Congested parking lots, out-of-stock merchandise, interminable checkout lines, indifferent sales help or no help at all—once these were facts of life that retail customers reluctantly tolerated. Now customers enjoy more retail alternatives than ever before, from one-stop superstores to the Internet. Driven by time pressures, they value quick-and-easy shopping excursions. They expect retailers to meet their needs, not the other way around. The retailer that spares its customers hassles and delays wins their business and outperforms its old-fashioned competitors. From prepurchase through postpurchase, customers want convenience.
Few dispute the importance of convenience.1 Many retailers proudly declare their commitment to customer convenience. Yet how many managers have defined convenience from the customer’s point of view? How many have systematically crafted a convenience strategy? Instead, managers use “convenience” as a catchall term which always includes location and may include other features such as product assortment, knowledge of sales associates, speed of checkout, hours, service levels, store layout, and ample parking. Managers rarely consider the relationships among these features.
While convenience remains ill-defined among retailers, industry studies provide some insight into how consumers define convenience. Discount Store News conducted focus groups in which customers were asked, “What makes a store more convenient?” Respondents cited one-stop shopping, store directories, well laid-out and clearly-marked aisles, wider aisles, consistent in-stocks, clearly presented pricing, easy return policies, sufficient staffing, expanded 24-hour service, and efficient and centralized checkouts. Results of a 1996 Roper Starch Worldwide survey show that customers are annoyed by illogical groupings of merchandise and will leave a store empty-handed if they think checkout lines are too long.2
For customers, retail convenience means shopping speed and ease. The best-performing retailers understand the customer perspective but go beyond it. They view the retail experience as an integrated whole consisting of distinct but related parts. They enhance the convenience of their market offers in four main ways that encompass the entire... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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