Please Don’t Buy My Book

With Sell Well unveiled and ready for reading by you and your colleagues, I’m turning to an update of my 2010 book, Retailer’s Edge, which no longer qualifies as state-of-the-art. Hold off on buying Retailer’s Edge if you haven’t already. Expect to see the second edition available later this year. At this point, Sell Well is your better purchase.
     To those who have already read the current Retailer’s Edge, my abundant thanks, along with a question: How might I improve the book? I await your feedback at RIMtailing@gmail.com.
     I expect to receive conflicting counsel. Since Retailer’s Edge was published, I’ve had comments like those from an antiques dealer in Lakeport, California who thanked me for using a typeface big enough that busy eyes could easily read the profitability tips. But I have also received comments like those from a marketing consultant in Anchorage, Alaska who said the large san serif typeface irritated her.
     When I began writing Retailer’s Edge, people told me to omit full citations of the research on which I base the tactics I’ve validated in stores and professional offices. Footnotes clutter up the text and make it look too academic, they said. Then once the book was published, others, including academics, said the absence of research citations lessened my credibility. Another instance of conflicting counsel.
     I welcome suggestions in the same spirit I encourage you to welcome advice from your shoppers and staff. Even when you don’t take the advice, your responses are an opportunity to think through why you’re doing what you’re doing. I also urge you to acknowledge the assistance you receive from your stakeholders. I’ll be doing the same with whatever I discover from you.
     One suggestion I’ve consistently gotten about Retailer’s Edge is to organize the chapters more clearly around the tasks of setting prices, managing discounts, building the sale, and maintaining loyalty. So that’s how I’ll write the second edition. I also want Retailer’s Edge to be a tight companion to Sell Well, which is organized around the eight major motivators of retail purchasing.
     I do listen and take action on what I hear. That sometimes involves compromise. The body text of Sell Well is in 11 point Garamond serif typeface. And almost all the research citations carry a small superscript number in the body text, with the full reference in a section at the back of the book. No footnotes.

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

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To Build Loyalty, Ask Advice, Not Expectations 
Keep a Skeptical Eye on Suggested Tactics

Agitate Stable Blindness

Australian retailer Evan Crick called it “stable blindness.” He was characterizing to me the doubts he’s often encountered upon suggesting to store owners in his Mitre 10 group that they implement shopper loyalty programs.
     When Evan’s phrase first reached my brain, I assumed for an instant that “stable” referred to a fixation on continuing to run the business in the same old unwavering ways. But since Evan is an equestrian, coordinates horse shows, and has sold saddles and all online in addition to screwdrivers and all in his store, I realized his phrase came from another source. Allusions to blinders on the spirited thoroughbreds and nags nagging against change.
     A review of decision making studies by Harvard University and University of Chicago professors indicates the ways in which a stable of merchants can move in either of those directions. The blinders go on when the people fail to share experiences before embarking on a course of action or during implementation of a program. The nagging against change arises when the merchants fear they’ll be out of step and risk their reputations if pioneering adventurous adjustments.
     The solution, according to the researchers, is for store owners and operators to collaborate with each other to broaden the perspectives available to everyone and to generate the courage which comes from companionship. Well-functioning groups are better than individuals in overcoming certain kinds of decision making errors:

• Availability heuristic. Individuals pay too much attention to what’s happened most recently or fits in best with their other beliefs. 
• Egocentric bias. Groups help the members see that the preferences of each one may not be typical of the tastes of the potential customers. 

     Along with this, the researchers urge us to stay vigilant so we avoid proven dangers of groupthink:

• Planning fallacy. Groups are worse than individuals in underestimating the time, money, and staff projects will take. 
• Framing effects. Group members come to depend on each other to do the critical thinking, meaning that the critical thinking is inadequate. As a result, the manner in which the facts are framed makes too much of a difference. A group will be more likely to agree to a change if told it has a 90% chance of success than if told it has a 10% chance of failure. 
• Sunk cost fallacy. Because of reputational concerns, groups are more likely than individuals to prolong ill-fated initiatives, throwing good money after bad. 

