Tuesday, November 24, 2009
“Why The American Consumer Will Keep on Buying”
We recently chatted with author/blogger Lee Eisenberg about his new book, “Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep On Buying No Matter What,” which explores shopping behavior from both the consumer and retailer sides, social media, academic and marketing research, and Mr. Eisenberg’s own experiences. Interesting stuff. A clip from the full interview on eMarketer Total Access:
eMarketer: How has the recession changed the way we shop?
Lee Eisenberg: My book’s subtitle is “Why the American Consumer Will Keep On Buying No Matter What.” Now that’s not to say that the American consumer will keep on buying the same way, or the same things in the same stores. But where there’s a will to shop, we will find a way to shop. We’ll never stop shopping and the sales side will never stop selling.
I think the recession has rebalanced our mindset. Most of us are now more mindful about what we buy than we were a couple of years ago. It’s not to say we won’t be spending money on big-ticket things or designer labels and so on. But I do think we’re placing a much bigger premium on value, and by that, I don’t mean absolute price. You read a lot these days about cost per wear, which is to say you take the price and you divide it by the number of times you wear it, or the amount of use you’ll get out of it, and that equals value. Value proposition is far, far more important today than it was a couple of years ago.
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The other thing is social media. Every survey says 85% of us would trust what the rest of us say about a product or a retailer more than what an advertising agency says about its client. That’s a big change that’s not going to go away as the economy improves. These retailers have to learn that they don’t have the power to regulate or project their brands the way they used to.
eMarketer: How should multichannel retailers approach online versus offline shoppers? Are they one and the same? Is one more valuable?
Mr. Eisenberg: The brand values, voice and principles must be the same whether you’re delivering those in a store or online. That said, I think you’d be hard pressed to find any retailer that won’t tell you that the best customers are the cross-channel ones. It isn’t an “either/or.” It’s an “and/both.” A customer who shops two or three ways is going to spend more than a customer who only shops one, even if that customer is a heavy shopper in that one platform.
The full version of this interview is available here, to eMarketer Total Access subscribers only. Every day they have access to new interviews with digital marketing leaders and trendsetting entrepreneurs. Some other interesting interviews/case studies on retail:
