Vote for Selective Understanding & Recall

The term “retail politics” refers to a candidate for office soliciting support person-by-person. Historically, the currency of retail politicians has been shaking hands and kissing babies. Traditionally, the rule for success is telling each potential voter what he or she wants to hear.
     Like retail merchandising—which sells prods to buy tangible items—retail politics—which sells prods to campaign and vote in certain ways—should also include mass media communications. With these methods, it’s more challenging for the politician to have each message recipient come away with what best satisfies. Still, it’s easier than you might think. Voters show selective perception of what best fits their preexisting beliefs.
     Evidence for this comes from Fairleigh Dickinson University study results which have been featured under headlines like the Rolling Stone’s “Watching Fox News Actually Makes You Stupid.” The claim in these reports is that people who watch only the conservatively-oriented Fox News end up less well-informed than people who don’t regularly watch news.
      That claim is supported by the research findings, but this isn’t the complete story. First, the methodology has limitations. The degree of knowledge of news was measured by five questions on international issues—such as “To the best of your knowledge, have the opposition groups protesting in Egypt been successful in removing Hosni Mubarak?”—and five on domestic issues—such as, “It took a long time to get the final results of the Iowa caucuses for Republican candidates. In the end, who was declared the winner?” Ten questions, ranging from easier to harder, is better than five, but it’s still a limited sample on which to say how stupid somebody is.
     Moving on, how about viewers of just the liberal-leaning MSNBC? They were a bit better than the “no-newsies” on domestic questions, but also a bit worse than the no-newsies on international questions. Now let’s drill down further: On both the international and domestic items, self-identified liberals watching Fox scored much lower on the same set of questions than did self-identified conservatives watching Fox. Conservatives watching MSNBC scored much lower than did liberals watching MSNBC.
     People who were exposing themselves to a point of view very different from their own were expending mental energy screening out what they didn’t agree with. This process got in the way of them understanding and remembering accurate information.
     Recognize how your shoppers for ideas and items will select what’s consistent with their preexisting beliefs.

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Mire Customers as Calamity Prevention

University of Florida and University of Pennsylvania researchers assigned study participants to select among airline flights. One group were led to believe the decision was a quite important one. The other group were told the decision was relatively unimportant. And some of the members of each group were given the information about the flights in a way that was hard to read, while the remainder were given easy-to-read information.
     The hard-to-read text used a small font and little contrast between the text and the background. The easy-to-read text used a larger font and clear contrast.
     Findings from the Florida/Pennsylvania studies:

• Those required to use the hard-to-read text spent more time deliberating and therefore made more careful decisions. Perhaps the only thing surprising about this finding is how many of the participants given the small font in low contrast were willing to even continue doing the task! 
• Among the participants told at the start that the task was relatively unimportant, those given the hard-to-read text came away judging the selection of flight to have been more important than did those given the easy-to-read text. Perhaps, having labored over the text led the consumers to justify it all by deciding the task was quite important after all. 
• Those who considered the task more important spent more time deliberating before making the decision. In fact, they even sought more options in an effort to maximize the quality of the decision. 

     Do you see the spiral here? In introducing the perceptual speed bump, the researchers got people to spend more time on the task, which led to them considering it more important, which led to them spending more time on the task, and so on.
     Except the researchers didn’t refer to a speed bump. They talked about the study participants having become stuck in quicksand. A trivial decision could be made into an unnecessarily complicated one.
     This quicksand effect is not something we’d want to use with shoppers very often. Actually, we’re unable to use it very often. The study participants stuck around because they’d signed on to complete the professors’ assignment. Most consumers would give up, or least complain.
     Still, there are times we’d like to mire a decision maker, slowing them down so they must carefully evaluate the alternatives and the consequences. We don’t want them arrested interminably in the quicksand. Therefore, remember to pull them out at the right time.

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Integrate College Kids with Young Adults

Bloomberg Businessweek reports that retailers such as Target and Pottery Barn are turning toward college students for back-to-school (BTS) selling this year. The retailers are reasoning that BTS purchases for elementary through high school students are usually done once and it’s over, but those college students who move out from home keep shopping. They buy to decorate their new quarters and then continue to decorate, it’s thought. For BTS purchases overall, about 40% of shoppers intend to get all of it done in a single tour of the stores.
     From a consumer psychology perspective, it does make sense to consider college attendees separate from the younger students. However, with one important exception I’ll bring up in a moment, I don’t see college students as a significantly different psychographic than other young adults. In deciding how to sell to the college consumers, integrate what you already know about those in this age cohort who aren’t enrolled.
     The “2013 Back-to-College Survey” sponsored by the National Retail Federation and conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics finds that almost 50% of college students will be commuting to campus while living at home. This parallels what is true for young adults who aren’t pursuing higher education and indicates that, like them, the consumer values of the student’s family will hold sway.
     Those students do locate into a dorm, apartment, or Greek-letter house will buy furniture, just like other young adults will do when moving away from home. The NRF survey says that outside the category of furnishings for student residences, the BTS averages spent by college students are predicted to be less than last year. The state of the U.S. economy has impacted purchases, with about 38% saying they’re looking for discounts more often than in the past and about 32% saying they’ll buy more store brand and generic products. Again, this is similar to what other young adults are predicted to do.
     The important exception to college students being like all other young adults? It’s their interest in “brand ambassadors.” In a Barnes & Noble college marketing report, about 68% of the respondents expressed interest in being an on-campus representative to introduce other students to retail purchase possibilities. About 50% of students said they’d welcome help from brand ambassadors while settling into college.
     If college students are among your BTS targets, consider how you might employ on-campus “store ambassadors” to build business.