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

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Give Loyalty Program Members Prestige 
Steam On Through to Success 
Bind Yourself to Your Plan

Double Down on Cause Marketing

“Cause marketing” refers to a business donating part of their proceeds to charity. The aim is to fulfill social responsibility and gain good will. Done properly, cause marketing adds to your profitability. For example, your occasional promise of a charitable contribution of $1 for each item purchased at the regular price has been shown to produce a higher average percentage gain in sales than offering a discount of $1 off the regular item price. Plus you’re helping the charity.
     Another angle on the “plus” here was explored by researchers at Temple University, Aalto University, Hanken Swedish School of Economics, and Sichuan University. What’s the effect on retail sales if you give a discount to the purchaser plus contribute part of the discounted sale price to charity? Inspiring their inquiry was the researchers noticing how Macy’s department stores have done this with once-yearly Shop-for-a-Cause promotions.
     Analysis of results from actual purchase decisions by 17,000 consumers showed that a moderate discount in this sort of situation works better than no discount or a deep discount. The moderate discount used for the studies was 30% and the deep discount was 50%. In discussing their results, the researchers say a discount in the range of 10% to 30% would be best for increasing sales.
     Why doesn’t a deep discount boost sales as much as a moderate one? Because the deep discount erases the motivation of feeling charitable. People are buying for the price alone.
     The higher effectiveness of the lower discount is fine for you. It’s easier to turn a profit with a discount of 10%-30% than with one of 50%. After all, in this version of cause marketing, changes in sales volume should be only part of what you look at. Doubling down with both discounts and contributions could cut into sales revenues even if the volume is up.
     Another way to increase the effectiveness is to make your offer of the discount-plus-donation 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.

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

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Pair Contributions with Purchases 
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Puff Down for Authenticity

People are more likely to buy from you when they perceive your store, the brands you carry, and your salespeople to be authentic. That’s a repeated finding about consumer behavior. But what goes into consumers considering a retailer to be authentic? Research identifies four interrelated components:

• Continuity. A store being in business for a longer time and carrying the same sorts of merchandise. Low staff turnover. 
• Credibility. Store policies and practices which are easy to understand. 
• Integrity. Evidence that the store and its staff intend to earn a profit by serving customers well rather than by selling each customer as much as possible. 
• Symbolism. A store image compatible with the shopper’s self-image. 

     The researchers—from University of Lausanne, University of Bern, Université du Québec à Montréal, and Concordia University—caution that bragging about these characteristics risks leading target audiences to question the authenticity. This is consistent with earlier research findings from University of Wisconsin-Madison, which documented how Starbucks had become a victim of their own successful branding of the shops as an authentic coffee experience. Many customers, after being convinced of the importance of such an experience, decided Starbucks was talking too much about their authenticity. Those customers gave up on Starbucks and aimed for other shops which showed more humility. Consumers figured that the more you highlight your authenticity, the less authentic you are.
     Shoppers’ search for authenticity could be attributed to the abundance of fake claims all around. The recommended remedy: Sensitize your ongoing customers to the degree of certainty in what’s said about your store and the items you sell.

• When making a claim to a shopper, state the certainty you intend. “I can guarantee you,” is different from, “Most shoppers say.” 
• When shoppers or customers bring claims to you, ask about the degree of certainty the customer gives to it. The degree of certainty associated with a claim is forgotten much more quickly than is the content of the claim. When assessing for authenticity, people benefit from being reminded about credibility. 
• Use puffery cautiously. Puffery consists of lavish, often exaggerated, claims about a store or about items the store carries. If you sell quality products and services and you maintain a staff with acknowledged expertise, expose shoppers to your puffery. Let the puffery demonstrate the abundant enthusiasm you have for what you’re offering. But don’t push it too hard. 

