Mystery Shopping & Merchandising

Many people have heard of mystery shopping, but not all of us understand exactly what it’s all about.

Mystery shopping is focused on monitoring and improving quality and service to ensure consistency with brand standards using anonymous resources. About 85% of this work is done in person; a growing trend involves home-based mystery shoppers who conduct their work by calling (as opposed to visiting) catalog companies, call centers, and others, which account for 15% of the industry.

With mystery shopping, an individual walks into a retail store, restaurant, grocery store, convenience store or gas station to monitor and measure specific behaviors. Among them: associate greetings, the length of the wait to be served, the availability of merchandise, the knowledge of the sales team, and so on.

Read the entire article at WomenForHire.com

Merchandising - The Perfect Job Opportunity for Moms

So many mothers want to work, but also want to stay at home with their children.

The ideal job for a stay-at-home mom who wants to work part-time is one that is flexible enough that she can easily manage her work and family responsibilities, without having to invest in full-time day care or after school care.

Merchandising is a perfect option for many moms in this situation. Many manufacturers who market their products through retail stores hire companies to provide in-store merchandising services. These merchandising service providers in turn hire representatives to complete store visits.

Read the complete article at mmobloggers.com

Six Dimensions of Shopping Time

When retailers seek to optimize the shopping experience and understand channel choice, much consideration is given to aspects of convenience. The literature generally breaks this down into two core elements: effort and time. For brick and mortar stores, the goal is to make shopping as easy as possible, and attractively quick, but not so fast that sales opportunities are missed during the shopping trip. In a multichannel environment, the puzzle gets more intricate.

Shopping time covers multiple factors, including hours of operation, travel time, search time, time to check out, delivery time, and time to return. So time-saving convenience is highly conditional:

Read the entire article at Tenser’s Tirades

Underhill to Bring Consumer Behavior Expertise to Spring Conference

What could be more valuable to anyone in the retailing industry than to truly understand what makes consumers tick? Attendees at the NARMS Spring Conference in Colorado Springs , CO on April 6 will get a unique glimpse into the mind of the consumer from not only a leading expert on consumer behavior, but also one of the pioneers in the discipline. Paco Underhill , founder/CEO of Envirosell, Inc., a global research and consulting firm, will be on hand at the Broadmoor to share his insight at the Monday morning general session. There will also be a retailer panel to follow. As a reminder, March 2nd is the deadline for The Broadmoor reduced rate and the conference fee increases after February 28th by $50.00.

It is one thing to hear about consumer behavior, but quite another to experience it live. Ten lucky conference participants will get the opportunity to “learn with the expert” by accompanying Underhill on special store tour later in the day. Looking at Underhill’s background, you couldn’t possibly have a better guide.

Underhill has spent more than 25 years conducting research on the different aspects of shopping behavior. Underhill helps companies understand what motivates the behaviors of today’s consumer. His research shows how today’s retail world is ruled by factors such as gender, “trial and touch” and human anatomy. He is an insightful and captivating speaker, who frequently presents to trade associations and professional groups about the methodology and findings of his research.

Underhill and Envirosell have been profiled by major publications, such as, The New Yorker, Fortune, Fast Company, Business Week and Smithsonian Magazine, and have been featured on ABC’s 20/20, and CBS’s 48 Hours. He is a regular contributor to NPR and BBC Radio. His columns and editorials have appeared in the New York Times, London Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Christian Science Monitor. His first book, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping has been published in twenty-six languages, and has sold more copies than any other retail book in history. His second book, entitled Call of the Mall: The Geography of Shopping, was released in February 2004 by Simon & Schuster.

More and more companies are turning to shopper marketing and at-retail programs to help strengthen their brands and take advantage of the in-store medium. Gaining insight into this world will help members of NARMS position their services to meet the evolving needs of the marketplace. Simply stated, this is a “can’t miss” event. Click here to learn more and to register for Spring Conference.

