Brainstorming in class ( 30/10/14)

Which is important for younger men?

- Fashion trends
- Nature
- Colors
- Smile
- Happiness/Good mood
- Different
- Need for recognition
- Need for special things
- Cosy
- Comfortability
- Cleanliness



We can notice that young people make attention in social media and roll models.

Maybe, quotations just before you go out can give you a breathe and awake your happiness.

We have a GREAT idea to attract young people in Sokos.... You will discover it soon. 

How to attract younger men?

We discovered that SOKOS doesn't target the younger men, and I found an article which will confirm that SOKOS must attract this category of people.

1) Department Stores Target Young & Traditional Male Shopper

Below is the link :

 http://www.wwd.com/markets-news/textiles/department-stores-target-young-traditional-male-shopper-7264242

"This year, more than a third of men say they "love or enjoy" clothes"shopping"

 "Department stores have really changed their presentation,"

Furthermore, they try to involve the customer :

"We also try to engage our customer and provide him with an exciting shopping experience by hosting in-store activities such as cigar rolling demonstrations, local craft beer tastings, shoe shining and music."

"there is no doubt that male celebrities — especially athletes — have a big influence on what men think about purchasing."

2 : How to attract more customers in your store in 8 easy steps?

Below is the link:
http://www.retaildoc.com/blog/how-to-attract-more-customers-to-your-store-in-8-easy-steps

I think we have to rise few points :

The point 3 is relevant: Sokos must make its employees feel good. And I think all Sokos mall have the same strategy, if only Turku Sokos doesn't work well, it's maybe about the atmosphere in that place and not about the strategy. 

The point 6 is interesting: Become a student of facebook to explore what is going on. What's about the younger man group? What are the new trends? What novelty?
To attract a new target, we must to know it perfectly.

3: Men are shopping more than ever, while women are watching more TV.

Below is the link : 

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2011/in-u-s-men-are-shopping-more-than-ever-while-women-are-watching-more-tv.html

In this article, there are unmistakeable graphs. Nowadays, men facing a higher unemployment. Consequently, they have free time and they are increasingly taking a more active role in household duties. 

Although this explanation is for USA, it is the same in Finland because men are less employed than women. 

I found this information on this website :

http://tilastokeskus.fi/til/tyti/2014/02/tyti_2014_02_2014-03-25_tie_001_en.html

 "Men’s employment rate is 67.3 per cent and women’s 66.5 per cent. "

To conclude, SOKOS department store might target younger men. How to attract them? KNOW them and act according to their expectations. 

Thomas

Some connection point ideas between young and older linked with dept store

Young people general lifestyle and shopping needs:
Success, fashion, beauty, fast and immediate rewards, openness, willingness to take risks and experience new things is quite strong, liberal values, it's ok to take loans, live on debts and not to think far away to the future, understanding that world is changing, looking for personally suitable traditions, tribality and looking for brands with similar values, this is linked to collectivism and group thinking,

These are strongly linked to Y-generation values such as TECH orientation, global mindset, international trends are important, travelling is lifestyle, building a internet persona, social media usage is high and even essential 24/7, people are linked internationally, english and living together with new ways of mobile communication ie. diginativeness. Technology is part of life and it helps.

Older people ways of doing things:
Familiarity, trust, emotions, relationships, history, saving and investment attitude differs from young, thinking about the young and new generations, older are more conservative, they follow more than go in the first line of trends.. Technology is necessary "evil" for some and not interesting part of life..

Needs in common and links to dept store values:
Traditions, local, family, international, all are looking for sustainable values and increased trust, good value for money is important (maybe more important for older, but also their understanding of quality differs between generations and people) need for secure environment, popularity, success needs and increasing appreciation towards nature, cleanliness & freshness in general. Values are changing.

Challenge examples to dept store:
To bring new trendy stuff, services and products quick enough to faster changing and global markets. To be trendsetter and trendy enough needs more visionary proactiveness and quicker decissions in purchacing and procurement procedures.

