Show Them What They’ll Never See Again

Announce to your target audience an item you’re selling is a limited edition, and sales can blossom. It’s true with artwork and, it appears, with encyclopedias.
     When Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. announced the end of the print edition, the average 60 orders per week promptly grew to 1,050. What had become a marginal part of the business because of the move to digital versions of the product became a prominent profit center. Briefly.
     The publisher attributed the sales boost to nostalgia. That could very well be a motivator. Nostalgia does sell merchandise, although it usually kicks in when a product has been gone for a while and then comes back. Maybe a number of consumers who remember looking at the print edition in the past had forgotten their affection for the Encyclopedia Britannica as a crib sheet when writing term papers. Maybe they’d forgotten the print edition still existed. Suddenly, with the discontinuation announcement, the memories flowed back and people decided to make a buy.
     In my opinion, a more likely motivation for shoppers was the last chance to see. “Last Chance to See” was the title of a popular BBC documentary series and a book. Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine told listeners and readers about their travels to see the mountain gorilla and northern white rhino in Zaire, the Amazonian manatee in Brazil, and the kakapo in New Zealand. Animals in danger of becoming extinct.
     For you to turn “last chance to see” into a successful selling technique, the item or experience must be attractive to shoppers even when not on the brink of extinction. In addition, as Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. and the BBC did, you need to remind people it’s the end of the road.
     Researchers at UCLA and University of California-San Diego applied this to tourism. A survey of people who’d moved away from the Windy City found that visits to tourist attractions, such as Chicago’s Millennium Park, were clustered toward the very end of residency, perhaps in the midst of packing up. Other surveys had found that tourists visiting a city for three weeks saw more of the major attractions than residents of three or more years.
     The UCLA/UCSD researchers suggest tourism retailers sell to locals the idea of a “staycation,” such as a gift certificate for specific dates to visit the nearby attractions. The marketing hook is “Now’s the time to see.”

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

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Keep Up-to-Date with Nostalgia Appeals
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Cultivate Positive Moods for Risk Assessment

When shoppers read or hear about possible adverse consequences of using a product, they’ll overestimate the likelihood of the consequences. If the label says “it happens rarely,” they’ll be thinking, “it happens often enough to make a difference.”
     Researchers at Indiana University and Ball State University found that if the shopper is in a positive mood, the understanding of risk is more accurate. There’s a weighing of probability, severity, and tradeoffs. When it’s to the benefit of your customer and you to have a nuanced assessment of risks, cultivate a positive mood.
     Still, psychologists at Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, and University of Chicago who study real-world decision making point out that when it comes to assessing risks, consumers think in terms of possibilities—“How can I make this happen?” “How can I keep this from happening?”—more often than in terms of probabilities—“How likely is it that this will happen?” “How much would it cost me to make what I want twice as likely to happen?” “How much to make what I don’t want half as likely?”
     People pay much more than justified by the odds in order to gamble on a lotto ticket. “You can’t win if you don’t play!” and “Somebody has to win!” become rationales for spending money to turn a zero possibility of gain into a very small, but better-than-zero, chance. People pay for an extended service contract on an appliance even when the probability is that the cost of repair or replacement would be less than the cost of the ESC.
     A marketing researcher at University of Texas-Austin and forensic researcher at Northwestern University asked study participants to say which of two automobiles they’d prefer. The only difference between the two cars was in the performance of the airbag in the car. Car 1 had an airbag that was more likely to save a life than was the airbag in Car 2. However, the airbag in Car 1 also had a small, but measurable, chance of causing death because of the force necessary to deploy the bag. The airbag in Car 2 had such a tiny probability of this happening that it wasn’t even measurable.
     In the study, more of the participants chose Car 2 than chose Car 1. They were placing greater importance on possibilities than on probabilities. The researchers called this the “betrayal effect.” Car 1 might betray their trust.

