I referred to “pinch points” in this blog a couple of
weeks ago, and this week experienced them for real. I tried to buy some headphones. Good ones – hundreds of dollars’ worth. For those of you who don’t know me, I love music with a passion, and I travel a lot, and so my headphones are dear and important to me (Whilst I am a fan of Apple and of the iPhone and iPod, their leaky earbuds are a sonic abomination – If anyone has Jonny Ives’ email address please let me know so I can ask him why the design of iBuds is so bad!)
As a shopper, anyone in the audio industry would have me in a segment named something along the lines of “Passionate Aficionado” – probably small but potentially highly profitable, and certainly a priority segment for the more upmarket brand owners.
My path to purchase started online, and then I went to a good department store, which had a fabulous range – hundreds of pairs, lots of which looked perfect. Arguably there were way too many pairs, as it was almost impossible to explore the whole range. But I didn’t buy. Why? Because I couldn’t try them. Perhaps a less discerning shopper (in a different shopper segment) might have picked up a cheap pair based on price, brand name or appearance. But a Passionate Aficionado wants to look, try them on to see how they feel (three hours on a flight with bad fitting buds is not fun), and of course – listen.
Full marks to Phillips – the only manufacturer that had (rather half-heartedly) placed some demo headphones to listen to). Unfortunately the product didn’t deliver for me. But to the countless other premium brands in stock, an opportunity to make a sale was lost. Beyond lost sales to Passionates, how many trade up opportunities were missed because shoppers were not able to try and experience a markedly better performing product?
Every path to purchase has blockages. Understanding them is key. Across many electrical goods categories, experiencing the brand is a must for the shopper. Would you buy a TV without seeing its picture? A little while ago Samsung, who had convinced me pre-store to give their phones a try, failed to take me down that last mile because their store was full of dummy phones. I wanted to try the operating system. Last year Panasonic failed to sell me a video camera because after spending a long time researching the product on line, then trying it in the store, it was out of stock (the sales guy failed to mention that before I started playing).
Understanding shopper segments is key – different shoppers want different things from the path to purchase. But understanding the purchase journey for your most important shoppers helps identify the pinchpoints that are preventing them progressing to the ultimate destination – purchase.
