Look It Up: Abstract Benefits Above Shoppers

Features of products you sell can be concrete—such as the average time between repairs—or abstract—such as a general claim of high quality. According to Ghent University researchers, shoppers are relatively more interested in concrete features when gazing down at the merchandise and relatively more interested in abstract claims when peering up.
     Consumers in the studies had been asked to state which of two printers they preferred. One printer was described as reliable and the other as being of high quality. Those consumers who needed to look down to see the printers favored the “reliable” printer on average. Those consumers who needed to look up tended to prefer the “high quality” printer.
     The researchers explain their findings by saying that we’re more attentive to details when our heads are facing downward because we’re accustomed to items below us being close, and therefore of potentially greater danger than items we look up to see.
     These remnants of body movements were also seen in earlier experiments. When a consumer pulls their arm toward themselves, the consumer becomes more likely to purchase short-term pleasure over longer-term benefits. Have the restaurant patron lift the water glass to mouth to quaff the contents instead of drinking through a straw, and the potential for ordering dessert climbs. When a shopper uses a basket instead of a cart in a grocery store, the shopper is almost seven times as likely to purchase candy bars rather than fruit as a snack.
     Over our lifetimes, our brains subconsciously associate pulling our arms toward ourselves with acquiring pleasurable objects. Pulling the arm toward the body activates subconscious expectations of short-term pleasure, and the arm pullers look to fulfill those expectations.
     It also works the other way around: Pushing an object away from ourselves, such as when navigating a large shopping cart through an aisle, subconsciously potentiates the brain traces of rejecting items which are not immediately pleasurable.
     Smart retailers have known for a while that when a prospective customer nods their head up and down—even if the nod comes from reading a brochure using narrow columns—the person becomes more likely to complete the purchase.
     The effects are subtle, Still, how a shopper moves not only projects their buying intentions, but also influences their buying intentions.

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

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Get Strange to Ease Shopper Guilt

Want to ease your customers’ guilt about buying items they might otherwise deny themselves? Prominently display on the walls of your store photos of people engaging in unusual exciting activities. The reason this works, say researchers at University of Texas-Arlington and Quinnipiac University, is that such photos increase the flexibility of consumers’ thinking.
     In their studies, the researchers saw other tactics working in the same way:

• Asking shoppers to talk about strange pleasant experiences they themselves have had 
• Encouraging shoppers to focus on similarities among items being considered for purchase rather than emphasizing the differences 
• Describing to shoppers foods primarily associated with one meal during the day—such as sausages for breakfast—as also being able to fit well on menus for the other daily meals 

     The tactics made the most difference with shoppers concerned that what they were ready to purchase wouldn’t be good for them. They were the kinds of people who worry excessively about what might go wrong in the distant future.
     To be sure, things can go wrong in the future and there are items shoppers would be unwise to purchase. Sugary treats for diabetics and expensive construction for financially-strapped homeowners. The Texas/Quinnipac researchers remind you and me to use the cognitive flexibility enhancement tactics ethically.
     On my own, I’m also reminded of an experience in 2011 at Sterling’s, the white tablecloth establishment in Reno, Nevada’s Silver Legacy hotel. I was in the area to fulfill my periodic intensive-format course responsibilities on the teaching faculty at University of Nevada-Reno Extended Studies, as I’ll be doing again next week.
     During my 2011 visit, the Sterling’s waiter asked if he might tell me about “a very special special,” a Kobe beef hamburger. He leaned down to speak more softly into my ear. “It is priced at $39 tonight.”
     I was ready to reply, “Does the $39 include the pickles?” But what stopped me was the realization, popping out of my longer-term memory, that Kobe beef comes from only one country—Japan, and my more recently stored memory of all the nuclear trauma there. So I replied, “Does the Kobe beef hamburger shine in the dark?”
     Judging by the glance I received from the waiter, I concluded mine had not been a white tablecloth question.
     Consumer psychology research findings argue that my waiter should have shown me or asked me to visualize pleasant scenes of exciting adventures in Japan.

