CATALOGUE & PRINT WEB VERSION: Click Here
vacation. Think about how wrong the “experts” were with regards to election results last November – and the election happens every four years. What makes you think they can predict how consumers will respond to a once- in-100-years pandemic? Consequently, I’m not going to offer an opinion on how the consumer will behave in 2021, with one exception – which I will come back to in a minute.
Think about where your business was before the pandemic. Some of you were doing OK and were growing at modest rates. However, for many others, your business wasn’t strong. You were getting the cookies kicked out of you by Amazon and Walmart. The co-ops were unable to provide you with prospect names anymore that worked. That was why you were thinking about winding down the catalog and moving your business online. Suddenly, because a big chunk of the nation was sent home, and told not to venture out, consumers turned to you. But that was luck. Meanwhile, although you did well, those other big guys – Amazon, Walmart, Wayfair, etc. – all got massively bigger.
You had a temporary lifeline extended to you for 2021. Did it really change anything in your business? Most likely the answer is no because of two things.
First, most of you spent 2020 just trying to keep your head above water, bringing in extra inventory to meet demand. Developing new products or even new product categories didn’t happen for most of you. When the pandemic fueled spending spree comes to an end, what do you have to offer customers that is fundamentally different than you had at the beginning of 2020? Probably, not much.
Second, there used to be (back in the dark ages of the 1980s) a direct marketing rule of thumb that 2/3rds of the population were retail shoppers and 1/3rd were mail order shoppers,
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and it wasn’t worth trying to convert a retail shopper to a mail order shopper. Today’s equivalent of that rule is that there are internet shoppers (including mobile shoppers) and there is an ever-dwindling number of catalogue shoppers and it’s counterproductive to try to convert a web buyer into a catalogue shopper. It’s like NASA sending a steam-locomotive engineer to the Space Station – what’s the point?
Moreover, most of the incrementally new web shoppers that you acquired in 2020 were not looking for you – they were looking for your products because they had an immediate need for a new throw rug for the living room which had also become the classroom for their third-grader now remote learning at home. Ordinarily, they would have shopped retail, but with stores closed, they found you. Many of them were not “frequent” online shoppers, this was all new to many of them. I predict that you will retain some of these newly acquired customers and convert them to 2X+ buyers. But in my opinion – this is my prediction on consumer behaviour for 2021 – the majority of them are “one and done” shoppers. You met their need during a crisis and they may shop more online in total – from all online sources – but they are not going to convert to being longtime customers for you the way list rental names did in the 1990s.
In the coming weeks, I’m going to offer my advice on how to identify these customers and how to market to them. I’m also going to offer my advice on the steps you need to take to continue the journey towards being less dependent on your catalog. For many of you, 2020 gave you a chance to pocket an unexpected profit. But the fundamental nature of your business has not changed. You have some breathing space to determine who doesn’t need a catalogue and how to focus on more online activities while extending the life of your catalogue a little longer.
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