last word
The last WORD
We can merchandise more
effectively! SOME GARDEN CENTRES ARE CONFUSING CUSTOMERS AND LOSING SALES
By Jonathan Bunbury, Scotts Miracle Gro
Jonathan Bunbury is category manager for Scotts Miracle-Gro
The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company recently commissioned a project investigating shopper emotions, for which emotions research specialist Shopping Behaviour Xplained Ltd carried out research in stores in England and Europe across Garden Care product categories including fertilisers, weedkillers and lawn seed. The results were presented at the GCA Conference. Here Jonathan Bunbury, category manager for Scotts, explains the issues surrounding merchandising this category and why they need to be resolved.
T
he Garden Care market is in good health, yet penetration figures remain below where we believed they ought to be, and we thought the way products were displayed could be a contributory factor. We worked with SBXL as they employ the very latest techniques in monitoring, researching and analysing shopper behaviour. We wanted to better
understand the motivations and decision-making processes of garden care shoppers when faced with a range of different products in store. In many ways, it confirmed what we already believed about the typical shopping experience – confusion at the point of purchase. What it especially highlighted was the enthusiastic way in which shoppers approached the product stand or fixture and the time they invested looking at products, only to be let down in their selection process. This led
24 Garden & Hardware News
to nearly half of them walking away without purchasing anything. Too many products were making similar claims and shoppers struggled to find the right solutions for their gardening tasks/problems. This was exacerbated because the ranging and merchandising of product groups in many instances lacked a logical flow for shoppers to follow. Gardening shoppers are all
different with widely varying levels of expertise, and so have different needs and therefore emotional states. From our research we know that the majority of Garden Care shoppers are ‘happy’, so it is important to offer clearly segmented and priced fixtures and off-fixture display space to aid this positive emotion throughout the buying process. Clear merchandising with relevant point-of-sale signage can stimulate the ‘need state’ around specific projects that can turn browsing to actual buying. Generally consumers are more conscious about price these days, but we know that in the garden care market, an understanding of which product is needed for a specific project is more important than price points. With the current economic climate, the benefits to the gardening market of more holidays at home and the trend of Grow Your Own, for instance, shoppers are still more likely to view spending on this category as essential rather than a luxury.
Certain product areas need to be more clearly merchandised. For example, within Garden Care, categories that are
traditionally SKU-heavy, such as weedkillers and plant feeds. Plant feeds may look to be offering the same benefit, but crucially by different methods of application, while weedkillers offer different solutions to different problems (weeds on lawns, in paths, longer lasting etc). It is critical that these differences are clearly visible on the fixtures to ensure the shopper can distinguish between them, otherwise confusion reigns and the result is often no purchase. Shoppers will ‘shop categories’, looking for the solutions to their gardening needs. They expect choice at the fixture, but straight product duplication with no justifiable differences just causes confusion, and again often no purchase. A logical flow in the display by product type, brand, size etc, can help the shopper with their navigation of the fixture and therefore optimise the purchase opportunity. The bestsellers need their fair share of fixture space. Gaps on the shelves only add to shopper confusion.
Ultimately they are looking for clear navigational signage to direct them straight to their area of interest, and then once at the fixture, the right amount of product choice, with sufficient space for
TV/magazine advertised best selling lines alongside other maybe unique products for specific tasks. They also need tactically placed off-shelf displays, which draw shoppers to buy into a specific task- based ‘need state’. ■
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