The power of virtual shopping

With grocery, discount, club and convenience stores, the retail options for today's consumer abound. Nevertheless, a recent study by MarketTools found that 75 percent of consumers favor shopping at just one or two stores on a regular basis. Further, while promotions drive some to shop at alternative retailers or choose different products, they tend to have little effect on shoppers' overall behavior. In fact, the average shopper is well organized and often knows what she's going to buy before ever entering the store — 85 percent shop with a written or mental list.

But it's also well known that brand loyalty only goes so far, and in-store marketing tactics have a role in what consumers ultimately purchase. In fact, consumers are willing to veer from the brand they originally intended to buy for a number of reasons, including a desire to try something new, interest in a new brand or healthier alternative, and overall selection available in the store. 

So what does all of that mean? Marketing activities at the point-of-purchase, such as packaging design, display timing and location, in-aisle messaging, and self talkers and shelf layout, all have a profound effects on what ends up in consumers' shopping carts.

Since consumers can be swayed at the POP, it is critical for manufacturers and retailers to determine which tactics drive purchasing decisions. Can in-store sampling, promotions, and shelf talkers — well-known for driving incremental volume — be used more effectively? Can manufacturers and retailers be more innovative with in-store marketing?

In with the virtual

 

Manufacturers and researchers want to employ optimal marketing strategies, but the classic research and testing method is costly, logistically complicated and highly disruptive to store operations.

 

From a research perspective, the lack of control over environmental factors can influence consumer behavior and interfere with the results. If a test store offers a retail promotion or discount advertisement in the local press, the results could be skewed. Also, competitors can take the environmental effects a step further by purposely dropping high-value coupons or buying test products to make the data more difficult to read.

But new virtual alternatives to in-store tests are now being deployed, without the same time and investment required by their in-store predecessors. Will consumers be willing to take a virtual test? Yes, but the experience has to be "real" and as efficient as possible.

Some new solutions integrate sophisticated 3-D graphics into a survey engine to create a virtual shopping experience that survey panelists can use on their personal computers that accurately mimics the in-store experience. Respondents are able to "shop" using a realistic depiction of the aisles, complete with high-resolution package graphics, shelf talkers, coupon machines, signage, and other marketing tactics. Research has shown that this virtual shopping method provides not only a very "real" experience for panelists, but also bears results that predict those from controlled, in-store tests.

 

 

One study sought to determine the most effective pricing strategy for a display brand: two for $4 or two for $5. The results demonstrated a marginal difference between the two offers, meaning that the decision to go with "two for $5" made sense from an additional revenue standpoint. The data from the parallel in-store test supported exactly the same business decision, validating the virtual research.

Additionally, the online shopping study provided valuable insight that a controlled in-store test could not: that "two for $4" attracted loyal shoppers to stock up, whereas "two for $5" appealed to occasional shoppers, making it more incremental.

The virtual shopping experience also does more than simply replicate the store scanner data, but allows retailers and manufacturers to mine purchase results and better understand consumer decisions.

Another virtual-shopping case involved a major grocery manufacturer that was considering the addition of a racking system. The manufacturer found that category sales actually declined slightly. The racks made it more difficult to shop. So the manufacturer used the information to improve the design, instead of embarking on the costly (and would be ineffective) implementation of the racking system.

Other virtual tests have included adding fixtures to shelves, assessing whether in-aisle marketing materials enhance sales, and determining how end-aisle displays impact new-product purchases.

Summing it up

So, as consumers, we may be armed with our detailed shopping lists, but now manufacturers and retailers have a new cost-effective tool to provide us with better choices when we make our ultimate decision at the shelf.