32, Kleptomania, characterized by, "the recurrent failure to resist impulses to steal items…." The poor dears.

Peddle Unfamiliar Brands Using Contributions

The holiday season brings out in people a spirit of giving. That's true for both retailers and consumers, so how about teaming up with your customers to contribute to one or more charitable causes?
     You'll gain a profitability in spirit. At the same time, there's nothing wrong with doing this in a way that also yields the highest financial profitability. Consider research findings from University of South Florida which indicate that pairing charitable contributions with the sale of brands unfamiliar to the customer will boost sales of those unfamiliar brands. The research finds that the boost is not nearly as great when it comes to brands already familiar to the shopper.
     There are all sorts of reasons you might want to introduce a new brand to your shoppers: Higher margins from house brands. Better deals from the suppliers. Do recall that there's more to introducing a new brand than pairing it with a charitable contribution. Most importantly, prospective purchasers will want to know how the unfamiliar brand compares and contrasts with the well-known brands. But an alliance of brand purchase with helping a noble cause can move sales beyond what they'd be otherwise.
     Now which of the many noble causes should you select? Ones which have a logical fit with the product category? Selling a new brand of shoes and contributing some of the profits to an orthopedic hospital? Selling an unfamiliar brand of bras and contributing some sales dollars to the American Cancer Society?
     The answer is it doesn't really matter. The University of South Florida research found that, contrary to what many retailers would guess, there is no added boost from having a logical relationship between the product category and the cause supported by the contribution. What counts is that you select a cause important to your customers.

Earn Sales Giving Social Network Advice

What are the most profitable ways for you to use social networking, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and themed message boards? Among those ways is for you to contribute valuable advice to potential customers. When readers recognize the value, they'll build trust in your expertise and gratitude towards your business. Survey findings say that trust is among the most important determinants of which retailer a consumer selects. And gratitude opens up the consumer to award you their business.
     For your advice to end up being seen as valuable, it must be both accurate and actionable. Regarding accuracy, notice how much bogus information appears on social networking sites. Many observers lament how gullible we all must be. They point to how readily so many of us accepted last week that six year old "Balloon Boy" Falcon Heene could be airlifted long distances in what a New York Times op-ed piece later called a "supersized Jiffy Pop bag." And a Newsweek article complains about former television personality Suzanne Somers, with no formal medical or scientific training, spreading wild ideas about preventing and curing cancer.
     But it is this supposed gullibility which provides the opportunity for you, the retailer, to use social networking to your advantage. The active exchange of messages on these sites lets you visibly scrub out the nonsense. And that brings us to the second point: Give actionable advice, not just criticisms of what's been posted. If you sell products or services actually shown to help head off cancer, for instance, tell the world what to do.
     Findings from consumer psychology research at Cleveland State University and Case Western Reserve suggest that social networking users are most likely to put your advice into action when you reflect on the stories of others, refine what's already been posted, and explore alternatives.

Feature Socially Responsible Trade-Ins

If you're The Home Depot in the U.S. you're using social responsibility as a sales stimulus. The Home Depot is encouraging customers to bring in old power drills, broken or not, to get 15% off on a cordless lithium-ion power drill, touted as good for the environment. If people want to bring in their old Christmas lights later, they'll get a discount on an energy-efficient LED set. And if you're Toys"R"Us, you urged your customers last month to trade in old cribs, car seats and other baby items, perhaps part of the estimated 30% of unsafe items never returned, for a 20% credit towards new items that have been stocked since past product recalls.
     Encouraging trade-ins is a fine way to build your sales. Auto dealers have been doing it for a long while, haven't they? Adding the socially responsible angle can put it over the top.
     Here are a few tips:

• Decide how you will dispose of the trade-ins. Auto dealers could get Cash for Clunkers from the federal government. But what would you do with a bunch of old broken drills?
• Give the trade-in promotion a time limit and a distinctive name. The "Power Drill Trade In, Trade Up," "Eco Options Christmas Light Trade In," and "Toys"R"Us Great Trade-In" were given a two-week to four-week span. The time limit and distinctive name protect against long-term consumer devaluation of product types purchased with the discount.
• Tell shoppers how their one trade-in will make a difference. So in advertising, store signage, and personal selling, say things like how many extra hours of HDTV watching customers get with the energy they'll save using the new Christmas lights.