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Dial Into the Right Dialect

My thanks to DISH Network for the video lesson instructing me, when in Boston, how to translate, “I’ll put my kahkeez in my kahkeez.” My gratitude isn’t because I’ve been confusing my car keys with my khakis when visiting Beantown. I’m pretty good at understanding the difference between the two anywah I go.
     Instead, my appreciation for the “Kahkeez” video is because it reminds us of the impact of dialects in retailing. The way in which we pronounce words projects to the shopper an abundance of associations accumulated over a lifetime.
     The words themselves, not just the pronunciation, carry associations. What those of us in some parts of America call “soda,” consumers in other regions refer to as “pop.” The Northeasterner who might get disgusted when offered a snail along with the coffee in California would be more likely to buy when told that’s what we call a spiral-style cinnamon roll. If a salesperson describes the freezing rain outside as a “silver thaw,” the shopper might safely conclude this salesperson has connections to the northwestern U.S.
     In many Chinese dialects, the word for 4 is pronounced almost identically to the Chinese word for death. In what Western consumers might call superstition and certain Chinese, Korean, and Japanese consumers would call good judgment, saying the word for “4” in retail transactions requires special caution.
     But I’m told that residents of the Chiu Chow area of China consider that same word to be lucky.
     As long as we’re skilled and authentic, we can improve the probability of a sale by matching our dialect to what impresses the shopper positively. This has to do with more than geographical location. Researchers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University North Central, and University of Missouri-Kansas City recommend we stay aware of the three categories of language retailers can use with consumers, each category with its distinct rules of grammar:

• Ceremonial language. Culture dictates what we say to the consumer if we want to create store loyalty. With certain people, it might be “Hello, sir,” while others expect, “What’s up?” The “Have a nice day” will fit fine with some shoppers, but strike others as smarmy. 
• Conventional language. Making conversation about the latest TV episode or sports team’s performance develops rapport with the shopper. 
• Commercial language. We’d like our verbal transactions with shoppers to end in commercial transactions with customers. Ask for the sale.

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Link Smaller to Mutual Advantages

Cocktails, handbags, and golf games are all trimming down to meet consumer desires. A recent Time magazine article chronicled the last of these with statistics on the increasing popularity of nine-hole golf games. The driving force for the move from the eighteen-hole standard in place for 250 years: Fewer people are playing golf and fewer rounds are being played.
     The golfing industry’s research concludes the reason is the hours it takes to play eighteen. The U.S. Golf Association, PGA of America, and Golf Digest are promoting “Time for Nine.” The initiative also encourages players to speed up the traffic-jamming contemplation over each shot on the course.
     As to the cocktails, they’re being served in mini versions at many venues. And large handbags—15 to 18 inches tall or wide—which were highly popular a few years ago now account for only about 26% of dollar sales. Pulling ahead have been the midsize handbags—at least 12, but less than 15, inches tall or wide—which now account for 43% of dollar sales.
     Downsizing provides you opportunities for increased profitability. The fee for nine holes will be less than that for eighteen, but more than half as much. Your retail price for midsize handbags might actually be higher than that for large ones because of the greater popularity, even though smaller handbags consume less space on the shelf and could be less expensive to manufacture.
     To sell well, the downsized versions must also offer obvious advantages for the shopper. Bartenders selling the miniaturized cocktails are reminding customers how the later sips of a martini are too warm when it’s been served in a container resembling, in size and contour, a goldfish bowl.
     Resistance to change will be lower among newer players of the game. For one thing, they’re less accustomed to the old ways. For another, the appeal of multitasking, quick gratification, and miniaturization is negatively correlated with consumer age. The golf industry is aiming the “Time for Nine” to up-and-coming players.
     With the entrenched players of the game, wean them over. Bartenders have responded to customer complaints about smaller sizes using the ice cream shop malted milk method. Your malt comes in a glass alongside a bonus amount in the silver mixing tin. The bartenders serve half of an ordered cocktail in a small glass alongside the other half on ice in a small carafe. Later, omit the carafe.

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Stimulate Shopper Search

The consumer comes into your shop, announces precisely what he wants to purchase, and when you present it to the consumer, the consumer instantly turns into a customer and then immediately leaves your shop.
     A quick profit’s good. Still, there are situations in which you’d prefer to have consumers search around before completing their purchases. In searching, they’re more likely to buy ancillary items on that visit and they’re better able to appreciate all your store carries when considering future visits.

• Create the itch for a search. Researchers at Tulane University talk about “single-choice aversion.” The shopper describes to the retailer a problem in need of a solution. The retailer responds by suggesting one offering and then stops. Often, the shopper’s reaction to this is to ask about other options, opening up an orientation to search. The researchers found that this orientation generalized beyond the one choice. For the other items on the shopper’s list, there will be more searching before settling on a choice. You’ve created a searcher. 
• Remind the shopper of trial-and-error. In a continuing set of studies at MIT, shopper search has been stimulated by asking what the person has tried out in the past and then either accepted or rejected. Such questions are helpful for lots of reasons. You can use the answers to decide what to offer next. Anticipate what the customer will be searching for by considering what she’s selected, what she’s rejected, and why. But it turns out that another benefit of these kinds of questions is to move the shopper into search mode. 
• Progressively narrow down searches. Some customers resist opening up searches for fear they’ll be overwhelmed by the alternatives. This resistance is more likely when the customer has already struggled with a choice while shopping with you that day. To overcome this fear, from the start, guide shoppers toward filtering what’s available to them. 
• Encourage collaborative searches. Ecommerce experiences have created a mentality about shopping, a set of expectations that when met well by bricks-and-mortar stores gives those stores a retailer’s edge. One shopping function where this is true is the search for the right product. Item selection has become more of a social task in which we consider the experiences and opinions of others. When wanting to open up the focused shopper to other possibilities, you could ask what friends and family members would think of the choices. 

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

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