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

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Authenticate Subtly 
Sensitize Customers to Degree of Certainty

Naturalize Citizens to Serve Your Store

Consumer behavior researchers have long noticed how some people frequenting a store go out of their way to help the retail business serve its customers. The researchers named this phenomenon Customer Citizenship Behavior (CCB). The help might include assisting other customers who happen to be shopping in the store at the same time; giving suggestions to the store owner for improvements; and enforcing store standards, such as tipping off staff about a shoplifter.
     We’d like to cultivate CCB. A tool for doing that is service scripts. I’m a fan of scripting what we say and do with shoppers. It’s not that I expect the retailer to recite the exact words I suggest or carry out the precise actions I propose. It’s that I find scripting a good way to explain what I mean. Then I recommend the retailer be flexible in adjusting the phrasing and behaviors to fit the personality of the store and the salesperson’s style.
     The scripts also should fit the shopper’s style, and that introduces another three-letter acronym: CNK for Customer Need Knowledge, defined as how well the salesperson accurately and promptly identifies each shopper’s needs and desires.
     Researchers at University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, University of Jena, and University of Muenster find that when CNK is high, service scripts usually cultivate Customer Citizenship Behavior. But when service scripts are performed by employees with low customer orientation, the service scripts discourage CCB. Shoppers exposed to these scripts become less likely to provide unsolicited feedback to store staff or to express interest in giving the store more business.
     My guess is that this is because low CNK leads to the script being delivered with little sensitivity or sincerity. It also can be because the salesperson fails to identify the type of talk the shopper wants at that point. Create your scripts with three sorts of language:

• Conventional. Initiating conversation about the latest Hunger Games flick or sports scores develops rapport and passes the time of the service or product delivery more pleasantly. 
• Commercial. We’d like our verbal transactions with shoppers to end in commercial transactions. Ask for the sale. 
• Ceremonial. 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” fits fine with some shoppers, but strikes others as smarmy. 

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

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Branch Out Scripts to Allow for Rituals 
Guide through Rituals with Ceremonial Language 
Staff Your Store for Customer Need Knowledge 
Warm Up Cold Calls 
Show Respect in Front of Customers

Go for Greed over Green

A clear sign that your new hire for the selling team won’t work out: While shoppers are browsing around, the new hire is wearing earbuds and gyrating to a rhythm completely divorced from any background music you might have playing in the store.
     But even without the earbuds or gyrations, if that new hire—or any other of your staff—is spending lots of time tuned to station WII FM, it’s trouble. WII FM is “What’s In It For Me?” Our focus should be on the shopper. We win our payoffs by fulfilling consumers’ needs and wants.
     From the shopper side of the transaction, though, WII FM is to be expected. We should continually be asking ourselves, “What’s in it for the consumer?” Regarding environmental conscientiousness, the answer is closer to greed than to green. Researchers at Yale University described to study participants a company’s intention to update a line of household cleaning products. Some of the participants were told that the company’s primary objective was to make the products better for the environment. The others were told that the product developers had discovered that a side benefit of the updates was that the products would be better for the environment.
     Those participants told the green gain was unintentional, not the main objective, were more likely than the other group to predict that they’d buy the product.
     Cleaning effectiveness is more important to consumers than is their going green with cleaning products. This is not to say you should downplay the benefits to the environment of products and services you sell. An Indiana University analysis of 75 product introductions indicates that green claims improve the attractiveness of offerings and of the stores carrying them. Instead, the message is to emphasize quality advantages to the purchaser over sustainability advantages to the environment.
     A few years ago, the initial marketing thrust for Bardessono Hotel & Spa, a boutique hotel in California’s Napa Valley, was broadcasting the place’s platinum environmental credentials. But consumers seeking luxury understood the word “green” here to mean sparse and uncomfortable. As a result, it was the hotel bookings that turned out to be sparse, making the owners highly uncomfortable.
     Now the Bardessono website gives equal billing to the Leed Platinum environmental award and the 2014 Conde Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Award for “Best Hotels in San Francisco & Northern California.”

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

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Claim Effectiveness over Environmentalism 
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