Blogger Helps Connect Consumers and Brands

Brand Girl will be a free, monthly e-mail newsletter and blog that features articles and reviews about the latest topics in style, wellness, living, technology and travel.

Read the entire article at RetailMarketingBlog.com

If they touch it, they will most likely buy it

Consumers are often told that if they break an item, they buy it. But a new study suggests that if they just touch an item for more than a few seconds, they may also end up buying it.

Researchers from Ohio State University and Illinois State University tested how touching an item before buying affects how much they are willing to pay for an item. A simple experiment with an inexpensive coffee mug revealed that in many cases, simply touching the coffee mug for a few seconds created an attachment that led people to pay more for the item.

Read the full article at ScienceDaily.com

10 ways retail is changing

1. Hidden Profit Centers are the new Markup.
Low-cost providers such as Sam’s Club and Best Buy are selling “in-store exchange” policies at the cash register to supplement the manufacturer’s warranties they don’t honor. In other words, you can’t take a faulty purchase back to the retailer if there’s a problem – you have to contact the manufacturer directly – unless you bought their “in-store exchange” policy.

2. “Hard-to-find” items are no longer hard to find.
Just Google it.

Read the other eight on BeneathTheCover.com

Online Merchandising Being ‘Elevated’ to Differentiate, Drive Sales

Leading online merchants are optimizing features to get sales—rethinking promotions, refining search, retooling content/information, and reinventing community—according to merchandising results of the 11th Annual Mystery Shopping Survey from the e-tailing group.

“Smart merchants are taking execution to a higher level; elevating the online shopping experience to provide customers with increased efficiency while fostering retention,” said Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group.

Read the entire article at RetailerDaily.com

Some Spending Still Super

Is it just me, or has this been the strangest two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl in history? With all the talk of cut-backs, bail-outs, and layoffs, it’s tough to get in the spirit of the big game, which has always been a celebration of American free enterprise. But in reading an article in Ad Age entitled, “Yes, the Super Bowl Is well worth $3M a Spot,” it became clear that for some brands, what seems like obscene spending makes total sense. There is a lesson here for those who would pull back on their in-store spending to save money in the short term only to lose brand equity in the long run.

Article author Jeremy Mullman tells us that big players GM and FedEx have elected to not buy the high ticket spot on the game broadcast for the first time in a long time. He goes on to say that it appears NBC is still struggling to fill its inventory of spots. But for some brands the $3 million per spot is a comparative bargain. It is the one TV event during which 50% of the viewing public is actively watching ads. And it’s not just the huge platform that is attractive. The ad spend also meets the criteria of a more modern multi-media approach because it draws press coverage and drives word-of-mouth and traffic to websites.

For Hyundai, more than 300,000 people went to their website during last year’s game and stayed for five and a half minutes. Companies who enjoy staggering market share, such as Coke, Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch InBev, can’t afford not to take advantage of this opportunity to reach and maintain their prime audience. But there are other less obvious success stories. GoDaddy, the web-domain registrar, went from 16% of new-domain registrations to 25% in one week following their 2005 commercial. The following year that number went to 32% and now sites at 46% worldwide. A true Super Bowl champion!

The point is this: a blanket approach of blind budget cuts just doesn’t make sense. Every marketer and retailer has to look at not only what is gained, but what is lost. Companies are still investing huge amounts of money in new product development, packaging, marketing, advertising and promotion. What a mistake it would be to cut back on the portion allocated to at-retail support. If not executed in the last six feet at the store, all the other spending is for not. As members of the at-retail marketing and merchandising service community, we must not let that message get lost in a penny wise, pound foolish environment.

Target Eliminates Positions Amid Weak Sales

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Discount retailer Target Corp said on Tuesday that it will cut roughly 600 jobs at its headquarters, leave another 400 positions unfilled and close a distribution center that employs 500 workers as it contends with weaker-than-expected sales.

Target, which has roughly 350,000 employees, also suspended salary increases for senior management.

Read the entire article at abcnews.com