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TIMES OF FEAST, TIMES OF FAMINE
By
James Grandillo, Sr. Retail Consultant
There was a time in the
dimly-remembered past that people actually visited furniture stores,
strip centers, and shopping malls for fun! Yes, Virginia, it’s
true! Men and women would dress up in their Sunday best, visit
stores, and shop for fun! They would ooh and aah over all the
pretty things that they would buy someday, they would talk with the
helpful salesperson who spent a lot of time with them, and then they
would plan and dream about the future and what a pretty home they
would have.
Wasn’t that a really nice time for
all of us in retail?
The optimism and future-thinking
attitude that motivated the home furnishings consumer in the last
quarter of the last century and been replaced by a cautious and wary
skepticism and a need to question the long-term need for and utility
of every purchase being contemplated. “Do I really need this
NOW?” is a question – if not asked out loud – then is pondered
silently and long before any purchase of an item defined as durable,
discretionary, or unnecessary (as in, a luxury item). This
slow-to-act, non-impulsive, pessimistic yet somehow grown-up and
mature buying attitude hurts all of our businesses which have for
their entire history presented home furnishings as necessities.
In actuality, we don’t really need lovely things, do we?
If you answered, ”Of course, we
don’t!” please leave the room and report to the Principal’s office.
OF COURSE WE NEED NICE THINGS! We need furniture and
electronic entertainment devices and luxury items because it is
man’s nature to shape his environment to suit his own taste and
personality. As human beings with intellects and souls, we possess a
mysterious need to impose our taste and sensibilities onto our
environment. The home, being the only part of the world over
which we have nearly total control, becomes a reflection of who we
are or who we wish others to believe we are. The need to
express oneself – to a poet or painter - gives rise to Great Works
of Art. For those of us less blessed than those with real
artistic skills, this need for expression translates itself into the
way we beautify our homes, our gardens, and ourselves.
SO: why aren’t more people buying
stuff ? The need to surround oneself with beauty still exists, the
desire to own nice things still exists…so why is there so much less
buying?
Consider this: When faced with a
choice, man’s most powerful motivator is survival. What is
hurting retail businesses today is that now, for the first time in
75 years, the consumer is unsure of his future survival…”Will things
be worse tomorrow? Will I need this $1000 I’m spending on a
sofa tomorrow to put food on my table? Do I really need this
new car…my old one still goes! Will I have a job tomorrow?
Will I have this job tomorrow at this same rate of pay?
To say that today’s consumer is
conflicted is to understate the case totally. In truth, the
consumer is impacted and immobilized and frozen. When under
threat from a superior force over which you believe yourself to have
no power or influence, the subordinate organism just hunkers down
and hopes the threat will pass. Staying put is a virtue in
this environment: it is simply the most responsible thing to do.
And this translates to: Buy only what you cannot do without.
And yet, sales are being made in this
scary environment. The good retailers and the good salespeople
who work for them are aware that the consumer is different now and
must be advertised, merchandised, and sold to differently than
before. Since people buy luxury items (furniture, cars,
jewelry, fancy clothes, etc) more for the feelings they get from
owning them than for the workmanship, construction values, or
investment quality they possess, these things must be presented to
the customer as being instrumental in creating for them a sense of
safety and well-being. T heir long-term payback in comfort and
satisfaction has to be emphasized. The rightness of the
purchase for the customer’s family’s happiness has to be stressed.
When presented with a home furnishings purchase, the investment for
the future to create the home as a haven must be shown to be a
worthwhile place for the client to spend their hard-earned funds.
A purchase cannot be viewed as a risky venture; the value of the
item to the client’s lifestyle must be shown to be greater than its
cost to them in dollars and sense.
Therefore, while price will ALWAYS be
important in the marketing of any product, merchants and their
salespeople will have to shift their emphasis away from price of an
item alone and move it towards the benefits of ownership. This
change in focus translates to both the way a retailer advertises his
products or store and especially how the salesperson encounters and
dialogues with each customer. The patient salesperson who
listens to the customer and tries to understand what is valuable to
them will present products to them in such a way that the product’s
maximum benefits to the customer’s personal lifestyle will be
clearly demonstrated. Since deciding on a purchase is actually
making the choice between the money it costs versus the joy its
ownership will provide, the responsible retailer will encourage the
merchandising, advertising, and sales departments to present
products to the consumer from that perspective.
It is somewhat frightening to
contemplate that the Old Ways Don’t Work Anymore – but, sadly, this
is true. People just don’t buy to Keep Up With The Joneses
like they used to in days long gone. We are less likely to run
up our charge accounts, and we are less likely to buy stuff just
because we can. We are less impulsive and more contemplative now
when considering a discretionary purchase. We are less Objects
To Sell To than we are People To Be Reckoned With. If
retailers want today’s customer to spend their hard-earned money
with them, then they will have to change their retail strategies to
accommodate the changes that have occurred in the buying public’s
sensibilities.
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