I’m a regular at CaddyHome and I’ve often wondered, as I order my weekly shopping, why they organise their website exactly like their mother company Delhaize? Why can’t they be more imaginative, more responsive to the way I shop? What I want is a button marked “Everything for a kid’s party” and “the complete Italian Evening”. High street and mall stores are limited by their size, but choices online could be unlimited (or at least only limited by your own creativity).

The New York on-line grocery and delivery service FreshDirect certainly understands this concept.

Announcing the launch of their One-Click Recipes programme, they allow customers to choose recipes from 53 top-selling cookbooks. Choose a recipe and (here’s the smart bit) in one click you can buy all the ingredients. They even warn you about the things you may already have such as salt or oil, and these won’t automatically be added to your shopping basket. Very clever and easy !

Who hasn’t been..how shall we say, caught short while shopping ?
And yet asking for the bathroom in most stores can be a total nightmare.
In most shops they are hidden away like Aztec treasure. In some supermarkets they ask you for your passport in return for the key!  And then  when you are finally able to enter the toilet, it’s not always the most pleasant experience…

Dear retailers, toilets are important!

Bathroom care is an opportunity, not a burden. In most high streets (not shopping centres) the only place to go to the bathroom is in a tea-room or coffee-shop.
Now most shoppers are in a hurry, and don’t want to have sit down tohave a coffee simply in order to use the bathroom. Remember the greater percentage of shoppers are woman. It is (apparently) a scientific fact that they need to use the bathroom more often… and (importantly) they do tend to be more sensitive to hygiene issues than men.

Some years ago I proposed to a chain store (woman’s clothing and accessories) that they install in each store a super toilet, especially for women, with facilities for their babies and the highest standards of hygene and cleanliness. I was convinced that it would quickly become a “woman’s secret” that this was the  store that you could go to in confidence if you really needed to. I was  also convinced that least 50% of the woman using the bathroom would buy something on their way back out.

It’s an analysis that is as true now as it was then…So, how accessible and clean is your bathroom?

According to a report from Deloittes consulting in-store marketing is on the rise in a big way. “shopper marketing has grown from 3% of the marketing budgets of the 19 package-goods manufacturers surveyed in 2004 to 6% this year.

Brands today already have huge budgets to spend. In supermarkets, brands pay to get a ”beginning of aisle” locations or feature  in the store “magazine”. Manufacturers expect this spending to reach 8% of marketing budgets by 2010. That puts the compound annual growth rate for  shopper-marketing spending at 21%, faster even than spending on Internet advertising (rising 15% annually) and far faster than the 2% growth projected for spending on such traditional media as TV, print and radio. For retailers this is a clearly very important source of income.

AND YET…retailers that get too greedy stand in  danger of damaging their own hard won shopping “experience”. A toothpaste manufacturer that fills the aisles with promotional material runs the risk of simply annoying people. Tobacco companies are paying to re-design and build newspaper stores in exchange for providing the retailer with a new interior and exterior design… they get to have their logo all over the place. Candy manufacturers get to place their products right by the cash desks in stores. Sure all these product placements bring in revenue for the retailer, but they can play havoc with a carefully established shopping experience. Especially where health-threatening products are introduced into a family targeted environment.

On a recent visit to a shoe-shop I noticed, high on the wall, a sign reading “If a shoe is missing from the box please ask at the counter.” This I found some what confusing. On further enquiry I was informed that as some of the shoes on sale were rather expensive, it was decided only to put one shoe in the boxes on display, and have the others in the storeroom. (Rather than risk having them stolen.)

I pointed out that, surely, it would make more sense to place a note inside the shoe box, rather than gamble that the customer sees an obscure notice on a wall ?

In “Alice in Wonderland” the drink-me label was attached to the bottle, not posted on the wall after all… Put the information where it’s needed!

Today I was reading an interview with the managers of three major chewing gum brands…now apart from what you would expect,the usual percentages of sales and market shares and what-have-you, the title of the article was as follows: “Chewing gum belongs at every check out”.

