As a mar
As a marketer, I am intrigued by consumer behavior. The following article describes one of my shopping experiences at a local supermarket, my interaction with the environment, my thought process and how that experience played out.
The scenario
One Sunday morning, I was tasked with my wife’s list of grocery items, inspired by a pending week of tropical waves, forecast to roll across our island Barbados. The hurricane season is June 1st to November 30th, and many of us wait until the last minute to prepare and this was one of those occasions. Not wanting to get caught up in the after-church shoppers or worse yet panic shopping, my journey through the supermarket, began early for a Sunday morning, at around 9 a.m. The worse thing to do is to get caught up in a last-minute shopping frenzy for a storm. With rain pouring and thunder rolling, your reasoning goes out of the window. Without a planned list, you can end up picking up things that you had no intention of buying, but because you see others buying or the shelf is looking empty, you buy it “just in case.” In behavior economics, this could be referred to as ‘herd’ mentality.
The List
Fortunately I had a list to keep me focused. It was my wife’s list, sent using the latest technology – WhatsApp, but I also had a mental list of a couple items that I wanted. It was a firm mission, but with enough wiggle room to allow for some browsing. The timing was perfect, the store not too busy and the cashier lines one to two people long. Sub point, my wife kept sending additional list items that extended the shop. I am now falling into the trap of ‘the longer you are in the store the more you will buy’. There are many versions of this phrase, but retailers know that the longer a customer is in their store, the more likely they will buy.
Focused
There is a brand of instant coffee that I like. I had coffee at home, so it was more of a top up situation. I found myself seeking it out, and contemplating and them deciding “no, I can wait it out to next week.” So, shopping almost done, I had stuck close to the list. I did buy some peaches that were hard to refuse, but no major deviations or extravagance. Got to the end of my original list and realized that my wife had send some additional item requests and a picture of a brand of deodorant. I love getting pictures, that way I do not have any doubts of what I am looking for. Targeted pinpoint focus at its best.
I got caught
As I made my way to the back of the store, I got about halfway and happened to pass by a gondola end, with a promotional box offer that caught my attention. It was the same coffee brand that I was looking at earlier, but this time in a larger package size and with a promotional offer of a “free mug.” I am a sucker for a mug. After less thought than the first time (and the price point was higher), the offer was in my shopping cart.
Conflicting emotions
I was intrigued by this shopping experience and my own shopping behavior. The marketer who worked the promotion did several things right:
- Secondary display: gondola-end in the middle of the store and not close to the product category.
- Attractive display to catch my attention
- “Free offer,” as an incentive or reward to encourage purchase
It caught me at the right time, I was at a crossroads, I had wanted the coffee, but I needed something more to justify my purchase, to make me feel better about it. The ‘free mug’ was the incentive I needed. It offered additional value to help me to reason that it was worth the buy.
After putting the item in my cart, I was feeling what I would describe as buyer’s remorse or guilt. So, I did something I had never done before while shopping. I decided to check online to see if any stores within the area sold the item, to compare prices. I wanted to know that I was not being overpriced for the promotional offer – some logic was starting to get into my buying process. More than likely, I needed further justification for my decision, and I was looking for that evidence. The first online search was easy to run, but they did not have it. The second store search proved a bit problematic, the search function was clunky, I had difficulty finding the store online: I was sent to the corporate site, I then had to find their storefront, then after selecting the item I had to identify the country to get the price, to then be told “not available.” After what seemed like over five minutes I gave up. The item stayed in my cart.
When I was pulling together my thoughts for this article, I used the opportunity to test out my new coffee cup. To be honest, the “free mug” experience was disappointing. The mug lacked refinement – probably my expectations were too high.
Did I get caught by a marketing promotion? Yes. Did the offer live up to my expectations? No. Would I recommend it to another customer? No. Do I hold the experience against the brand? Not. It was however, a good lesson in the first rule of shopping, ‘buyer beware’.
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