Whether online, or social, or in-store, the shopping experience\u00a0<\/b>should be a lot less like buying and a lot more like going on a first\u00a0<\/b>date and having a good time. It should be a great experience that\u00a0<\/b>makes you feel so good that you\u2019re already planning your next date.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A NEW CONSUMER PARADIGM<\/b><\/p>\n
Today\u2019s customers are the focus of attention and have the power to access whatever they want however and whenever they want it. A new paradigm has been created. We no longer have consumers looking for the products they need; the retailers find the customers they need. The retailers tailor their products to their customers\u2014the brand story as well as the online and live experience. They analyze their customers\u2019 needs and habits in great detail.<\/p>\n
Brands are there to enthuse, charm, and seduce the customers, and the retailers continue caring about the needs of their customers. The days when customers were restricted to store opening hours are gone; 24\/7 accessibility has shifted the balance of power in favor of the consumer. According to brand strategist Alfredo Muccino, consumers have changed their approach to shopping from \u201cI need stuff\u201d to \u201cI want an experience.\u201d This change happened as a result of contemporary society seeking happiness in satisfaction and fulfilment with life rather than in material values.<\/p>\n
Material possessions do not make you successful; having experiences that are yours alone is the goal shaping future communities. We\u2019re in the midst of a transition from an industrial to a robotic age, and that requires new models and values. \u201cThe convergence of a new consumer paradigm and overcrowded marketplace has finally brought the [retail] industry to the brink of fundamental change,\u201d says Robin Lewis in The Robin Report<\/i>. The product in itself is no longer enough.<\/p>\n
HOW TO WIN AND KEEP CUSTOMERS<\/b><\/p>\n
Customer retention involves the development of a new set of ideas and narratives that surround any one product. The emergence of social networks and open, public communication between consumers about brands has put brands in a vulnerable position, and they must tackle this issue to ensure sustainability and loyalty. \u201cDon\u2019t think about sales per square foot but experience per square foot,\u201d says Rachel Shechtman, founder of the STORY retail concept.<\/p>\n
On its website, STORY describes itself as a retail space that takes the point of view of a magazine, changes like a gallery, and sells things like a store. This concept goes beyond traditional shopping and acts like a matchmaker between customers, brands, designers, and a whole chain of people connected with the brands sold there. The authors of this concept understand that experience leads to transactions, and they apply that knowledge with one difference\u2014customers get so much more out of the experience before even buying anything that they will bond with the place where they made the purchase.<\/p>\n
WHAT DO THE LAST SURVEY SAY<\/b><\/p>\n
The surveys presented in Harbor Industries: Industry Trends and Insights in the U.S. indicate that improving the customer experience by just 10 percent can yield as much as USD1 billion in additional revenue, while an astonishing 86 percent of buyers claim they are ready to pay more for a better shopping experience!<\/p>\n
The retail space is unrivaled in this respect. Whether a real brick-and-mortar store or an online point, the retail experience is what makes the customer stop,<\/p>\n
communicate, and come back. \u201cConsumers today seek reciprocal relationships with partners who \u2018get\u2019 them\u2014who are into the same things, who speak their language, who want similar outcomes in life, and who are willing to be invested in a relationship. Retailers and brands should seek meaningful encounters rather than just incenting cold, one-time transactions,\u201d says retailing expert Dee Warmath.<\/p>\n
A recent study revealed that consumers who feel an emotional connection to a retailer are four times more likely to shop with it\u2014the greater the emotional connection, the stronger the relationship and the higher the earnings. This leads to the creation of a whole set of touch points that enable the retailer and customer to form a relationship. If this relationship is disrupted, 89 percent of customers are ready to go elsewhere according to the Kissmetric\u2019s report The Price of Bad Customer Service<\/i>. Investing in pampering and indulging customers has become an absolute priority and an essential component of every budget.<\/p>\n
PAMERING AND INDULGING THE CUSTOMER<\/b><\/p>\n
Brands are becoming socially aware because they want their buyers to perceive them as such. Starbucks, Toms, Microsoft, and others allocate a part of their profits to humanitarian causes, which puts them in a new category of conscious members of the wider community who care to make a contribution to improve the world they share with their customers. The customers clearly recognize and appreciate this, and these brands have gained the special affection of consumers with a positive impact on their revenues.<\/p>\n
The assumptions and successful case studies that worked in the past are now obsolete. Traditional demographic models that brands have so carefully perfected over the past decades are an increasingly inadequate descriptor of the new consumer. People of all ages and incomes and in all markets are free to construct their own identities more freely than ever. This inference is applicable even more to a new luxury consumer. They have regrouped themselves into tribes with specific languages and aesthetics and a similar set of values. We\u2019ve come to the point where \u201cseasons don\u2019t matter, trends don\u2019t matter, age doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d says New York style forecaster Sharon Graubard in her book Everything is Niche<\/i>. This also means that the traditional rivalry between producers, distributors, and retailers primarily based on service price fluctuations must give way to a new form of collaboration that centers around the consumer rather than the narrow interests of each individual link in that chain because they all depend on the customer more than ever before.<\/p>\n
The ability of customers to conduct transactions anywhere and anytime puts this in a new context. There\u2019s a relationship of mutual reliance here, so it\u2019s not just about producing, distributing, and selling goods; the entire chain now focuses on the customers, who have thus gained some control over the entire process. They know who makes the product and what it\u2019s made of in addition to how much it costs. The whole business has become transparent to such an extent that full attention must be devoted to every step of the process.<\/p>\n
HOW ABOUT ANOTHER DATE TOMORROW?<\/b><\/p>\n
This whole business is about cultivating relationships. Good relationships between customers on the one hand and brands and retailers on the other are capable of moving things forward to ensure an always desirable, positive, and qualitative return on investment. Customers feel they have invested in relationships and expect their first dates and those to follow to be special.<\/p>\n
Whether online, or social, or in-store, the shopping experience\u00a0should be a lot less like buying and a lot more like going on a first\u00a0date and having a good time. It should be a great experience that\u00a0makes you feel so good that you\u2019re already planning your next date. A NEW CONSUMER PARADIGM Today\u2019s customers are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":555,"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions\/555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobaassociates.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}