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Reduce Unwanted Risks for Your Shoppers
Profit from Shoppers’ Positive Moods
Emphasize Possibilities, Not Probabilities
Betray the Betrayal Effect
Present Warranties as Insurance, not Assurance

Mobilize Collective Efficacy for Health

Why are communities with an abundance of vibrant small to midsize retail businesses more likely to have healthier residents than those without such an abundance?
     Researchers at Louisiana State University and Baylor University began their exploration by recognizing an argument could be made in a different direction: Some say it is large companies, such as Big Box retail outlets, which would be associated with higher quality community health. These large retailers would be more likely than small retailers to provide health care insurance, and health care coverage is often considered the single most significant determinant of community health.
     But when the Louisiana/Baylor researchers analyzed data from 3,060 counties in the contiguous United States, they found that small businesses contributed in powerful ways other than funding trips to a doctor. A thriving community of merchants serves both as a cause and an indicator of investment in the neighborhood.

• More interest in disease and injury prevention. There’s a greater push for recreational facilities, health education, workplace safety, anti-smoking legislation, and buying at local farmers’ markets.
• Sustained support for health care access. There were more bond issues for health infrastructure, such as community hospitals, and drives to recruit physicians and other health care professionals.
• Lower rates of death, obesity, and diabetes.

     The underlying factor is “collective efficacy.” Researchers at University of Bristol found that the sorts of trust and cooperation seen among locally-based retailers generate a sense of ability to accomplish great things. There’s also a component of competition. The merchants in the community want to prevail over the merchants in other communities, and, the research finds, local business leaders compete for influence and recognition among themselves. This competitive attitude energizes greater accomplishment.
     Successful small businesses are owned and operated by people with an entrepreneurial spirit. The psychology of the entrepreneur features self-development. You’re responsible for yourself. “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Take care of yourself, your family, your customers, and your customers’ families.
     Because collective efficacy is a state of mind, the benefits include mental health as well as physical health.
     Note that these research findings do not say that a community with an abundance of large retailers is less healthy than one without. The community of merchants which thrives will have a blend of different-sized retail businesses, all of them working toward mutual success and, by doing so, toward the health of the neighborhood.

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

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Perpetuate the Health Momentum
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Appreciate the Effects of Falsehoods

Researchers at University of Sydney persuaded consumers to lie by offering them rewards. The objective of the study was to discover the subsequent influence on the consumers’ ratings of services. The finding was that lying for a reward causes more extreme ratings. Liars who would otherwise have been quite satisfied with service delivery are instead highly satisfied.
     We might attribute this to guilt: The consumer who has lied is motivated to make up for the sin by being nice to others, and so exaggerates the degree of satisfaction. But this explanation doesn’t work on the other end: Liars who would otherwise have been somewhat dissatisfied with service delivery are instead highly dissatisfied.
     The researchers’ explanation is a bit convoluted: For most consumers, telling a falsehood takes cognitive effort. Philosophers have said, in varied ways, that a liar needs to exercise a good memory. Because of the mental fatigue, the liars don’t closely track the progress of service delivery and are therefore more surprised than are truth tellers by the outcome. The surprise accounts for the stronger emotional reaction.
     How does this apply to your retail operations? The answer has to do with rewards which shoppers believe they get for lying.

• They think that lavishing unjustified praise on a service provider will encourage the provider to give better service
• They assume that making a big fuss of complaints will extort the service provider into granting favors
• They want to return a purchased item, but can do so only by fibbing about the reason

     If you spot and then allow the lie, appreciate how the liking or disliking of subsequent evaluations of services you provide will be exaggerated.
     If you choose to discourage such lying, here are three techniques:

• Have the customer seated while you’re standing. Raise your head slightly and extend your arms so your body occupies more space than usual. Columbia University researchers found that this makes it more difficult for a shopper to lie to you.
• Ask brief questions that require the shopper to tell events in an order different from the usual one. Researchers at University of Portsmouth in the UK and University of Gothenburg in Sweden found that asking people to tell a confabulated story, but with the events in reverse order, made the liar’s nervousness obvious.
• Eyeball the eyes. Liars shift their gaze rapidly or will fix their gaze on something aside from your face.

