The Art of Shopping by Siemon Scamell-Katz is the second book this year to challenge the way that most
retailers set up their shops. Like Phillip Adcock, whose book Supermarket
Shoppology I recommended last time out, Scamell-Katz has built a career out of
studying what shoppers actually do in store.
Independent retailers should read this book
to help them do two things. Firstly, it will help them to understand how big
manufacturers operate and to make informed opinions about which promotions to
support and how to build their categories.
Remember, there are about 250,000 products
that you can stock but most shoppers will only use 300 in a year and only 150
regularly.
Where Scamell-Katz is very strong compared to
similar authors is he names names and tells you who he has worked for. When he
says that the typical brand manager will be in post for two or three years and
the best way to make an impact is to redesign the brand, the independent operator
may feel that some of their cynicism about marketing is justified. An industry
exists to exploit this brand manager’s career aspirations!
However, the Art of Shopping is not a book to
fuel your cynicism. Scamell-Katz loves retailing and he gives examples of where
manufacturers like Procter & Gamble get innovation absolutely right.
The second thing it will help you to
understand is what to look for when you visit a major supermarket and how to
interpret what they are doing to the advantage of your shop. Scamell-Katz
appears to have worked for most of the big boys and he provides great insight
into how they operate.
He tells how he worked with Diana Hunter at
Waitrose to change how they organised their stores. The existing layout was
restricting sales because it treated all shoppers as the same. Presenting new
ideas to the board, their response was shock. The managing director remained
sceptical but agreed to go ahead. The outcome: a boom in sales and the creation
of stores that accommodated multiple shopper missions.
One of Scamell-Katz’s key points is that
stores are not somewhere where selling happens but places where shoppers go to “collect
the items we want”. Most point-of-sale does not work. Most shoppers don’t see
what is in the window of your shop. Most importantly, most shoppers don’t think
at all about what they buy.
In one example, four out of five shoppers
taking product from a two for one promotional display took only one product.
The science shows that shoppers make up
reasons to explain how they shop. Don’t believe them, he says. This book is a
must read for trade marketers. Marketing is like a lottery – lots of losses and
a few big winners.
There is much much more inside. The Art of
Shopping is a great read that will inspire you to ask better questions and to
sell more.
Comments
Post a Comment