Today’s Retail Action Article, June 15th, 2010

Retailers Looking For Potential Locations Face New Rules

Customer Travel Habits Have Changed and Affect Where You Should Locate

Today, consumer buying behavior has changed. It’s largely driven by the return of time-starved families and a more prudent approach to travel or commuting. High fuel costs have forced consumers to adopt new money saving strategies that strongly influence where they’ll shop:

1) Many consumers will now limit shopping between where they live and where they work. They’ll do the majority of their shopping on the way home to break up the commute, and thus will refrain from taking large detours. If your shop or considered location is situated on main commuter routes, you’ll capture solid traffic based on this new buying pattern.

2) The high cost of parking, particularly in larger municipalities has turned off many consumers. Often, shopping where free parking is offered becomes the sole factor in their buying behavior and the locations they select to shop in.

3) Elements as simple as barriers to access can become the deciding factor in selecting a shopping location. Difficult to navigate parking lots, left hand turns at busy intersections and even the typical distance a customer needs to walk to the doors will affect which locations they’ll shop at.

4) Stores located near noisy freeways, railroad tracks or run down neighborhoods also become deterrents to shoppers. If you decide to locate a store around these elements, you may face traffic obstacles from the first day. Customers that need to cross railroad tracks to get to your store who get stuck waiting for a crossing train may abandon your store as a shopping option in the future.

5) Many corner locations offer access from multiple directions, great visibility and easy street parking. Consider a corner storefront if you are considering a street location.

6) Time starved customers today prefer to shop at multiple locations located in proximity to one another. This cuts down on travel time and fuel costs. In fact, today’s consumers expect your store to be located near your competition so they can comparison shop efficiently as well.

7) Stores situated on cottage bound routes are typically strong locations. Consumers will often buy on the way to the cottage or vacation destination but are not inclined to buy on the return trip. Being on the right side of the road is critical for capturing this valuable traffic.

Today’s price-driven consumer needs to accomplish their needs-based buying trips within a minimum amount of time and fuel costs. Your existing and future locations must support these new buying patterns. The notion of destination shopping for today’s consumer is becoming a dwindling concept.

Take Action Today:

1) Conduct an Audit of your existing or future locations and understand how they fit into these new elements of buying.

2) Consider solutions to overcome access obstacles in existing locations. Mall merchants can pool resources to hire a police officer to help direct customers into busy entrances for example.

3) Determine if you have captive commuter traffic and target your marketing to this group.

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customers, consumers, merchandise, selection, location, traffic