Cultivate Kids as Future Customers

For most retailers, children are an influence market, giving suggestions to the adults on what to purchase. The chief evidence can be seen in the cereal aisle at any grocery store. But it’s much more than this. Surveys find that about one-third of parents say their kids also actively participate in deciding which automobile the parents should buy.
     For all retailers, children are a future market, with their high potential to remain or become primary customers in five to fifteen years. Because of children's roles as a future market, you've a responsibility to the wellbeing of your business and your community to cultivate kids into good consumers.
     University of Minnesota research indicates that a prime time for doing this is when children are ages 7 to 11. Around age 7, children's consumer skills start to blossom. Over the next few years, they become much better at recognizing the benefits made possible by product features, moving beyond a focus on the product features themselves. Their understanding increases for the correlation between money and value. They gain a greater ability to compare products and to do it on more than one dimension (such as ease of use and duration of use) at the same time. Their abilities grow to recognize that more is not always better, such as a strong sour taste being well-suited to pickles but not to peanut butter.
     Attending to purchasing habits of 7 to 11 year olds isn't only to build profits for the far future, though. For some product categories you carry, kids might be a less-than-obvious primary market right now. Consider cell phones. For the parents, the target appeal is they won't let the tracks of their kids, when they're away, go cold. On the other hand, for the kids, having a cell phone is way cool.

Profit by Showing Social Responsibility

An article in this week's online edition of Time Magazine is titled "For American Consumers, a Responsibility Revolution." The article gives evidence of a trend towards consumers aiming to practice social responsibility in their retail purchases. Retailing profits come from anticipating trends, so make contributing to society an integral part of the personality of your business.
     Determine the amount of attention you'll pay to social responsibility by analyzing the values of the culture in which your business operates. Research indicates people with backgrounds in collectivist cultures, like those in many Asian and Pacific Island areas, Greece and Portugal, are more likely to embrace social responsibility than those who identify with individualist cultures such as Great Britain, Canada and the Netherlands. The Time Magazine article about social responsibility among consumers was one of many in the U.S. edition, but it was the cover story in the Asia and South Pacific editions.
     Where to begin? Well, decide how much controversy you want to tolerate. At least at the start, you might choose to take on social responsibility issues that will bring you largely supportive attention. For instance, almost everybody supports reducing the amount of trash we all generate. About half the people responding to the Time Magazine poll said businesses should place more importance on protecting the environment than on economic growth. Your first social responsibility initiatives might involve exploring ways to sell products that use refillable containers, to favor vendors that minimize unnecessary packing, and to accept old products as trade-ins or recyclables.
     Somewhat more controversial is the issue of working conditions. There are employers in the world who think that government oversight of employee rights is excessive. But we've little tolerance for exploitation, so you might choose to tell shoppers the ethical ways in which your fair-trade products are produced.

Give Elementary Schools Volunteer Time

Contact elementary schools in your target markets to learn how you might volunteer in classrooms. If your store budget and schedule allow, encourage your staff to spend one to two paid hours each month volunteering to help as well.
     Tell each school principal or volunteer coordinator that you're especially interested in educating children to be smarter consumers. But be equally clear that you won't use the volunteering to try to persuade the children to get people to shop at your store. You might need to prove your good intentions by tutoring students in areas having nothing to do directly with consumer issues, at least at the start. In this case, aim towards assisting with math lessons. That's because many elementary school math lessons have to do with money, buying, and selling.
     You and your staff are also in a good position to work with students who are learning critical thinking skills in reading, science, and social studies curricula. It's in the long-term interest of your business to have customers who can recognize true value. Consumer psychology research says that by the time children are in elementary school, most are able to identify what is an advertisement. But especially in the lower grades, they're not so good at realizing the intent of an ad is often to persuade the child to act impulsively and become bored with what they currently own.
     Publicize the ways in which your store is helping in the schools, but be sure to do this in a way that highlights the service aspects rather than leaving people with the impression that you're doing it only to build business. For instance, when you send out press releases, say that you hope your volunteering will inspire other businesses and citizens to join your staff by volunteering in the schools.

Show Fair Pricing By Contributing

With customers' sharp sensitivity these days to prices, pay special attention to what research has found set offs a sense that pricing is unfair. Chief among these indignation triggers is a perception that prices are being raised without warning because demand is greater through no fault of the shopper. This can lead even loyal customers to pledge to never again enter your store.
     Or purchase from your vending machine. Some years ago, the Coca-Cola Corporation was assessing the value of a vending machine which would change the price for a bottle based on the temperature. On hotter days, the price would go up and on cooler days, the price of the Coke would drop. Well, even the most fervent doomsayers of global warming can't legitimately blame the weather on a guy or gal who just wants a Coke. The outrage from Coke's customers led to the prompt demise of the hot flash vending machine.
     But suppose the company said it takes more energy—and is therefore more expensive—to keep a Coke bottle refrigerated on a steamy day than on a chilly day, and that this accounts for the change in pricing. A variety of studies both in the laboratory and in stores indicate that if the amount of the price increase can reasonably be accounted for by a rationale, shoppers will accept the price increase.
     Another avenue to easing indignation is team up with charity. This works best when the charity partner is logically related to the price increase. Suppose major flooding hits a store's target market area, resulting in a demand spike for flashlight batteries. If the store increases the price of batteries, but announces how a portion of the profits will be contributed to the Red Cross, acceptance of the price increase could be a slam dunk.