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When Shopping Was a Pleasure

By Peter Breen

I sometimes get the feeling that, once everyone has figured out exactly how to translate their unique shopper insights into relevant, localized, customer-centric marketing programs, retailers are going to act just like they did 75 years ago.

You'll have consumers who frequent particular stores because they feel understood and appreciated there, because they know that the products they need and the services they want will be available within those walls, because they feel like that retailer cares about them as individuals.

Treating customers as individuals with particular wants and needs wasn't called "shopper marketing" 75 years ago. I don't think retailers even had a term for it -- unless it was something general, like "good business sense." But it was practiced on a daily basis at every successful store.

That kind of unwavering dedication to the customer is, to me, the primary reason for the success of Publix. The southeastern supermarket chain (whose profile gets an update this month) more than held its own in Florida -- where 665 of its 926 stores are located -- when Wal-Mart entered the market because it already had a strong connection with its customers; rival chains Winn-Dixie and Albertsons didn't, and they've paid the price in recent years.

A few years ago, I found myself wandering through a Publix in Orlando looking for something called "wine gums" at the request of a co-worker, who mistakenly believed the product was available chain-wide. I had only been searching for a few minutes before a stock clerk asked if I needed help.

This, in itself, is noteworthy. I spend a fair amount of time wandering through supermarkets, and I'm usually only accosted by store employees if they, noticing that I'm not buying anything, identify me as a potential shoplifter -- or, worse, a reporter gathering field intelligence -- and alert the store manager. So simply requiring employees to offer assistance puts Publix ahead of some competitors.

The employee had never heard of wine gums, so he took me to find the store's category manager. She hadn't heard of it either, but thought maybe the person in charge of checkout merchandising might. He didn't. Neither did the store manager, who offered to have someone call nearby Publix stores to see if they carried the product. By this point, my Irish-Catholic guilt over being such a bother had taken hold, so I declined the offer.

The moral to this story is that, by displaying such courtesy, these employees turned what should have been a neutral or even negative experience -- I walked away empty-handed, after all -- into a positive interaction with the brand. Publix is the store "where shopping is a pleasure," even if you don't find what you want.

And I get the feeling that Publix probably supplied this same level of service 75 years ago, no matter what they called it.

Peter Breen
Managing Director, Content
In-Store Marketing Institute

Published: April 2008

Source: In-Store Marketing Institute

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