You know how consultants or retail experts always talk about “listening to the customer” and “the customer is king”? Well, it may be a truism that if it looks, swims and quacks like a duck, it is a duck… But who really needs to hear all that quacking? And who could possibly understand what it means?
Painful examples
After all, consumers are people, and all too often people give bad advice. Especially if you ask their opinion about something, as it turns out. If you think about it, consumers are pretty good at saying one thing and then when it comes down to it, doing something different.
Shopping is just like making New Year’s resolutions: if you ask people, they are full of great intentions, but that is usually all they are. Shoes of Prey is a painful example: they were the revolutionary online brand that allowed women to design their own hyper-personalised, unique shoes. Three weeks later they were delivered to your house.
Innovative? Attractive? Well thought-out? Absolutely, the founders nod wholeheartedly, because they paid to have expensive market research carried out. Which unanimously stated that women would love the idea … so it could not possibly go wrong, could it? And yet it did. Ten years after its foundation, the founders pulled the plug, because even though people knew they wanted it, they simply ended up buying the pair of trainers that they saw in the shop and fell in love with. It was easier.
In theory…
Convenience is a human trait that should not be underestimated. Another one that bites the dust is Belgian Beedrop, an online platform that provided local food stores with the opportunity to offer home delivery. For a commission of 20 %, couriers supplied products from some 950 merchants to a number of Belgian cities. In theory, people thought it was once more an excellent idea… but since they still had to go to the supermarket for their Nutella and Coca Cola, then why not pick up bread and sandwich fillings at the same time? It is just easier.
Dutch sustainable supermarket Marqt is struggling with the same problem: the chain has to find a buyer – and fast. Although consumers really love the promise of sustainable, ethical and organic food, Jumbo and Albert Heijn now also supply organic, more transparent and more sustainable food, and for a slightly lower cost. It is easier.
Please do not listen to what people say – at least, not if you ask non-binding questions and then assume that what they trot out is the absolute truth. The customer may be king, but a good king leaves the execution to his advisers. Everybody has their own area of responsibility. And if the king is not open to reason, a minister with a sharp tongue will submit a motion of no confidence. And that is “Elementary, my dear Watson”.
