Views From The Hills of Kentucky :: Is the Answer "PathTracker"?

Views from the Hills by R. E. Stevens, GENESIS II (The Second Beginning) E-Mail views@aol.com

Is the Answer "Path Tracker"?

Have you ever stopped and thought about the spontaneous purchase decisions made in the store aisles? The reported numbers on spontaneous purchases are wide-spread but almost all estimates are over 50%. If that is true, should we not be looking at increasing the spontaneous purchases of our brand(s)? If you don't believe spontaneous purchases are over 50%, look at your own shopping trips. In our household it is closer to 80%.

If we want to be involved in the spontaneous purchases, there are certain requirements.

First, our brand must be in the store.
Second, the shopper must come down the aisle where our brand is displayed.
Third, the shopper must see our brand.
Fourth, our brand must appeal to the shopper's interest.

Let's assume we want to increase the spontaneous sales of our brand. Let's further assume we have a plan to increase these sales. How will we determine if our plan will work? Easy, we will conduct a pre/post sales study to determine if our actions have increased our sales or not. Not a bad approach, but it is only half the answer. If we are truly interested in understanding our potential for increasing sales, there are a number of things we need to know. Let's assume we can get our brand on the store shelves. What key factors do we need to know to understand not only the effectiveness of our actions, but also the real potential?

First, what is our real sales potential? That is, how many shoppers actually come down the store aisle where our brand is displayed? Would you believe that there are aisles where less than 10% of the shoppers travel during a shopping trip? Is your product category in one of these aisles? Just think of the potential if you can just stimulate more shoppers to go down your aisle.

Second, if the shopper does go down your aisle, do they see your category, much less your brand? Do they even hesitate at your site?

Third, if they go down your aisle and if they stop and explore your product category, do they make a purchase? Is that purchase your brand?

What a task! What a learning opportunity. It is what effective research is all about. This would, in my mind, be a real piece of research. This is the type of research our profession needs. I doubt if there are many marketers or market researchers that actually know the percentage of shoppers that visit the aisle where their brand is displayed, let alone how long the shopper spends in the aisle or how long it takes to make a purchase decision.

In the past I have conducted this type of research. However, it is costly and time consuming but very informative. The methods I utilized required human observation. This meant I usually conducted research of less than 1,000 shoppers in any given project. My data, needless to say, was subjective. For example, what if the shopper passed my aisle and went to another location within the store and then returned to shop my aisle. Was the shopper counted once, twice, or not at all? It was a problem. But not any longer.

Think of the North Star system on automobiles that can tell exactly where that car is at any time. How about a system like that for shopping carts (and baskets) where the universe is the store? A system that can show the route of individual carts, where they went, where they stopped, how long they stayed there, what distance they traveled and how long it took. Now link this to what they purchased. In one weekend, we had over 10,000 shopping trips logged from a single store. More data than I could comprehend. This is a system developed by Dr. Herb Sorensen of Sorensen Associates. They are working to enhance the system even further, beyond what I ever thought possible. If you are interested in learning about the PathTracker System, give Herb a call. His phone number is listed below.

Sponsor: Sorensen Associates Inc, Portland, OR (800) 542-4321 Minneapolis, MN (888) 616-0123