Everything you think you know about your customer is probably wrong. 6 lessons learnt from working at Heathrow at a Travel Retailer

If you are an owner, representative, guardian, founder or whatever magic guru of a brand that sells their product into retail stores, this short read is for you. If you have never actually worked on the shop floor of a retailer or pitched your product to an actual consumer, and you sell to retail, this is definitely for you.

I’m one of the above. I specialise in helping brands bring their products to retail. Currently, I’m representing a US Consumer Electronics Accessories brand called ReTrak throughout EMEA.

Right at the start of launching the brand into the Uk and Europe way back in 2011, we conducted extensive market research to understand the market, the competition and the customer before we launched. As you probably know if you have ever studied or worked in international marketing, consumer behaviour and understanding of the product can vary widely across countries. Just taking what works in one market, won’t necessarily work in another. It pays significant dividends to be very aware of your market and your customer.

What does happen if you work on a project or are embedded in an organisation for a long time, is that experience bias can set in. You start to makes assumptions about your customers, and that can be very dangerous for a brand. I have always thought that is not me, as I’m a trained consultant and marketer. I’m ruthlessly dedicated to thinking in the mind of the consumer, but bias always creeps in.  It happens to all of us, when we are buried too deep and don’t spend time with those actually buying.

For a bit of background, my day to day normally consists of doing everything I can to get products to market. Research, pricing strategy, product launch prep, forecasting, marketing, PR, communicating with distribution partners and the most important -  getting in front of retail buyers to pitch products and negotiate deals.

None of that includes speaking or meeting the consumer face to face. The question is, do I need to?

I have worked in retail before, in shoe and clothes stores, as well as Whsmith (in Toys and Games), all while I was studying. I’ve used this knowledge a lot, in tandem with all the sales assistants and store managers I’ve “interrogated” over the years and the cumulative research I’ve done whilst working as a consultant to multiple CE brands.

Couple all that with information from the buyers I liaise with in Head Office and what I can find online and in industry mags, and I have what "I thought" was a complete picture of retail and “my customer”.

A few weeks ago, I was very lucky to be given the opportunity to be able to showcase and demo a new range of ReTrak VR (virtual reality) headsets in the digital section at WHSMITH Travel, in T2, at one of the world’s busiest airports, during a promo that we are doing. I wanted to do this myself initially, to double check that all my assumptions on the customer were correct. My goal was to see how the customer interacts and behaves with the range of Retrak products, understand how the staff talk about them (they are very good at selling in Heathrow), as well as watching what happens in the entire digital category. 

After one day working with “the customer” in a retailer, it turns out I was not completely in the picture.  Consumer behaviour, desires wants and how they shop has changed significantly since I last stood on the shop floor, so this was a fantastic way seeing the reality and one I really should have exposed myself to a lot sooner. I was quite frankly shocked at some of the customer behaviour and questions that I was asked.

Here’s a quick list of some of the things that I learnt or re-reminded myself of during that the 2 x shifts I spent in store, that I wanted to share with you. I’ve applied it to the product that I was demoing on that day (ReTrak Utopia 360 VR), but these learnings crossed over through the whole category.

Learning 1 - People in the real world don’t know much, if anything about your product category

Right now I’m surrounded by VR, follow people who talk about VR, post a lot about VR and thus my newsfeeds and social media get filtered to that topic too. It’s everywhere around me, and as our lives become more filtered through our “likes”, it’s way too easy to start to make assumptions that your target market knows your category inside and out.

Out in the real world, in a real store, with real customers, it all looks a lot different to behind your desk.

Perhaps 80% of the people I spoke to, had never tried a VR headset and I’d say 50% did not know what it was.  A big shock actually, but also a big opportunity…  

Learning 2 – Over Complication 

I was all prepped up to start talking about VR in depth and tech specs. The product management team had trained me up and I was ready to be interrogated by the teen geniuses and VR pros.

I was totally wrong again. I did meet a few people that had tried the Occulus and the Vive (tethered high-end VR headsets) , and I even met adult movie director that makes 360 movies. However, for most people, it was a completely new concept. Many didn’t realise that these VR headsets could even be used with a smartphone.

The consumers starting point, was much lower than I originally thought.

Luckily enough, the Retrak team had worked incredibly hard on making the product very clear on the packaging, so I’m not too worried about the Utopia 360 in particular, but it really hammered home how key it is that you address the basics of your brand first and what it does before going into the fancy tech bits.

Learning 3 – Browsing and Consumer Patience

I keep reading that consumer focus has been reduced to 8 seconds, and that our timespans are incredibly short, but there is nothing like seeing that in real life. I was in the digital section of an airport, so the behaviour will be faster than that of the high street, but it was literally like watching events taking place in fast forward.  

People literally shop like they are on speed. I thought I was impatient. I saw a lot of ZERO patience and not much browsing time. Getting your brand to stand out is extremely hard, but it’s only going to get harder, as our concentration spans become more compressed.

They need to start wafting lavender into the air, to slow people down...  

This is a big big issue and something that we all, as suppliers need to consider. How do we stop a non-browsing, stressed out customer in their tracks, get them to see our product and then buy?  Not every brand can be centre stage, creating “retail theatre”.

Learning 4 – Store Staff

I’ve always found store staff incredibly insightful, so have always made the time to chat to them in my target stores, but I think we forget what a hard job they do, when we are sat number crunching at our desks.

The general public can be terribly rude, and abrasive (as can we all at times), and these store staff really are the front line, selling our products and taking the heat of someone’s bad day.  They can literally kill your brand dead for you if they don’t like it or you, or they can sell the hell out of it.  We (and definitely I ) really need to think more about what we as brands can do to help them as suppliers.

Learning 5 – Your product sells itself

I won’t name brands, or exact digital sub-categories, but it was very interesting to see where the consumers spent their time browsing, what they picked up and then what they eventually bought. Where their starting point for purchasing decisions is and how they look for product. I saw a lot of confused and panicked customers pass on accessories, that they just weren’t sure were compatible with their devices. So no, your product doesn’t always sell itself!  Packaging can make or break a product…  this fact has never been truer.

Could I have just got all this information from data?

Whsmith Travel know their customer very well and they have plenty of data. I’ve been selling to them for more than 6 years, and I also have plenty of data and experience on what works and what doesn’t. However, engaging with the customers in store and seeing them with my own eyes was a completely different experience to just data and the simulated personas we use. This type of research is actually called ethnographic research and is used by car makers and FMCG companies to develop new products.

In Conclusion

I had a fantastic and extremely educational few days over at T2 with the brilliant team, and have plenty of info to take back, share with the ReTrak product management and marketing team, that will help us to help our consumer. There’s a well-established feedback loop that we use to make product and communication improvements based on feedback from multiple sources, so a lot of these learnings are already being applied. Watch this space…

Thank you

A huge thank you to the WHSMITH Travel Team at Heathrow, who are doing a fantastic job of keeping their store beautifully merchandised, sales teams motivated and happy and week after week. Their dedication pays off as they are consistently, one of the top performing Digital Stores. They really do a remarkable job over there.

About the Author

Zoe Langman is a strategic consultant that helps brands get their products into retail. She’s been working in the consumer electronics sector since her early 20’s and has launched hundreds of products into retail stores across EMEA. The views and opinions expressed in this piece are all her own. If you are interested in stocking any of the ReTrak products mentioned here, do get in touch.