I have read Ben Wise’s blog about “How do you customers shop?”, posted on CMA. Author indicate that everyone has its own shopping style, and a shop can not satisfy all customers’ needs. Therefore, Author has come up with some ideas for shops.
(http://www.canadianmarketingblog.com/archives/2011/10/how_do_your_customers_shop_1.html)
I certainly agree with the first one that shops should provide multiple paths of discovering products while shopping. Customers definitely do not want wast their time to look through the products which they are not interested. Shops should also determine the most important customer groups. Shop should be customized to pleased its customers in high loyalty. And then try to make the shop creative and comfortable in order to grap another potential customer groups.
For many shops, especially restaurant, I strongly suggest that they should have their own parking lot and it is better if it is free for its own customers. From my own and many of my friends’ experiences, We will not go to a place to shop often if it is hard to find a parking space at there. Many of the restaurants in Downtown Vancouver are very delicious, but I am sure that people will go more often if they provide free parking lots for customers.
Last but not the least, I think “Create personas” and “Train staff for flexibility” are applied to those shops, such as car shops, computer shops, and etc. Because regular customers usually do not know much about those high technology product, therefore a professional and efficient sales person is needed for explanation and introduction.
In a nutshell, there is not only one simple way can applied for all kinds of shops, different shops have to create their unique way to customer the shops in order to keep their customers pleasant.
