Too many supermarkets

Retailers in the UK are under pressure and this trend seems to be spreading to the US. Though some targeted retailers like Aldi are experiencing growth, along with convenience stores, many undifferentiated groups are struggling. Tesco in the UK is one example. e-commerce has certainly eaten into their profits, along with the changing patterns of shoppers who are not willing to spend as much time shopping. Tesco has taken the tack of reducing their SKU’s, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more drastic cost cutting methods like closing stores being employed.

Is the US supermarket industry overbuilt? This is a big question and a tough conversation. Key players in the UK supermarket sector are already confronting it, and many markets in the US will soon follow if they are not already there. Figuring out how to respond requires systematic rethinking of the entire organization’s function, from the head office down to the number of SKUs stocked in any given category. To start the conversation, I reached out to Will Treasure, Director, Operations for The Javelin Group, a part of Accenture.

Source: Is the US supermarket industry overbuilt?

Don’t touch the button

The new Amazon Dash button was launched on the 31st March. To many it was an April’s fool joke. But no, it’s real. Buying your favourite brands at the press of a button. No hassle, no worries about getting a good deal. After all, it’s Amazon and it provides the best deals, right? We have to go back a long way to find the fascination of automated shopping that originated in the US. The original automated store created in 1937 was called Keedoozle (pictured below) and predated automated shopping by decades. The only problem with Keedoozle, and the reason it closed down, was that there just weren’t computers then and the process was an unwieldy mechanical automation. With today’s technology the problems faced by Clarence Saunders and Keedoozle surely would have been overcome and simpler solutions found. This brings us back to the Amazon Dash Button – a wonderful tool to take the hassle of shopping and remembering the items to shop off your mind. After all, for busy working families, its so easy to forget to replenish frequently bought items. But in all the careful planning of the Amazon Dash button, have they forgotten one important variable that is usually part of a busy young family?- KIDS. Is this excerpt (below) from ‘Penguins from Madagascar’ vaguely familiar?

Kids love to press buttons. They’re taught to press buttons from an early age, and they often like to press buttons more than once. Whether it’s just for play or in anger, buttons will be pressed. Amazon probably has taken precautions to avoid multiple orders and truckload of detergent turning up on the doorstep, but the family member that does the shopping may have the time-consuming chore of deleting all the orders initiated by their children. So convenience actually becomes inconvenience. I may be wrong and families may have really obedient children that don’t touch things when they are told not to, but given the target market for the product, someone at Amazon should have thought this one through rather than running headlong into the technology.

Making Research work!

From a feature by Toby Desforges – Author of Shopper Marketing Revolution

Focus shopper research on learning how to realize business opportunities:

Research projects should begin with the development of clear research hypotheses based on what is already known. In the shopper space, for instance, we encourage our clients to focus on testing hypotheses that if true would enable teams to increase sales. These focus on learning how to drive new shoppers to the brand, how to encourage shoppers to buy more often or to spend more. By selecting only the most valuable hypotheses two things happen: 1) Research projects become more focused and therefore potentially cheaper and 2) The returns the company enjoys from acting on research can be much greater.

Apply shopper research methodologies that deliver answers quickly:

With focused research hypotheses, it’s easier to apply methodologies that give accurate responses more quickly. By seeking out technical solutions that minimize the time lag between data collection and analysis teams can get into developing insights faster. For instance, we recently worked with a client who used a tablet-based app to capture traffic data in stores and to capture shoppers’ responses to focused questions. The data were instantly transmitted to a dashboard so our client could work on the outcomes of the survey immediately.

Spend time and effort on creating business impact:

Much of the time and effort put in by agencies after a study is directed at tabulating data and creating a presentation, which as we’ve seen above, no-one will use! It would be so much better if effort and time were spent on creating actionable insights instead.
For instance, in the shopper space, much of the work done in implementation is done by the sales team, working with customers. Sales people don’t need lengthy presentations on what the research says, they need pragmatic solutions they can discuss with their customers. Converting research findings into a compelling commercial proposition that illustrates the business benefits that your customers might enjoy helps you sales team realize business gains from research quickly.

It will be interesting to see where Tesco will cut. Personally, I think it is obsolete for electronics, home appliances and DIY off the top of my head. If you scale down Tesco to the core business though, as Mike Anthony indicates, then it’s running head to head with the biggest threat of Aldi and the discounter. As we have to work harder and longer for the same money (most of us), time becomes increasingly important. I know I can have a shopping journey in Aldi at least 10 minutes faster than I can in Tesco. A question that arises is whether the hypermarket format is obsolete?

Tesco announces dramatic 30% range cut – the benefits are huge | Mike Anthony | LinkedIn.

When Shopper Marketing goes a bit wrong

Buy the CD and experience being a slave with the new 12 years a slave outfit

Automated shopping

The drive for automation in shopping is part of the American shopping culture.

As a European living in Asia, I can’t help but consider this approach somewhat alien to my culture’s perspective on shopping. That’s why we increasingly see that Shopper marketing’ from a US point of view becomes less relevant in our part of the world. It’s certainly not about embracing technology – its more about the deep rooted social culture of the market.

Making the shopping experience more fun

Making the shopping experience more fun

There are some good insights in this article to overcome the ‘get me out of here’ feeling I have when I’m in a retail environment. I’ve found of recent years that I just don’t have a lot of patience when I’m in-store. I thought it was me just getting older but on reading this article I realise that I have been bombarded by excessive stimuli and physically restricted in a store environment. I certainly hope that other retailers follow some of the guidance set out in this article. After all I think that I will want to return to a store more than once if it has a pleasant environment. If retailers had a chance to go for long term loyalty rather than close the deal on the first visit, I think they would actually sell more