New discoveries on shopper missions

We have already discussed the importance of understanding shopper missions last month. It is clear that marketers should increasingly pay more attention to missions rather than categories: this will create new types of hypothesis and eventually insights related to their customers.

Shopper missions vary depending on the motivation to shop, the context in which the shopping is made and the behaviors these factors imply.

The CocaCola Retail Research group clusters these into the following:

1-      Planned: I need to get / we always buy (this is usually the main load)

2-      Immediate: I need it now (top-up or for today)

3-      Expert: I need something special

4-      Social: I want something more

5-      Constrained: It’s all I can get

6-      Opportunistic: I might as well buy (seeking promos)

As you may have guessed, decisions on routine purchases take very few seconds whereas in immediate trips shoppers seldom shop the whole store. Different behaviors for different missions.

Shopperception uses 3D cameras (like M Kinect) for tracking shopper behavior, creating real event metrics at product level. In this way, our tool will help you detect how much time it takes for conversion to occur (was it planned?), it can help spot when promos are effective and of course, track multiple shoppers at the same time in real time.

But if we focus on shopper missions, one distinctive characteristic is that Shopperception can measure shelf events 24×7 (with no extra personnel needed). Why is this relevant? Let us see an example on one of the most important retailers worldwide:

Our 3D cameras can detect the total amount of visitors who walked through the aisle selling

jellies and desserts during one month. These are the results:

As you can notice, the highest concentration of customers reaches its peak between 19 and 20 hs. One would guess that conversion will occur accordingly. But let us check the number of visitors that interacted with the shelf:

It seems that there is a change in people’s behaviors during the 18-19hs range and that of the 19-20hs. It decreases meaningfully.

If we compare the different missions, planned trips (maybe even with kids or family groups) versus single people near dinner time rushing to get the essentials for that night, one would guess purchases of jelly and cakes would be higher for the first group as the graph indicates.

This information (with many more details like hotspot maps of the shelf) is already available in valuable reports our tool generates. Our client can now develop an offering aimed at a specific type of consumer and shopping occasion.

We believe campaigns can become cost effective and more successful if agencies and brands can adapt to these new scenarios. Are you curious of how we can shed some light into the ever-changing shopper missions? Let’s talk.