It’s important to know your customers and understand their needs and wants. This industry is changing constantly and so do the needs of shoppers. However, there is one thing that doesn’t seem to change drastically in the last years: Shopper profiles.
Like anything in life, every action comes after a trigger, internal or external. Since we talked about shopper behavior in our previous article, now we are going to dig deeper to find the different categories of shoppers.
A shopper profile is a description of a category of shoppers. While every shopper has different triggers, motivators, and needs, there are a few large categories of customers that have multiple similarities when it comes to their shopping habits.
Shopper profiles identify different purchasing behaviors and the main motivator that drives a customer’s decision to buy certain items. Let’s see the different types of shoppers and discover why one of these profiles better describes the majority of your customers.
Let’s start with one of the most organized profiles. Shoppers that fit in this category usually come to the store with a full list of items. Simply put, they know exactly what they want and need and they are not the ones who will make an impulsive purchase. Mission-driven shoppers are also known as list shoppers and they are only coming to the store to gather what they need, not to enjoy a relaxing shopping experience.
They want to have a frictionless end-to-end shopping experience. These shoppers don’t want to spend a lot of money and they want to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible with all of the products they’ve placed on the list.
Every retailer’s favorite category is known as the loyal customer. These shoppers are the ones that visit your store multiple times per week or per month, depending on their needs. It is known that loyal shoppers are important to any business. Also, loyal customers tend to spend 33% more than new shoppers.
Since they already know your store and like your products, you should focus on keeping them happy. They need to feel appreciated and know that they can always find the products they like.
Impulsive buyers are the ones that don’t need to purchase a product, but they do it out of impulse. It can be an emotional purchase or the fact that the product has a small price and they believe that it is a great deal.
It’s hard to predict the needs of impulsive shoppers. However, retailers often choose to capitalize on the impulsiveness of their customers. Most of the time, impulsive shoppers choose to select small or cheap items. In some cases, these shoppers can also make spur-of-the-moment purchases of larger, more expensive items if they have an interesting display or a promotion.
The browser is a type of shopper who is “just looking around”. They might not be ready to make a purchase or they just don’t need anything at the moment, but they liked your window display and decided to walk in.
Most of the time, browser shoppers enter boutiques and hobby shops because they are just killing time. However, sometimes they can enter a grocery store to look around for promotions or to purchase small, inexpensive items.
Everybody loves a good discount. However, the shoppers from this category make a purpose out of finding the best deal. Bargain hunters are people who purchase discounted products, sale items, and products that can be purchased in bulk just to find a better deal.
As you might expect, bargain hunters want good deals and products on sale. If you discover that many of your shoppers are from this category, then you should focus on creating a specific pricing strategy and on offering multiple in-store promotions.
Retailers need to know what is the category of shoppers that enters their store most often. Find out if most of your shoppers are attracted to discounts and deals or if they are mission-driven and only shop using a full list of items. This way, it will be easier for you to create the perfect retail marketing strategy for your customers.