During an interview here in Louisville, Ky., a few weeks ago, a local retailer said to me, “Whoever said ‘The customer is always right’ created a monster.”
It’s not that Pam Thelle hadn’t built her business on good customer service. As owner of Kiddie Kastle, which has been selling infant and baby furniture for 67 years, she had remembered customers’ birthdays; made special arrangements with her suppliers when a baby’s arrival was early; often thrown in a special accessory, like Wildcat-logo baby T’s or feeding towels for her market’s University of Kentucky sports fans.
That’s how she remained competitive with chains like Pottery Barn Kids, Babies “R” Us and Target.
But then came a handheld device that gave shoppers access to merchandise information around the world. Now, with the nimble maneuvering of their thumbs, millennial shoppers can find product reviews, special offers and lowest prices.
The result is a generation of self-entitled shoppers who are demanding, impatient and often simply rude.
In the baby furniture business, Thelle deals with a lot of 20-somethings. She can’t get over how they walk around her store, smartphones in hand, matching the best products she carries with the best prices available on the Internet.
She’ll spend an hour with a young couple, only to be told, “Okay, thanks, we have what we need. We’re going to go online and make our best deal.”
Some are so brazen they hold their phones up to photograph her merchandise, scan UPC barcodes, and surf for deals even as they’re speaking to her.
And then there are the ones who say: You’re more expensive than these online guys, I’ll bet (wink, wink) you can match their prices.
Some retailers have tried to join the revolution, implementing programs that can locate shoppers’ devices in their stores and send promotional texts like “I see you’re over there in our bed linens department. We’re offering free shipping today.”
But even without sophisticated mobile technology, small retailers can offer low-tech perks and discounts for shoppers who are in the store, like price-matching policies, free-shipping offers and other promotional specials. It could be as low-tech as a printed shelf sign and some traditional advertising.
Such strategies increase market share and also foot traffic. Expectant parents are encouraged to go to Kiddie Kastle to see what’s being offered currently. The “buy in-store only” offers help keep shoppers from showrooming here while buying somewhere else.
Thelle says another marketing advantage has kept her business thriving: the parents who bought from Kiddie Kastle for their own children 25 years ago and now demand only the finest for their grandchildren.
But of course that’s a dwindling market segment – consumers who shopped for their newborns when thumbs were mostly for sucking.
As a journalist, writer, editor and commentator, Steve Kaufman has been watching the store design industry for 20 years. He has seen the business cycle through retailtainment, minimalism, category killers, big boxes, pop-ups, custom stores, global roll-outs, international sourcing, interactive kiosks, the emergence of China, the various definitions of “branding” and Amazon.com. He has reported on the rise of brand concept shops, the demise of brand concept shops and the resurgence of brand concept shops. He has been an eyewitness to the reality that nothing stays the same, except the retailer-shopper relationship.