Shopper marketing – how to influence the decisions of a brick-and-mortar store customer?

Shopper marketing can be described as activities carried out towards the customer before his / her purchase decision. It is complementary to sensory marketing, which affects the clients’ subconscious and their senses. The goal of shopper marketing is to transform the consumer into a shopper while building brand value.

While sensory marketing primarily affects the spontaneous decisions of the consumer undertaken in the shop, shopper marketing conducts activities towards the customer who follows a specific shopping path before finally making a purchase decision.

A stage of the shopping path may be, for example, preparing shopping list or the way to the store. Therefore, the potential customer becomes a shopper even before he enters the store.

Besides planning the purchase, the important factor is also experience of purchasing a good or a service. If the shopper is satisfied with the purchase, the next shopping list will take into account the brand that meets his expectations.

Shopper marketing – communication tools and channels

Shopper marketing uses all available communication channels that may increase customer interest in a specific store or product. The tools used by shopper marketing may therefore be media advertising, discounts and word of mouth marketing – opinions on forums and social media channels, opinions of friends, as well as loyalty programs.

Shopper marketing and research on customer behavior 

Shopper’s behavior can be studied with tools such as observation, interview, and thanks to data collected by computer systems of cash registers.

Thanks to observation, we can check which products the customer is most interested in, what products he touched in the shop, which he gave up, and which he finally bought. The interview helps to identify the shopper’s motives when shopping. On the other hand, cash register systems provide accurate information about the purchased goods and services.

Shopper marketing is a powerful tool that allows you to learn a lot about the customer’s needs – identifying them accurately is an opportunity to sell the product and present the brand in a positive light. This makes it very likely that a given product or service will be purchased again.