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

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Spice Up Store Sales

Introduce a cinnamon fragrance and the drive to make purchases wafts through the air. That’s the conclusion from a set of studies in retail stores by Stevens Institute of Technology, City University of New York, and Temple University researchers.
     At last, consumer behavior science has pinned down the reason retail sales go up so sharply around Christmas. Cinnamon is a frequent olfactory accompaniment to the holiday shopping season, right?
     But, no, I guess the extra sales have more to do with the spirit of gifting and spirited promotions. So how do we explain why cinnamon odor boosted buying substantially more than did a peppermint fragrance?
     It has to do with power. Cinnamon as well as vanilla scents led consumers in store spaces to feel warmer and more crowded. This aroused in them a desire for dominance in order to prevail over any interpersonal friction, and that desire led, in turn, to an urge to buy items, especially luxury items which would distinguish the purchaser from others. Peppermint, on the other hand, is a cool fragrance which didn’t set off a sense of being crowded.
     Burning fragranced candles, spraying a scent from a can, or using a fragrance diffuser does influence shopper’s behavior. The right store fragrance causes more people to buy and builds your store’s brand identity.
     Smells certainly can pace shoppers. The odor from a dirty restroom, ripe garbage, or even an excessively intense dose of a favorite fragrance will rush the shopper right along toward the exit.
     On the positive side, researchers at Drake University in Iowa and Washington State University report that fragrances in a store distort the customer’s sense of time. People shopping in scented surroundings find that time passes more slowly. The result is that consumers generally stay longer in the store. When research subjects shopped in a no-scent environment, time tended to drag. If not able to check themselves against a clock, these shoppers estimated the duration spent shopping as being much longer than it actually was.
     Use pleasant fragrances which are already familiar to the shopper or which you make familiar through repetition. If a smell hasn’t been encountered before, with associations stored in the brain, it will be complicated for the shopper to decode, so the advantages of instant, subconscious influence are lost.
     Still, even the best olfactory plans can be sabotaged when the store browsers wearing their own fragrances circulate.

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

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Confide in Shoppers for Calibrated Confidence

We’d like our patrons to be both confident and what consumer psychologists call “well-calibrated.” In well-calibrated customers, there’s no more than a small discrepancy between self-perceptions of expertise about the purchase alternatives and objective measures of knowledge about the purchase alternatives. Any consumer confidence is deserved. At the other extreme, poorly calibrated customers don’t have an accurate appraisal of how much they know.
     Poorly calibrated shoppers could be either overconfident or underconfident. Researchers at Cranfield University in England collected data about the post-purchase problems with each type that could disrupt return visits to your store.
     Compared to customers who are well-calibrated, the overconfident and underconfident are especially likely to afterwards rate their purchases less favorably. With overconfident consumers, this is because the people purchase too quickly, paying inadequate attention to what will fit their needs, and they underestimate how much learning will be required to get the best from the item. This also can lead to them misusing the item and subsequently rating the performance of the item as lower quality. On the other hand, underconfident consumers put unnecessary time and energy into mastering the item, so they end up seeing the shopping, purchase, and usage as inefficient.
     With attention being drawn to effectiveness and efficiency assessments, overconfidence and underconfidence result in purchasers giving less credit to skilled product design and aesthetic appeal than is given by well-calibrated consumers.
     Playing around with a product or playing around with the idea of purchasing a product or service helps calibrate shoppers. Unfortunately, high levels of overconfidence and underconfidence disrupt a willingness to play around during the purchase process.
     Prior studies found that well-calibrated shoppers are more likely to seek out helpful information than are the overconfident and underconfident. People who believe they know lots about a product or service category or think they know only a little about it usually ask fewer questions than do the shoppers who figure they know a moderate amount. People perceiving little knowledge say they couldn't think of questions to ask. And those who believe they have lots of knowledge? One reason they limit their inquiries is that they fear looking like less than experts in front of others in the store.
     To improve shopper calibration, confide information about the challenges in getting the best from the item being considered for purchase. The Cranfield researchers point out how pre-purchase marketing often sets unrealistic expectations in shoppers.

