Kevin Harrington // marketing // blog

Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

You know, I really don’t like shopping at Asda. But you never know, I could get converted. Recently I have been impressed with a number of their marketing activities:

1. I’ve heard some really good things about the way Asda motivate and acknowledge their staff. It sounds like they are setting a standard in the supermarket sector.
2. Asda seem to have managed to manipulate average basket prices to be frequently the lowest and sometimes half the price of Waitrose.
3. And now Asda plans to launch its own social networking site, designed to increase customer interaction. A brave move perhaps? Some people are wondering whether the supermarket chain is opening itself up to potential criticism from any disgruntled shoppers that may be out there. But frankly, they are better off hearing the feedback and addressing it than ignoring it and letting customers migrate.

So well done Asda. From my point of view choice and quality are things I want to hear are progressing and then I’ll be back to have a look.

Tools of the trade and how to use them is the basis of the commercial training industry. And as ever, the examples of the need (things going wrong) are always good fun.

The gist of this was that, in a controlled in-store test, when a salesman was perceived as competent in his field, 66% of customers purchased, compared to only 20% when the salesman pretended he was unfamiliar with product.

Read the full article here and learn about Ian Moore’s experience in B&Q.

Surely the vague adoption of clothes/dress sizes within UK fashion retailers is tantamount to deceit?

An online survey of 1,000 women, indicated that 15% bought a bigger dress size than they expected when shopping at Primark.

Top Shop and New Look were also named as stores with smaller sizing.

Marks & Spencer, Asda’s George brand and Next had the most generous sizes.

Source: BBC Business News

Why can’t a 12 be a 12?

How many returns are there a year simply because retailers choose a different definition of size?

Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if a mans 17″ shirt changed a size or two from shop to shop?

Should we complain about the cauliflower?

Well, it was a shock to Jo, one of my daughters. In one of her rare encounters with the kitchen she was dismayed at how small the head of the cauliflower was in comparison to the leaves surrounding it.

She was so horrified she got me to take a photo of it and weigh the evidence. The pound coin and the baked beans are for scale reference only.

The edible head of the cauli was 288g and the leaves alone weighed in at 548g. I’m not sure who she thinks we should complain to.

Through a very narrow association (supermarkets) this got me pondering on recent supermarket adverts. ASDA were claiming that they had over 2,000 items lower in price than Tesco. At the same time Tesco had just over 200 items cheaper than ASDA. On this basis ASDA were making themselves out to be the best.

This is a very interesting bit of positioning. You can see how the ASDA cauliflower got me here now.

The point firstly is do I want the 2,000 cheap ASDA items? Perhaps it is the 200 Tesco products at a better price that I want.

My second point is, are we after cheap or good value or a good experience. If the ASDA price claim is as powerful as they make out why are people going elsewhere? Why aren’t the queues always out the door?

Tesco were recently not advertising. This was to let word of mouth deliver their message virally. And here I am contributing to it! Good old Tesco.

Petrol price surveys

I  was waiting in a line to pay for some petrol at my local BP garage. The delay was caused by the usual number of people buying sausage rolls, milk, cat food and occasionally petrol.

The phone rang and a member of the staff answered the phone. The caller, presumably a competitor or their agent, asked the price of unleaded petrol and diesel per litre.

The BP cashier looked out of the window at the gantry sign with the price indicators and answered the caller by adding 1p per litre to the price.

Does this go on all the time? Is this kind of lying ethical? Whose interests are served by these tactics? Should a retailer allow themselves to be observed employing these tactics?

I personally feel that it is bad for the retailers brand image and it is unethical. It also serves to hold prices higher. This is unless everyone knows the tactics and it is all a daft game.

And what if the caller were a consumer or a price comparison website? This would then result in less business for the retailer that makes their prices appear higher than they actually are.

All very odd. Any thoughts on this?

Open All Hours

In a scene on Open All Hours Arkwright (Ronnie Barker) says to Granville (David Jason), “They decide what they come in here for and we decide what they walk out with.”

It may be a sitcom, but this is a good summary of what differentiates a progressive retailer from one that is going nowhere. Of course retailers still need to setting about satisfying needs and wants but great retail excites us to purchase things that weren’t on our shopping lists.