Over the weekend, I went into a local store to pick up a somewhat obscure hardware product. While I was there, I figured I’d check for another item on my shopping list: ice cube trays. I started by asking the people in the appliances department, where they happen to sell refrigerators and freezers. They confidently replied that ice cube trays were sold on the top floor, in the hardware department.

I headed up the escalator to hardware, and asked the staff where to find ice cube trays. They said they didn’t carry them in hardware, but I should check in the appliances department. So I explained that the appliances people were the ones who sent me there in the first place, but the hardware folks were insistent: they didn’t offer the product in the hardware department.

How does this sort of thing happen? Why was each set of employees under the impression that another department carried the product, only to lead me on a wild goose chase that led to frustration? Even if the store carried ice cube trays in the past, somebody was obviously working from old or just plain inaccurate data.

This scenario is frustrating for customers and inefficient for the retailer. To correct it, the store should invest in more staff education, focusing on which products they’ve stopped carrying, which ones they’ve added recently, and where popular items can be found. They could even just have the manager of each department give tours to staff from other departments on a monthly or quarterly basis, to help keep the info fresh. If I had to guess, it’s been a while since most retailers tried anything like this. That’s too bad, since they’re missing out on a low-cost way to make their sales staff more knowledgeable and efficient.

In some retail spaces, the design of the building means that certain physical obstacles are unavoidable. For instance, the building may have bulky poles that extend for the entire height of the structure, creating awkward breaks in the retail and office spaces within. So if you’re faced with these types of physical obstacles, what should you do?

For starters, you can wrap them in brand or product-oriented messaging. But once you’ve maximized their media value, you’re still left with an unfortunate truth: the products you put on display near poles and other obstacles will be harder for customers to see and reach. Plus, if more than two or three customers try to get into those areas at once, things will get cramped very quickly.

With this in mind, the only viable solution is to make sure that customers don’t congregate near physical obstacles. To accomplish this, use the shelves nearby for easy, inexpensive products that people buy without too much thought. At the same time, don’t put expensive, complex items in these areas. When shoppers can grab and go, they won’t pile up in your tightest areas, and traffic flow will be more efficient.

In fact, that brings me to my point: high-decision products tend to require more comparison and contemplation by shoppers. For this reason, you should place them in areas that have lots of breathing room, so people feel comfortable picking up a few choices, comparing the ingredients and value for the money, and taking home their choice. These are precisely the people you don’t want to rush, since rushed shoppers are more likely to leave without buying those items. By keeping high-decision products away from physical obstacles, you’ll help customers feel calm and collected, which means more sales and fewer abandoned purchases.

In each episode of a particular podcast that I listen to, the guy who runs the podcast encourages the audience to visit his website. Aside from stating what people can find on the site, he does something very smart: he tells people to look at the screen of their MP3 player for the exact spelling of the URL. Since the podcast name appears in the title of each episode, and the web address is just the name plus the usual .com, this simple hint makes it very easy for people to find the website when they need it.

Why is this approach so effective? In short, it combines the call-to-action with a reference point that the customer has right in front of them. The marketer isn’t relying on people to remember the necessary info for later. Rather, the call-to-action includes instructions about where to find the exact info needed to complete the process.

Need another example? Ads for local businesses often include a map right in the ad itself. Sure, people could look up the map and directions on their own. But putting the necessary reference info directly adjacent to the call-to-action means that prospects will have fewer hurdles to leap over. There are many more examples just like this, but the takeaway is always the same. Make it easier for people to do what you’re asking, and there’s a much higher chance that they’ll follow through.

On the way back from the grocery store, I often take a route that passes in front of a large church. During my most recent trip, I noticed they have a box filled with pamphlets that promote the church. I don’t recall the exact label they have on there, but it was something like “Complimentary”.

This made me wonder: what’s the best way to convey that something is free for the taking? Several phrases come to mind:

– Free

– Complimentary

– Take one

Words like “free” and “complimentary” suggest you can have the item at no charge, but something is missing. Yep, there’s no call-to-action. That’s where “take one” or a similar phrase is valuable. In fact, the most effective approach is to combine a descriptive phrase with an action-oriented one. For instance, “Free – Take One” tells people that there’s no charge for the item, and encourages them to take the relevant action. Compared to using either type of phrase by itself, I bet the combined approach is vastly more effective in distributing free pamphlets, samples and other promotional items.

I got a spam email the other day from some random company, in which they proceeded to give me a full overview of all the products they sell — none of which I have any use for, of course. One aspect of the email caught my attention, though: they actually described their products as “commodity” items.

From the vendor’s point of view, the last thing you want is for customers to treat your offering like a commodity. After all, that would mean potential buyers perceive the product as so generic that pretty much anybody’s version will do. When something is a commodity, customers usually shop on price alone, and things like design or durability are much lower on the list.

