Shoppers who shop based on habit are tremendously valuable to retail businesses. Likewise, shoppers who shop to satisfy habits (obsessions, hobbies and the like) are tremendously valuable.
A habit based shopper to a newsagency would / could include any of the following:
- The magazine shopper who visits for every issue of their favourite magazine(s).
- The magazine shopper who browses the shop to satisfy interest in specialist topics like model railways.
- A partworks collector.
- The lottery customer who puts tickets on at least weekly.
- The card shopper who gets cards for all (or most) card-giving occasions.
- The tobacco product shopper.
- The customer who purchases replacement ink cartridges and or printer paper.
- The daily newspaper shopper.
Customers who shop with you out of habit are, as I have noted, tremendously valuable. They need to be encouraged, respected and loved.
Here is the marketing tip, or question, what are you doing to attract, keep and love your habit based shoppers? What is unique about your offer that gets them back and more of them back? Is it that good that they talk about it to their friends?
A good place to start in considering habit based retail is to make a list of the products and service you offer which fall into the habit based category. Get your team involved in this, listing every item which could meet habit based criteria. Hopefully, as you create this list you will think of ways to better connect with and serve these valuable habit based shoppers.
While this idea may seem simple and almost of questionable value, I am certain that you will unlock ways to making more money from habit based shoppers – by looking at a type of shopper you may previously not have look at in this way before.
Love your habit based shoppers and they will love you back. You can bank on it!