Speciality Food January 2024

to secure sales. “Encourage the customer to pick up the produce,” he says. “We are all that muchmore likely to buy something in store once we have picked it up/handled it.” For some, Covid feels like a distant memory, but the pandemic changed shopping habits inmeaningful ways, Charles warns. “These days, so many of us consumers have become so afraid of touching the merchandise, it may require an actual sign suggestion: ‘Touchme’.” Taste: When it comes to fine 35 to the lyrical sentiment and valence (positivity or negativity) of songs.” Smell: With scent being a huge trigger for memories and emotions, it’s a crucial element to consider. “Where [sensory marketing] works especially well is when it is the scent of the actual products that speak for themselves, rather than the synthetic-smelling scents that are sometimes used,” Charles says. “It is striking how some chocolate chains, when you walk into their stores, smell of nothing (because all the products are hermetically sealed). This is crazy once you recognise that chocolate and coffee are amongst the most desirable scents.” If you have a café on site, you’re sitting on a gold mine: coffee, chocolate pastries, freshly baked bread...the options for tempting customers are endless! Touch: If there’s one sense you’re not already catering to in your shop, it’s likely to be touch. However, Charles advises that forgetting touch is missing out on an opportunity food, the proof is in the pudding. Your customers might not consider paying a premium for storecupboard staples or even artisan products like farmhouse cheese – until they taste the difference, that is. Making shopping memorable When all these sensory elements are combined, they help to create an unforgettable shopping experience. “Always remember that whilst price, value and service should specialityfoodmagazine.com If you can create a fantastic experience in your physical spaces, not only will it more likely become the experience your customers feel like they received, but also it safeguards you against any time you didn’t quite hit themark MELANIE FULKER THREE PSYCHOLOGY TERMS YOU NEED TO KNOW Melanie at Startle Music explains to Speciality Food three must-know behavioural science terms and how retailers can use them to their advantage 1 EXPECTANCY THEORY A retail space is your staging area - your best point of differentiation and brand distinctiveness - and fine food retailers have an expectation to live up to. Expectancy Theory tells us that people’s experiences are strongly influenced by what they expect to experience. If you can create a fantastic experience in your physical spaces, not only will it more likely become the experience your customers feel like they received, but also it safeguards you against any time you didn’t quite hit the mark. The curation of a perfect atmosphere is always susceptible to hiccups, but as long as you’ve put in the work to imbue your customers with the ideal experience, you’re far more likely to be unscathed if, on one occasion, you don’t quite deliver. What’s important here is a meaningful intention to create the same experience consistently each time, but not just any good experience. 2 THE PEAK-END RULE The Peak-End Rule tells us that people are most likely to evaluate an experience by the sum of the most stand-out moments (the peaks) and its conclusion (the end). The truth is that it’s too cognitively taxing to consider all factors of an experience, so the efficiency of our brains instead decides to just zoom in on a few factors and then maximise those out to be the full experience. This is a concept that often makes one retail experience stand out from the rest. I recently visited a grocery retailer with my two-year-old son. After a somewhat stressful packing experience at the till, the cashier offered him a sticker. Immediately, it put a smile on my son’s face, eased my anxiety of a toddler meltdown in the store, and created a memorable ‘peak’ that I’ll go on to associate with that brand. This is a great example of a simple and very low-cost activation retailers can bring into their atmospheres to stand out in consumers’ minds and create a lasting impression. 3 THE VON RESTORFF EFFECT Possibly one of the most easily understandable biases in behavioural science is the Von Restorff Effect, which essentially dictates that the chances of something being remembered and recalled are increased the more distinct they are from their peers or competition. It’s a bias in favour of remembering the unusual. One of the reasons this bias is so powerful is that it doesn’t need to incur a large cost. What it does require is imagination and creativity – the untapped resource in many brands. Here are some practical tips retailers can use to achieve this: Look outside of the retail industry and your competitors for ideas. You can’t be distinctive if you’re looking at the same stuff as the brands around you. Do the ‘blindfold’ thought experiment – if someone was placed in one of your stores without knowing the brand, would they know it’s you? If not, you’re not delivering on a distinctive branded atmosphere. Seek surprising solutions that are easy to implement. Just one creative and distinctive action could be revolutionary (think stickers for kids at the checkout, or free coffees with any purchase). Big idea, easy to implement, business defining results. always underpin the offering, what differentiates it (attracts and retains customers), is a great experience,” Andrew says. “Make it multi- dimensional – live working kitchens, juice bars. Take every opportunity to connect and engage with the customer – for example, Waitrose at Coal Drops Yard at King’s Cross has a cookery school.” Look for inspiration throughout the high street. Charles says, “Lush cosmetics does a great job by not packaging many of their products in store, thus allowing the customers to get a rich olfactory experience, and before you know it one of the assistants is suggesting ‘Touch this, smell that, hold out your hands.’ It is a real multisensory encounter.”