Marketing Innovation
10/16/2009 11:05 Filed in: Innovation
On a trip home (to Massachusetts) to visit family, I
ventured into a Stop & Shop supermarket and came
across an innovation that I've been thinking about
ever since.
It has little to do with Internet marketing, or sports marketing, but the thoughts behind it are something all businesses should consider. It's always a challenge to think outside of the proverbial box, but I love seeing it work. There are certain moments in marketing and business when you can't help but think: "That's brilliant. Why hasn't anyone done this sooner?"
Anyway, back to the supermarket...
At the entrance to the store, a modest display held electronic price guns for the store's Scan It system: a checkout system that allows you to scan items as you shop the aisles, and checkout with a single transaction at the self-checkout line. Let me repeat: scan items as you shop the aisles.
From what I can tell, the program works like this:
1. You must be part of the store's loyalty card program to shop this way.
2. Shoppers scan their card at the display, grab a price gun and begin shopping. Customers scan the bar codes on their items as they place them in the basket. This allows the store to total the order, while showing customers the running total of their shopping trip. (and shouldn't we do this more often, when we grocery shop, to manage our household budgets?)
3. Customers enter the self checkout line, scan their loyalty card again and pay for the entire thing without having to re-scan anything.
To me, this is brilliant in several ways...
For starters, it's a great innovation in operations and time management. Instead of handing all of their items three times (once to take them off the shelves, twice to place them on the checkout counter and a third time to place them back into the shopping cart), customers handle the items once before leaving the store.
By utilizing the self-checkout systems, stores reduce staffing costs. So far, customers have saved time and the store has saved money. Not bad, right?
In my humble opinion, the benefits don't end there. This simple checkout system builds trust between Stop & Shop and its customers.
In a recent issue of BusinessWeek magazine, Dov Seidman wrote "We all want loyal customers... but are you willing to meet them halfway?" The title of Seidman's column was "Building Trust in Business by Trusting." Stop & Shop's system accomplishes this. It would be easy to cheat this system and load one's shopping cart without scanning all the items. Stop & Shop has taken this risk and placed a great deal of trust in its customers. This, in turn, should foster a sense of appreciation from customers. That's a very intangible asset to rely on, but my guess is that this strategy will pay off in the long run.
Why mention it? Because it's this type of thinking that improves service, sales and customer satisfaction. This little Internet marketing venture doesn't have a "self-checkout" line, but rest assured, I'll be thinking of ways to improve our services by thinking from clients' perspectives, utilizing technology and respecting our clients' time and money.
Thanks for reading.
- Jeremy
It has little to do with Internet marketing, or sports marketing, but the thoughts behind it are something all businesses should consider. It's always a challenge to think outside of the proverbial box, but I love seeing it work. There are certain moments in marketing and business when you can't help but think: "That's brilliant. Why hasn't anyone done this sooner?"
Anyway, back to the supermarket...
At the entrance to the store, a modest display held electronic price guns for the store's Scan It system: a checkout system that allows you to scan items as you shop the aisles, and checkout with a single transaction at the self-checkout line. Let me repeat: scan items as you shop the aisles.
From what I can tell, the program works like this:
1. You must be part of the store's loyalty card program to shop this way.
2. Shoppers scan their card at the display, grab a price gun and begin shopping. Customers scan the bar codes on their items as they place them in the basket. This allows the store to total the order, while showing customers the running total of their shopping trip. (and shouldn't we do this more often, when we grocery shop, to manage our household budgets?)
3. Customers enter the self checkout line, scan their loyalty card again and pay for the entire thing without having to re-scan anything.
To me, this is brilliant in several ways...
For starters, it's a great innovation in operations and time management. Instead of handing all of their items three times (once to take them off the shelves, twice to place them on the checkout counter and a third time to place them back into the shopping cart), customers handle the items once before leaving the store.
By utilizing the self-checkout systems, stores reduce staffing costs. So far, customers have saved time and the store has saved money. Not bad, right?
In my humble opinion, the benefits don't end there. This simple checkout system builds trust between Stop & Shop and its customers.
In a recent issue of BusinessWeek magazine, Dov Seidman wrote "We all want loyal customers... but are you willing to meet them halfway?" The title of Seidman's column was "Building Trust in Business by Trusting." Stop & Shop's system accomplishes this. It would be easy to cheat this system and load one's shopping cart without scanning all the items. Stop & Shop has taken this risk and placed a great deal of trust in its customers. This, in turn, should foster a sense of appreciation from customers. That's a very intangible asset to rely on, but my guess is that this strategy will pay off in the long run.
Why mention it? Because it's this type of thinking that improves service, sales and customer satisfaction. This little Internet marketing venture doesn't have a "self-checkout" line, but rest assured, I'll be thinking of ways to improve our services by thinking from clients' perspectives, utilizing technology and respecting our clients' time and money.
Thanks for reading.
- Jeremy