Saki

Consumer Behavior & The Consumer Decision Making Process

I accidentally stumbled upon this video when I was looking for information about consumer behaviour. First I thought it was a bit unprofessional how the video was made so I thought the video probably isn’t too good but I’m glad I continued watching it because I think it is very good.

I always thought it’s hard to predict what the customer is going to do or what they’re thinking and this is the first I’ve seen or heard about people bringing up the fact that people aren’t always predictable or logical.  Even so doing good research is crucial because you need to know your customer/consumer as good as possible to know as much about them and their needs as possible.

In this video he divides the Consumer Decision Making Process in 5 steps;

1. Need recognition. – Functional needs and psychological need. You need to determine needs and wants. To make people want to buy more, you should make the consumer think a want is a need.
2. Information search. Be easily available, for example online. Is the research worth the effort?
3. Alternative evaluation.  The characteristics that make the difference between different alternatives. 
4. Purchase. The actual transaction.
5. Post purchase.  Develop and build customer loyalty to make sure the customers come back.

I    I think the video is very interesting and I that we have started to work with some of these steps already during this course. 

/Mary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65Vt9nmVYDM

Frank Eliason: “At Your Service: How to Attract New Customers, Increase Sales, and Grow Your Business”

My book, “At Your Service: How to Attract New Customers, Increase Sales, and Grow Your Business” is a book really interesting and with it you can focus on what you really need, customers, employees and the environment of your company. In addition, we are told that we must really take into account the technology and social media as they have become very easy to use and they allow to gain easier information through customer feedback about the products and services.

This book also explains the importance of creating a corporate culture and feels that this customer contact that gives a strategic advantage to the company compared to its competitors. In addition, it is also important to create a community of customers around the brand or company and that these two items together can increase and improve the customer experience in your business.

So with this book i learned lots of things such as: how we can create an environment where Customers want to share their story, how we can identify the value where your customers are talking, how we can guide passionate employees in the right direction to they can become excellent ambassadors for your brand and the different process to create guidelines to building scalable intimacy, where employees or a company create a personal connection to a customer. To attract new customer who subsequently become faithful customers we need to implement strategies that will allow us to move forward step by step to success.

Emeline

Payday Madness

I actually have quite a creative mind if I just give my head the time to be crazy and mad and everything in between. An idea that just popped in to my head is Payday Madness. I have no idea where that idea came from, and I know that we are not supposed to think about any solutions yet, but I have to write it down before I forget it ;-). NOW let's have a nice weekend.... 

❤ Sarina

Martin Lindstrom: Buyology. Ostamisen anatomia.

This book, Buyology by Martin Lindstrom, is a book that is easy to read and understand and is in fact quite interesting! I have stumbled upon this book a few times but never found myself reading it. Now I figured that it's the best time ever to read it, since our task is to come up with an innovative idea of how to attrackt new and buying customers to the department store. I am now going to talk about one thing that I find especially interesting in the book, since I believe in this way of selling very strongly myself. Lindstrom tells us that we sell to the customer's sences. Our sence of sight is our biggest sence and we perceive information around us every living second that we have our eyes open. A lot of times it is the visual, what we see, that affects us the most as customers. You have to remember though that people are different, some people are very visual while others are very auditive for example. Lindstrom points out that the visual stimuli affects us a lot more and is of bigger chance to have an impact if it works together with some other stimuli, especially with our sence of hearing and smell.  

So, of course I had to test this out in our department store. I took my boyfriend with me without actually explaining why we were there and I did not ask him to make any accknowledges in beforehand what so ever. (One of the reasons I had him do this is because he fits in to one of the categories that we assume could be a potential customer group: young and urban males). Afterwards I asked him some opinions. The results were that visually the department store is not that effective, it does not give any "wow-effects" to him as a young and urban male. Quite the opposite he finds the store a bit boring, very cluttered and unorganized. The only strong smell he could smell are the womens perfumes when you walk downstairs. When I asked about the music he said that he remembers hearing some music but nothing that would have caught on his mind while walking around (usually he's the type that starts humming or stamping his foot when he hears something he likes). The output of this is that the this i an area where the department store definitely could step up their game to make a better impact on the customers. 