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

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Power Tools to Empower Women

If your store carries tools, such as supplies and implements, women could use for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) home projects, build the empowerment appeal in order to power your sales of those items. Researchers at University of Southern Mississippi and Appalachian State University identify distinct aspects of that appeal. Here’s my version of the list along with my suggestions of how to use each aspect:

• Project initiation. Keep your salesperson role one of coach, who reassures the woman of availability until the project is completed and encourages the woman to buy what’s needed. Especially during the project initiation, be an advisor. Stay away from seeming like a superhero who aims to rescue the damsel in distress. Have women salespersons available and regularly show female salespersons in ads. Lowe’s took these steps to make their home improvement stores more female-friendly. 
• Production mastery. Doing construction provides an opportunity to learn new skills. Women especially enjoy design competence. Consider offering training classes or your visits to their project as a way to distinguish yourself from online vendors. You could charge for these services, but bundling them with purchases can be better. 
• Adding economic value & ownership. Studies at California State University-Long Beach. University of Nebraska, and Bath University explored DIY motivations in men. Family men of lower social class with fewer resources in their lives often view the residence as an extension of the workplace. They’re responsible for maintenance, and good stewardship means saving money by doing repairs and improvements yourself. Women who are under financial strain as homeowners and heads of households are likely to see economic value in their projects. Point out the return on investment to the shoppers who will become owners of enhanced property. 
• Unleashing creative potential. In the studies, men of lower social class felt artistry in DIY projects distinguishes the family from other families that have limited resources and from the routine life to which many families of limited means are consigned. Family men of relatively high social class with more resources in their lives are drawn to the relief from knowledge work, a relief achieved as they work with their hands. These consumers consider DIY projects as leisure activities to be relished, never rushed. They’ll browse at stores and introduce artistry into their projects as a form of personal expression. The Mississippi/Appalachian State study results indicate you should stay attuned to parallel motivations in the women DIYers. 

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

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Dream Consumption Visions of the Past

Consumer researchers use the term “consumption vision” to describe a shopper’s mental image which is vivid and specific enough to let a shopper vicariously experience the benefits they would personally enjoy in using the product or service. Consumption visions increase purchase likelihood.
     But what if the shopper isn’t familiar with what it’s like to use the item? Researchers at University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, and Vanderbilt University found that it doesn’t work nearly as well to have people visualize use in the future as to visualize repeating use experienced with the item in the past. That’s harder with highly innovative items.
     The researchers asked consumers to evaluate a tablet PC, a heart rate monitor, a vacation trip the consumer hadn’t taken before, and Google Glass. Of this set, the tablet PC would probably be most familiar to people and, at the time of the study, the Google Glass wearable eyeglass-format computer would probably be least familiar to them.
     Sure enough, this degree of familiarity affected product evaluation because it determined the consumption vision quality. Runners were better able to imagine using the heart monitor than were non-runners because the runners were more familiar with the idea of a heart monitor. Those who said they knew something about the vacation destination, even though they’d never been there, had stronger consumption visions, based on using memories from their past of similar experiences.
     With innovative products and services, make the unfamiliar familiar before asking the shopper to imagine using the item. Work in phrasing like, “Using this is like using that item you’re accustomed to,” and “Once you do this a few times, it will be as second nature to you as what you’ve been doing up to now.” In the Toronto/British Columbia/Vanderbilt studies, when a more detailed description of Google Glass was provided, imagining use was easier because there was more for the consumer to find familiar.
     Still, the researchers caution against giving volumes of information when requesting consumption visions of innovative items. The risk is that the shopper ends up stuck in the past. Other research supports using vivid language to stimulate the senses, but giving the shopper the minimum amount of technical information necessary to set up the imagining. Then be ready to provide more details if the shopper asks. The power of consumption visions is greater when a person fills in some of their own blanks.

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

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