Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 6, 1993 TAG: 9306040030
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Sandra Brown Kelly
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
First, few merchants seem to sell anything very different. We've all seen that same silk blouse or shirt at store after store.
Retail goods are becoming commodity items that shoppers can find in a variety of stores, said market researcher Jamie Boyer.
"You can find polo at TJ Maxx," said Boyer, director of customer relationship research for Frequency Marketing Inc. in Cincinnati.
And almost every strata of consumers visits the TJ Maxxes. That's an example of cross-shopping, which is the second trend.
People who shop the high-ticket stores also now admit they go "X-marting," as one Roanoke Valley salesperson describes the Wal-Mart-Kmart shopping experience.
Cross-shopping is acceptable and on the increase, Boyer said.
People are willing to shop all types of stores because they don't care as much about brand name merchandise as they used to. Consumers have learned that quality can be found at many price levels; bargain hunting has become a pastime.
Frequency Marketing's findings come from its eight-page surveys sent to randomly selected households in the 30 largest metropolitan areas -- the closest to Western Virginia was the D.C. area. All households had annual incomes over $15,000; a third of the respondents had incomes of more than $50,000 a year.
Results are used to rank 54 department and discount store chains by product categories and store attributes. The findings are sold to those who buy $10,000 annual subscriptions.
Frequency Marketing's most recent survey revealed that people with average household incomes of more than $75,000 make more shopping trips to discount chains than to upscale department stores, Boyer said.
There were similar findings in "Shoppers in the '90s: A New Attitude," a report commissioned by MasterCard International for the National Retail Federation. It gathered comments from 1,011 respondents.
The MasterCard report found the retail world "fragmented" by new shopping options, such as off-price shopping centers. It also found customers "adventurous" enough to try a variety of stores.
Boyer said the findings mean that stores are fighting for a share of a customer because no single merchant can hope to have a buyer's full loyalty. And since much of the merchandise is taking on cookie-cutter sameness, about the only way a retailer can lure the customer is with excellent service.
A Roanoker retailer said recently that his company puts the customer first even when it hurts. That means assuming the customer is right even if he's trying to return merchandise not purchased at his store.
Maybe companies don't know what constitutes service, but I suspect many consumers would agree on these basics:
Help us when we need help.
Be knowledgeable about what merchandise that's for sale.
Go the extra step to be accommodating.
Thank customers when the transaction is complete, even when the customer didn't buy anything.
So how should this work?
For one thing, a store ought to be consistent in its expectations from employees. One department can leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling and another in the same store provoke fury.
That happened to me recently at J.C. Penney Co.'s store at Valley View. Fortunately, I got the poor treatment first.
Consider the clerk in a local department store's dress department who waved her arm disinterestedly when asked for a particular size, saying "If we've got them they're over there somewhere."
This customer didn't bother to search; if she had helped me she might would have made a sale.
However, in that same store's drapery department, another clerk, Norma Lawrence, was everything a salesperson should be -- helpful, pleasant and informed.
She gave me her business card when I left even though I didn't purchase anything. She reminded me she worked on commission and told me how to give her credit if she was absent whenever I did buy.
Stores are going to need more Normas and fewer pointers if they are to remain competitive. In Boyer's survey, Nordstrom, the upscale department store chain based in Seattle, ranked tops in six out of seven categories in the survey.
But, he said it was a surprise that Wal-Mart ranked second overall in friendly employees.
"I'm not sure you can say Wal-Mart delivers better service," he said.
However, Wal-Mart does something that nine out of 10 respondents in the the MasterCard survey said they liked.
The survey respondents said they wanted to be greeted when entering the store and, after that, left alone until they needed help. But not ignored entirely.
by CNB