I couldn’t believe it… do they really think they have the right to make us run a gauntlet of sugary torture every time we go to pay for our purchases!

It reminded me of my visit to Dublin in the ’90s, and the worldfamous supermarket Superquin.
At this time Feargal Quinn, the store’s founder decided to remove all the sweets, candy and chewing gum from his checkouts.

He understood the fundamental reality that candy at the checkout causes untold stress and fights between parents and their kids. Think about it… how many of your customers have children? Do you really want to annoy them everytime they come to give you money? No, I thought not… - It’s not Easy !

I’m having a few cooking problems…perhaps you can help?

OK I know “facing” is really important in packaging design.You have to sell etc etc but I am having serious trouble with most of the designs I come across while struggling away in my kitchen. The packages I bought that seemed so enticing on the shelves are not quite so marvelous once I get them home.

How long does it take to cook this stuff? What has it got inside it? Is it still good after three months in the freezer cabinet? Has it been produced by a factory or a farm?

I want to know these things, and with a lot of the designs I see… its very hard to work out what’s going on.
Are you a manager that deals with design companies ?
Are you in charge of packaging design?

Whats going on here ? Ever thought of making the pacaging easier to understand? On the shopping aisle and in the kitchen?

The challenge of designing a fast food door (an almost impossible task?)

Fact: you get dirty hands in a fast-food restaurant (it doesn’t matter how careful you are the mayo will get you in the end) Fact: the door has to look clean or no one will come in. Fact: maximum visibility is all; potential customers need to see inside.

Glass doors get covered in greasy fingerprints…not good.

The solution? Take a look at this McDonald’s entrance…note the central panel customers naturally push as they leave, customers entering know they have to pull because of the obvious aluminium handle design (It’s also got pull written on it). Result ? Cleanliness ensured and visibility preserved. Simple and smart: this what design should be!

News from Apple Insider, Apple stores are moving towards ridding themselves of the cash register completely and moving towards hand held devices. First introduced as a solution to the November 2005 holiday rush, Apple devotees can now look forward to encountering the method throughout the year.

As so often with Apple stores this is a move that fits in with Imaginif beliefs. The cash register is a miserable way to finish a retail experience…a total anti-climax after the joy of the purchase!

By junking these stone-age devices waiting times can be cut, and staff liberated from their prisons at the exits. It means that assistants are free to interact with and actually assist the customer, while doing everything the cash register does from their hand held computers. The customer is better served and staff happier! Really it’s win, win all round…

Retailers are always searching for ways to connect customers to their brands. They introduce loyalty cards, air-miles, promotions…they even go as far as trying to force you to become a “member” of their shop. I think retailers should be more inventive and offer added value instead. How ? By analysing customer needs, needs that may go beyond the narrow confines of the products on their shelves. Take a sportstore for an example. Most of them seem content to just compete on product range and price.

This is an opportunity. This weekend my son’s hockey club played their first game of the season (they won 4-1). In my role as “on-line evangelist” I found this incredibly useful application Teamsnap. As their website has it:

TeamSnap allows you to…

• Manage games and event schedules
• Communicate with teammates
• See who can attend which games
• Share photos and player information

(Importantly for ease of use and security, TeamSnap is entirely web-based, so there is no need to install potentially harmful software onto your hard-drive).

A sportschain store could sell this online application in their store by putting the service in a box (including the login and password) on their shelves. BUT for regular customers this online service would be free ! (maybe for everybody?) Team sport players need this service. (The other parents where really happy that I configured this service for my son’s team). It saves time, avoids misunderstandings… improves the relationships and team-spirit among players and parents.

It wouldn’t be hard (or expensive) for a chain store company to buy a license from the development company and adapt it to their branding. There could be a “this weekend’s promotions” button specially targeted at the sport in question.

Customers would definitly rate this service more highly then all the price reduction tricks that retailers normally come up with. Why? Because it makes their live more easy !