Consumer Behavior Distribution programs Consumer response to distribution programs

Consumer BehaviorConsumer BehaviorDistribution programs

Consumer response to Consumer response to

distribution programsdistribution programs


Outline

• In-store shopping behavior

• The retail environment

• POP marketing


In-store shopping behaviora 1995 study of over 4000 US consumers by POPAI found that many purchases in supermarkets and at mass merchandisers were not planned in advance; purchases fell into the following categories:

– purchase specifically planned before entering the store (30/26 percent);

– purchase planned in general at the product class level, but no intention to buy a specific brand (6/18 percent);

– intended purchase substituted with a related product or different brand (4/3 percent);

– purchase unplanned and entire decision process enacted in the store (60/53 percent);


• Highest in-store decision rates: %– First aid 93

– Toys, sporting goods, crafts 93

– Houseware/hardware 90

– Stationary 90

– Candy/gum 89

• Lowest in-store decision rates:– Produce 33

– Meat, seafood 47

– Eggs 53

– Coffee 58

– Baby food/formula 58

In-store shopping: Supermarkets


• Highest in-store decision rates: %– Apparel accessories 92– Foils, food wraps 91– Hardware, electric, plumbing 90– Infant/toddler ware 90– Garbage bags 88

• Lowest in-store decision rates:– Disposable diapers 35– Baby food 35– Eyedrops and lens care 52– Prerecorded music, videos 54– Coffee, tea, cocoa 55

In-store shopping: Mass merchandisers


The retail environment• store design and ambience: exterior design

such as architecture, entrances, and display windows, and interior design such as color, lighting, and sound;

• store layout: grid, free-flow, and boutique layout;

• merchandise presentation: allocation of space to departments, categories, and items, as well as displays and in-store media;


A model of store atmosphere(Donovan et al.)

based on Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974) environ-mental psychology model, store atmosphere was conceptualized in terms of certain emotional states that intervene between in-store environmental stimuli and approach/avoidance behaviors:

in-storein-store

environmentalenvironmentalstimulistimuli

emotional statesemotional statespleasurepleasurearousalarousal

dominancedominance

approach-approach-avoidanceavoidancebehaviorsbehaviors


A model of store atmosphere (cont’d)• three emotional dimensions (the so-called PAD

model):– pleasure: valence of feelings (e.g., happy-unhappy,

satisfied-unsatisfied, pleased-annoyed, etc.); – arousal: intensity of feelings (e.g., wide awake-sleepy,

excited-calm, aroused-unaroused, etc.);– dominance: feeling of being unrestricted and free to

act in a variety of ways (controlling-controlled, influential-influenced, dominant-submissive, etc.);

• approach-avoidance behaviors include enjoyment of shopping, time spent browsing, willingness to talk to store personnel, and likelihood of returning to the store;


A model of store atmosphere (cont’d)• in one study, students visited and rated retail environments on in one study, students visited and rated retail environments on

the PAD dimensions and indicated their intentions to engage in the PAD dimensions and indicated their intentions to engage in different shopping-related behaviors; the results indicated that different shopping-related behaviors; the results indicated that pleasure was the major determinant of shopping-related pleasure was the major determinant of shopping-related intentions and that arousal influenced intentions in pleasant intentions and that arousal influenced intentions in pleasant environments;environments;

• in another study, female shoppers at two discount department in another study, female shoppers at two discount department stores provided ratings of pleasure and arousal and the stores provided ratings of pleasure and arousal and the researchers measured how much time they spent in the store researchers measured how much time they spent in the store and how much money they spent; the findings showed that and how much money they spent; the findings showed that pleasure was a significant determinant of extra time spent in pleasure was a significant determinant of extra time spent in the store and unplanned spending, and arousal tended to the store and unplanned spending, and arousal tended to depress unplanned spending in unpleasant environments; depress unplanned spending in unpleasant environments;


In-class exercise: Store atmosphere

Go to a Victoria's Secret store and analyze what the company does to create a certain store atmosphere that might induce shoppers to stay in the store longer and engage in impulse purchasing.


Using background music to affect the behavior of supermarket shoppers (Milliman)

• during a nine-week period, supermarket shoppers were exposed to one of three background music treatments:– slow tempo music (72 beats per min or fewer);– fast tempo music (94 beats per min or more);– no music;

• the dependent variables of interest were:– pace of in-store traffic flow;– daily gross sales;– awareness of background music;


• pace of in-store traffic flow:

no music 119.86 secslow music 127.53 secfast music 108.93 sec

• daily gross sales:

no music ?slow music $16,740fast music $12,113

• no significant differences in awareness of background music;

Using background music to affect the behavior of supermarket shoppers (cont’d)

sign.

sign.


Shelf management and space elasticity (Drèze, Hoch, and Purk)

• investigation of the sales and profit potential of micromerchandising (store-level shelf management);

• space to movement (STM): customization of product allocations in proportion to market share based on historical sales in demographic-based store clusters; specifically, separate planograms were designed for urban and suburban stores that resulted in changes in facings, deletion of slow-moving items, changes in shelf-height, and some changes in product positioning (e.g., more automatic dish detergent in suburban stores);

• product reorganization: cross-merchandising (putting toothbrushes at eye level and moving toothpastes to the upper shelf) and ease of shopping (alphabetical organization of condensed soup flavors; making intra-brand price comparisons more difficult by displaying brands by package size );


• category-level results:– modest but nontrivial gains to implementing customized STM

planograms (e.g., average sales increase of 3.9% across 8 product categories);

– significant sales and profit increases as a result of complementary merchandising (e.g., increase in brush and paste profits of 6%);

– mixed results for ease of shopping (e.g., alphabetized soup sales decreased by 6%);

• brand-level results:– in terms of vertical location, eye level is the best position, but no

consensus on whether it is best to be located on the edges or in the center of a set;

– more shelf space is better, but usually only up to some point (in many cases the returns on investment in shelf space were low);

Shelf management and space elasticity (cont’d)


POP materials• types of POP materials:

– permanent POP displays (to be used for six months or more);

– temporary POP displays (to be used for fewer than 6 months);

– in-store media (advertising and sales promotion materials such as POP Radio, ActMedia Carts, ShelfTalk, etc.);

• POPAI studies show that POP materials can sub-stantially lift brand sales (e.g., in a joint study with Kmart and P&G, displays for paper towels and coffee increased sales more than fourfold);

Documents

Consumer Behavior Distribution programs Consumer response to distribution programs