Our wish every New Year’s is that retailers take the time to focus on the emotional journey that shoppers take and deliver an experience that makes the shopping trip productive, eventful and referral-worthy. 

Unfortunately, many retailers end Q4 struggling with seasonal promotions, lack of trained staff and severe price competition which often creates the “fog of war”. Focusing on customers emotional needs is not a high priority – but can be for the future if understood.

One of the largest global technology firms asked us to research the emotional journey that shoppers take through a variety of retail shopping experiences, formats and categories.  To do so, we used 4 different research approaches to understand their actual shopping behavior – not just what they might report in a post-purchase online survey: 

1. Biometric research and analysis – when did customers become most excited – in a positive or negative manner throughout their shopping journey?
2. Eye-tracking research and analysis – what did customers look at and react to during the journey – and how was that linked to their emotional
3. Human and video observation – watching shoppers through the experience and reviewing video of shoppers in a variety of shopping situations, formats and categories to understand the context and actions they took.
4. In-depth interviews – talking with shoppers about their shopping intentions before they shopped – and their emotions, frustrations, actions and decisions just after their shopping experience concluded.  

What we uncovered in hundreds of discussions with shoppers  were 6 key emotional stages of the shopping journey – and the ways retailers are trying to create an ideal shopping experience.

• Inspiration – Shoppers start their retail experience with high hopes, enthusiasm and want to be inspired. Clothing shoppers want to “look great” with what they find – and this represents one emotional high points of the journey.  Advertising, store windows and merchandising displays contribute to high expectations and enthusiasm. 
• Navigation – Unfortunately, as shoppers enter the retail store, many of them are disoriented and struggle to navigate the categories, the crowds and the aisles to get to what they want to shop for. Many are distracted by sale signs and creative, but unproductive end-of-aisle displays and other merchandising tricks.  Their emotional state drops sharply.  Companies like The Home Depot understand this and have used “item locator” functionality to their in-store app to help shoppers find their items productively.
• Temptation – when shoppers find the items and categories they are shopping for, they are tempted by unexpected merchandise, sale promotions and store associate recommendations. This can be a positive or negative impact and either improves their emotional experience – or drops the experience even further.
• Information Gathering – As shoppers gather items for consideration , they try and capture various items of information they will need before they make a decision. Retailer and ecommerce apps are attempting to address this spike in information needs – but with little success based on our research.  The 9 factors they identified were:
  • Pricing & price comparisons
  • Item details
  • Item comparisons (how does this compare to similar items?)
  • User reviews (what do other users think?)
  • Expert reviews (what do experts say?)
  • Product usage / application guidance (is this right for me/my situation?)
  • Coordinating and complementary products (what else goes with this?)
  • Feedback from family and friends (Is this right? Right for me?)
  • Product availability (in the case of stockouts – where else is it available)
• Evaluation & Decision-making – Making a decision can be a burden for some shoppers. Budgets, past decisions, lack of complete information and the time pressures of retail shopping experiences contribute to a make-or-break emotional decision.  With hassle-free returns offered by most retailers following Nordstrom’s original policy and amazon’s automation, shopper send up with faster and faster decisions. 
• Validation & Affirmation – Even when the shopping experience is complete, the emotional journey isn’t. Getting home and trying on new clothes, getting feedback from friends and family or checking online reviews that weren’t available in the store impact the final decision to keep or return items.  Shoppers are looking for validation about their decision – and affirmation from their friends – and social media plays a big role. 

Designing a shopper experience that delivers a positive and sustained emotional experience from end-to-end is a challenge – but can be done with guidance from shopper insights and CX design specialists.  The ultimate impact on shoppers can be remarkable – emotionally and financially. 

Leading companies are identifying these types of impacts from their customer journey research – and turning them into real business results:

• Revenue growth of 30% – 50%
• Retention improvements of 30 points
• NPS increases of 30-50 points
• Customer acquisition and customer servicing cost reductions of 40% or more

Call 1-800-549-7170 or send an email to nitin@goldresearchinc.com  for a free consultation on this topic.

Gold Research is an award-winning Customer Journey Management firm with extensive experiences in B2C and B2B journey mapping, path-to-purchase research with a special focus in deploying “real-time” and behavioral/neuroscience research formats to gather in-the-moment customer insights.