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Brand Switching at Retail Stores – and 1 Insight You Need to be The Brand Leader

Written by Gold Research Inc. on . Posted in Gold Journey Mapping.

Every CPG brand manager knows that brand switching happens – when shoppers intend to purchase one brand coming into the store and walk out with another brand. And most brand managers think they know, but aren’t really sure where, how and why the switching occurs.

Gold Research worked with a global CPG client to understand what caused brand switching, and when and where it happened. The research approach required both qualitative in-the-moment approaches with shoppers as well as quantitative post-purchase research and analysis. Here is what the research uncovered.

  • There was a high level of brand pre-determination of shoppers going into stores knowing exactly what they were looking for
  • There was a surprising amount of brand switching during the shopping process
  • Over 60% of shoppers encountered some sort of friction in the shopping process – store navigation, inventory or out of stock issues, assortment or variety problems or challenges finding the product they wanted in the aisle.
  • Shoppers who encountered friction were 2X – 4.5X more likely to switch brands than those who experienced a “frictionless experience”.
  • The Sales impact of every friction point at each retailer could be calculated and the solutions to address the friction points monetized to determine the ROI of an improved shopper experience.
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Overall, the opportunity was calculated to be over $300MM per year with an immediate set of improvement efforts and sales monitoring analytics.

Brand managers make investments to build awareness, trial, purchase intent – only to lose the sale because the shopper switched along the way. Now brand managers can make investments in the shopper experience in the same way, with predictable and impressive sales impact and ROI.

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.