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Lie in Wait for Lying Shoppers
Facilitate Customer Truth-Telling

Imply Exclusivity Using Processing Difficulty

When shoppers are evaluating an item for sale, they associate ease of understanding with familiarity, and familiarity stimulates liking. Therefore, it would seem we’d always want our advertisements and sales presentations to be easy to understand. In ads, use high contrast. In sales presentations, make your points succinctly.
     However, maintaining a retailer’s edge requires mastery of the exceptions to the general rules. Regarding easy understanding, researchers at University of Maryland, University of Chicago, and Yale University make a case for processing difficulty sometimes implying that an item is exclusive, and therefore of higher quality. This is most likely, the researchers say, with special occasion gifts which the consumer doesn’t purchase regularly.
     Consumer behavior findings about gifts do often differ from findings about other purchases. For example, findings from Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, and University of Chicago suggest that when a gift is expected, the givers who wait until the last minute get increasingly interested in avoiding pain. The result is that they’re willing to pay more for a gift and often more willing to upgrade to a fancier gift.
     And packaging counts with gifts, including a bit of difficulty in opening the present. Anthropologists at University of Florida observed how important admiring the gift wrapping and the unwrapping of the gift are as cultural rituals. Consider offering gift wrapping as a value-added service.
     The notion that processing difficulty can draw special attention is not new. Classic research by psychologist Edward Wheeler Scripture found that a bit of puzzlement in a headline—whether for a newspaper article or newspaper ad—increases interest in reading what follows. In an 1895 book, Dr. Scripture used his studies’ findings to suggest putting commercial notices upside down in order to attract the consumer’s close attention to the content, thereby increasing the likelihood of purchase.
     Still, it would be a cruel trick—and thoroughly bad business—to intentionally confuse that up-and-growing target market—elderly consumers. Safety might be at stake here. So to the degree that you have time, deliver the message in different ways. Tell the elderly customer the product usage instructions. Demonstrate your points with gestures or even a sample of usage. Then check for understanding by encouraging the customer to ask you questions. In doing this, be sure to respect the dignity of the customers. If they seem confused, let them know you and others in the store are available later.

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Educate Staff to Educate Shoppers

What opportunities do you provide your sales staff to thoroughly learn about each of the products and services they are selling so they can later serve as expert endorsers of your store?
     To what degree do you take the considered recommendations of your staff—those who handle sales and those who handle returns—as to what products should be pruned out of your merchandise mix?
     Pet Supermarket can answer positively to both those questions. Almost every day, the Pet Supermarket president distributes to all sales employees literature about the products. And the retailer listens to the employees.
     The company competes for consumer dollars with Pet Smart and Petco, both much larger operations. An essential part of the Pet Supermarket success formula is to be sure all staff are educated both with product knowledge and with the skills to educate others. Those others include shoppers and fellow store staff. Plenty of people on a sales floor know the information, but many lack skills in teaching other adults.
     Staff your store with experts who enjoy sharing their knowledge with customers in a team-oriented way. Customers want sales staff who know it all, but without acting like stuffy know-it-alls. Retired journeyman plumbers make terrible hardware store employees if they have trouble explaining the steps to replace a faucet. Teens with a wonderful sense of fashion style are bad clothing department advisors if they label some teen customers as beyond fashion rescue.
     Your shoppers love being served by educated experts. As the salesperson asks questions and answers the customer’s questions, it gets clearer. Do your floor staff know where all the merchandise is located? Are they aware of the comparative features of brands in their department? Can they explain them to the customer if asked? Can they explain other things as well?
     An image of expertise can be built with an image of the employee: When we see a portrait-style photo of someone that’s posted in a public location, and then we meet the person face-to-face, we subconsciously grant that person additional credibility. You could benefit from this by including in your store advertising and as part of your internet presence photos of your employees or posting an 8 x 10 in the department where the employee spends most of their time.
     Customers don’t expect the salesperson to know everything. However they do expect the salesperson to get the answer when they don’t know and to do a personal handoff to another salesperson when necessary.

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

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Have Staff Who Show and Share Expertise