peer influence
Growing Peer Influence at the Retail Level?
While I don’t shop a whole lot, I have noted that my retail experiences lately have been unusual…not because of the stores or the brands I’m buying…but because of the behavior of my fellow shoppers.
On a visit to a home improvement center, I was stopped in the parking lot by a puzzled looking lady who had a cart full of cabinet and tile samples. “What do you think,?” she asked me. This question turned into a quarter hour conversation as we compared our remodeling experiences and design preferences. Apparently just talking things through eased her mind and she left more confident of her choices.
Then there was the group of ladies I saw huddled around the yogurt at the grocery store yesterday. Pretending to consider which egg brand was worthy of a trip home with me, I eavesdropped on their discussion. They covered probiotic vs. Greek vs. store brand yogurts…concluding with one woman’s endorsement of a yogurt available at Trader Joe’s. To my amusement, the advice of one shopper had two of the ladies decide to forego their yogurt purchase entirely.
Later that day at the mall, a fellow shopper conspiratorially advised me that, if I wasn’t in a hurry, the book I was considering was available from Amazon for a fraction of the cost.
Peer influence can make or break the sale, and most of this influence happens offline. Interactions with fellow retail shoppers seems to be happening much more frequently for me, lately. It has got me wondering…what has changed? Could it be that our fluency with online social networks is reshaping our offline shopping behavior in a significant way? Is the ease with which we solicit peer opinions at the retail level growing? If so, how should savvy retailers harness this at the store level?
