It probably won’t come as a surprise to
most switched-on marketers that the modern customer is highly promiscuous. Shopping around has become a national
pastime, particularly as easy access to the internet has allowed many customers
to explore the range of offers available in the comfort of their homes without
resorting to wearing out shoe leather on the High Street.
This promiscuity is perhaps no more marked
than in the highly competitive world of supermarket shopping. The modern British shopper has, it
seems, become adept at taking advantage of price promotions to divide their
share of food spend between rival operators as opposed to remaining loyal to
one supermarket brand. Chasing
savings has become more important than the convenience of making one trip to
one supermarket chain.
This creates a dilemma for marketers: do you enter the fray and compete
almost entirely on price to drive short term sales growth; or do you focus on
building a loyal customer base and reap the benefits of lifetime value? Immediate commercial concerns may well
dictate the former.
The answer lies somewhere between the two
in my opinion.
Yes, price promotion may well be necessary
in order to drive customers to your business. But this has to be seen as a short term measure or you may
find yourself in the position of continuingly competing on price.
The challenge is to create a shopping
experience that is distinctive and gives customers what they want, over and
above the attraction of a good deal.
This means making the purchasing process as simple and quick as possible
– we know, for example, that a proportion of shoppers abandon their baskets
because of queues at the checkout.
It could mean better trained staff with greater product knowledge. And it could mean additional services
and product ranges that make the attraction of shopping in one outlet greater
than another.
Marketers outside the food sector would do
well to take on board the lessons being learned by the large supermarket
chains: differentiation by price
alone will not generate loyal customers.
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