Are the Supermorkets Getting Your Customers?

By Eosi-Bild Pottern Co.

WaIk into any well-planned supermarket. Invest half an hour watching people spend money and you'll soon see where and why some strong competition is gaining momentum. Since people shopping in a supermarket are also your customers, any chang'e in their buying habits should prove of vital interest to you.

Right now many supermarkets are doing exceptional dollar volume on hardware, tools, housewares and similar non-related merchandise. The methods used to make these high-margin-of-profit sales is yours to follow.

FIRST, WATCH THE FLOW OF'TRAF'I'IC. See how it gravitates to the shelves with staple merchandise. Watch the hands pick up the "most-wanted goods" while the eyes immediately take in strategically placed, related merchandise. Note how customers pick up a second, third, even fourth purchase at the same spot. These "impulse purchases" earn the highest margin of profit. Smart supermarket men know how to "manufacture impulse buying." They do it with everything from soaps to sandpaper-from potatoes to paints.

HERE,S WHAT HAPPENS . and why it's so IIVIPORTANT TO YOUR BUSINESS. When people g'o shopping, they do so with one reason-to obtain something they need. The same motive stimulates all purchases, regardless of where a customer shops. All people are customers following the same habit pattern every day.

Once the mind becomes focused on a need, the immediate solution to that particular problem is all important. The customer goes to the store that fills the need.

Important to every hardware, Iumber, paint and power tool retailer is the fact that when a customer sees and buys the item that stimulated the trip, a sense of relief and well being actuates her next move. While the mind is still in focus on the need just satisfied, the eyes spot related merchandise stacked by imaginative supermarket operators.

Since each of these products tend to further enhance the solution to the initial problem, an impulse purchase of a second, third and fourth item is consummated. Most of these unscheduled purchases consist of high profit margin merchandise. A customer buys hamburger steak, then buys a bag of charcoal or a new outdoor grille.

These are facts of life that supermarket competition has learned. It's a method of merchandising that now sells hardware, paints, tools, housewares, drugs and many other lines formerly handled by retailers other than grocery stores.

SUPERMARKETS HAVE A REAL IN. TEREST IN YOUR BUSINESS. Your merchandise provides a high marg:in of profit as compared to their regular lines. THEY HAVE YOUR CUSTOMERS. They have learned methods of merchandising. Why not, say they, sell the customer everything they're willing to buy ?

ALL SUPERMARKET CUSTOMERS CAN ALSO BE YOUR CUSTOMERS. They live in homes, have problems of maintenance, repair, the need for additional equipment, living.S)a,ce, etc. Each one will spend his money with the merchant who .,captures his impulses."

We reqently eompleted an interesting test among tardware, lumber and syndicate stores. We placed 3 each of 12 different patterns on and around each power tool. Each pattern was selected because it was closely related to the tool. Each pattern was selected because it translated the end use of that particular tool into a project we knew from our pattern sales had popular appeal.

Next to the electric handsaw, we placed patterns for a garden tool house, a carport that can be enclosed as a porch, picnic table, etc. Next to the bandsaw we placed a lawn chair, chaise. Each tool wai surrounded with patterns that translated its end use into a project we knew people wanted that week or month.

The results were astonishing. Dealers who previously complained they couldn't sell patterns ordered more patterns in one month than they previously had sold in a 6-month period. What proved most surprising was the fact that women picked up and bought the patterns. Sales of the tools picked up and, in 28Va of the stores, surpassed 1955, for the f,rst time this year.

This was impulse buying with reverse English. By knowing what people needed in the way of furniture, garages, boats, gun cabinets, etc., we were able to stop traffic. The purchase of a pattern to solve the need helped manufacture a customer for the tool the need required.

At Easi-Bild, we produce patterns that stimulate impulse purchases. AII we ask-