If the product you’re selling is at risk of becoming a commodity due to competition or other market forces, you’ll typically want to do anything you can to help customers see why your product is unique or different or just plain better than the rest. With this in mind, describing your product as a commodity is counterproductive at best, and disastrous at worst. As a vendor, you should banish the word from your marketing and advertising vocabulary, since encouraging customers to think about your products that way will do nothing but hurt you.

While I was at the dentist last week, I heard an interesting term that I had never come across before. My dentist was describing a colleague of hers, and said the colleague had a great “chairside manner”. After a few moments, I realized this was the dental equivalent of “bedside manner”, just updated to reflect the context of a dental office.

Now, I don’t think anybody would be confused if someone said their dentist has a great bedside manner. The term is widely used, and we don’t have any problem figuring out what it means. But apparently the dental profession has adopted the “chairside” variant, owing to patients sitting in a chair at dental offices — rather than in a bed in a hospital, or a bed-like table at a doctor’s office.

Even though “bedside manner” and “chairside manner” both describe how a medical professional interacts with patients, the difference in context led to the evolution of two different terms for essentially the same thing. I wonder if even more variants of this phrase will evolve in the future. Will people start saying “screenside manner” if telemedicine gains in popularity? Only time will tell, but I suspect the original term will remain quite popular in the long run.

If you’re an online retailer, you probably employ a series of data points to decide how many units of a given product to order. In other words, you use fairly straightforward things like the current inventory levels for the product, historical sales volume and seasonal trends to dictate your expected inventory needs.

However, I wonder if there are other, not-so-obvious signals that can lead to better inventory forecasting. For instance, you could look at:

– How many customers have the product in their cart, but haven’t bought it yet
– How many people added the product to their wish list
– How many users sent the product info to someone else via a sharing feature

In each case, higher numbers would suggest that more sales are on the horizon, so you might consider adding more inventory in anticipation of that. Granted, I’m no expert on inventory matters. But I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of data in the hands of online retailers that could make the task of managing their inventory quite a bit easier — while reducing the number of “out of stock” messages that customers see.

There’s a grocery store really close to my apartment, but I don’t shop there very often. The prices are too high and the service is too mediocre for it to be a regular shopping choice. So, I only visit the store every 2-3 months, usually to pick up things that other stores don’t carry.

The last time I went into this nearby store, the cashier recognized me and mentioned that it’s been a while since they saw me. This brief exchange made me wonder: if a store has front-line staff that already recognize who shops there regularly and who only comes in for infrequent trips, they should be using that info in a productive way.

Here’s how the approach would work: start by telling your front-line staff (cashiers, customer service reps, etc.) to be on the lookout for shoppers who only visit the store occasionally, or used to shop there often and no longer do so. Generally, if your employees find themselves naturally saying “it’s been a while” or a similar phrase, that’s probably a good trigger for the next step.

Next, follow up the pleasantries with an offer that encourages the customer to return more frequently. This might be a discount on their next visit within 10 days, or a reward for reaching a certain level of aggregate spending over the next month or so. With a little bit of planning and preparation, this approach should convert quite a few occasional visitors into frequent shoppers.

Attaching TV screens to treadmills isn’t a new concept. In fact, I recall seeing the little screens in fitness centers at least five years ago. Whether they were working or not is a different story entirely. But there’s no question that the feature has been possible for quite some time.

Why doesn’t every new treadmill have a screen built-in? Isn’t this infinitely better than making people look up at regular TVs and argue over the channel and volume? To me, this is a question of the benefit derived by users. For some people, the TVs are a wonderful convenience. But to other people — those who don’t use the screens — the TVs can be a huge annoyance.

Wait, how can a TV that’s turned off be annoying? Simple: the treadmill-mounted screens usually have a reflective surface, which acts like a mirror. Seeing your reflection when you’re running can get really annoying, really quickly. So for people who don’t have any interest in turning on the screens, the benefit turns into a major detriment.

With this in mind, the next time you’re thinking about a can’t miss feature, take a moment to consider if the benefits are truly universal. Otherwise, you may end up doing more harm than good.

Let’s say you’re selling some type of food in a bulk package, but consumers are used to buying it in smaller sizes. Your unit price is much lower than they’re paying today. But it’s hard for them to get past the idea that they need to pay 5-10 times as much for your big package, versus the small ones they normally purchase, even if the per-unit cost is much lower.

How do you overcome this resistance? Easy: provide a graphic right on the package that shows how many of the small containers that your big container is equal to. For instance, if you’re selling a 24 oz. container and people usually buy 2 oz. ones, the image should depict 12 of the small containers. Then, add some text to point out the savings: “Equal to 12 regular-sized containers — buy big and save 40%.” Sure, some customers may do the math on their own. But for everyone else, pointing out the value in clear and simple terms should make them a lot more likely to buy.