Retailers Shoot Themselves In the Foot This Holiday Season
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Today is Black Friday. A day that retailers hope will bring customers who will spend boatloads of money at their stores. Truth be told, they are actually chasing many away and here is how.
1-Not everyone does QR codes. A lot of people use them but there is a huge demographic of people that do not use them. People over 50 and young people with non smart phones. There are more of those people than you may know. Sure, you may see a 70 year old shopper using a QR code but they are a rarity. Sales people are young and working for pennies. All they know is QR codes and APP.
2 Not everyone uses apps for stores. We are in a digital, application driven economy and people get pissed when they cannot save money. You want a widget, and they are on sale from $75.00 but if you buy it through our store app and enter code BlackFriday, you will get that widget for $20.00. You complain, to no avail. The sales people are dumber than a rock and they have no way of understanding that certain people do not use apps.
If you shop at 20 stores regularly, you can download 20 apps on your phone. You would run out of space for holiday videos and photos.
A salesperson will try to walk you through the download but again, these apps eat up space. on a phone and again, not everyone has a phone that can app. The following conversation takes place multiple times every day.
Customer: “Excuse me I want to buy this but I don’t do apps, I want the sale price”.
Clerk, “You have to use the App”
Customer “I do not use apps, I want to buy it for the sale price”
Clerk, :I can help you download the APP, it’s easy”
Customer, “I know how do do it, I do not do APPs, Apps, bap-, CRAP MAP BAP AP BAP I DON’T DO IT, , Just ring it up”
Clerk, “I can’t help you. It s ‘available on the App”.
Clerk is 22 years old, customer is 63 and pissed. Customer then walks out of the store and buys it elsewhere, anywhere that they don’t have to deal with that “stupid moron salesclerk.” Customer then takes to social media or worse yet, talks with their friends and family and the store lost business. A lot of it.
The smart money will send the customer to the service desk where they will send the customer an email with the sales code in it. They open it up and show it to the customer service worker and now the customer spent money and is now telling everyone about how helpful people are at the store.
Another brilliant idea is the paid membership for a store that used to be free. Pay us $100.00 and that entitles you to s discount on merch. That $75.00 widget is $60.00 with the membership. It’s cost prohibitive to many households and frankly, the majority are not going to spend enough to make it pay. Wal-Mart is starting to do this . Others may follow. Wal-Mart should stop this.
Most Black Friday shoppers are online. Gone are the days of riots in the store and stampedes. People now simply log on and shop. In 2008 Wal-Mart was packed at Franklin Mills. This year it was quiet, just like an ordinary day in the store.