Have a nice weekend,

❤ Sarina

About events and happenings

Just came to my mind when thinking about cost efficiency and value for money in general: I think that costs are such important things in consuming and all shopping and many think with numbers and value things in their relationships to other things and make many kind of comparisons. Where to cut the costs? In marketing and advertising at least it should be the target to save money: for example to manage events and happenings in the store, regularly and to focused customer groups. Hosts for happenings are customer service personnel and store management naturally, no need to hire outsiders or assistance even and why not to use loyalty program information to easily access and contact, targeting those who store sees a potential buyers? As with all events, they all if well organized and combined with great customer service and some benefits and drinks or snacks increase sales, increase attractiveness, spread the word of mouth without extra costs, is natural way to create bonding and deepen the relationships, events and hosting special happenings make all communication and also team work, team spirit in the shops much better and all work easier! To get to know persons and clients is important in customer relationship building and management as well. These events can even focus on certain relevant issue and meet deeper needs and be into some tribal themes also, like charity or nature protection, music and dance, wine and chocolate, fashion shows and sparkling wines, meet other singles or meet international people etc. So events and at least weekly happenings, with targeted clientele, from tens to few hundred customers or even few thousand customers should be piece of cake to use in sales increase. All and I really mean all, personnel in the store must be instructed and motivated to sell, do and exceed in customer service and smile, be positive, help and assist clients if and when needed. It doesn't cost a dime or at least much either, so cheap & practical :)
Saki

Summary of needs, still confusing, but from Chaos - begins something new and beautiful :)

If dept. strore want to attract new people, it require many particular things and changes :

- Clear layout needed
- Turku city center attractiveness is strongly connected to all shopping attractiveness in the downtown, whole area needs an upgrade!
 - Existing fact : not much men as a customer, need to get the attention from men and find out what all things interest men?

Conclusions:

People are home oriented in Finland, need tp make a store more livable, attractive and good to feel and be?

Ways to fixure out about consumer habits and behaviour and find out good and bad areas in the store:
- Calculate how long person stay on the shop?
- Calculate how much they spend in the shop? Are there big differencies inside the areas, like small but most purchases in the gorund floor, bigger purchases in the upper floors? Less men upstairs and even more women there? Students and men shop in the crocery area, they are very potential customers in all floors as they allready spend time and come to the building, aren't they?
- How many times a week they go? Many city persons come several times a week, so increase world of mouth marketing is practical to get more customers.. Which day is most popular and what are quiet days? Weekends 50 % turnover and weekdays same or how?


That's a difference between France and Russia, because if France people used to go to the mall even we don't have something to buy, it's just to have good time. In Finland it's not so much so, it's more targeted shopping, except younger hangarounds, that not always spend money, but they are future clients anyway..


Younger men need to be attract by the shop. Finnish men go once or twice in their life to party dress or celebration suits with their mothers or girlfriend, after that they go with their wifes, WHY? They could go more! It can be cultural thing, that in Finland some people, like most of the men, are not accustomed to spend time in shops.. Are men practical and result oriented? Yes, they are. Are they emotional? Yes, but not like women. So, to increase emotional feelings, combine that to practicality and results can be studied deeper. It should be the shops need to raise positive emotions. But let's think about the Customer needs and from that side first to find out what are the changes that should be done it increase business and sell more and what to sell more? Hm..


Solution ideas, that could do something:
- Magiciens, tricksters and show persons inside shops?
- Lotteries, bonuses and prizes for the shoppers? Like every hundred gets a present suited for that person?
- Put the nature on the top, play with the ecofriendliness and how to use it in the marketing? Use the things that allready exist should not cost too much.. We were thinking eco things in the camp, is it strong trend or will it become megatrend? How to help store to go in the front and be game changer and innovation train?


Now we are seeking how we can attract more customer. For that, we found a new target: Young Men, maybe even all men, but keep the women coming and increase their spendings also, blue ocean strategies. many small blue lakes, connected to allready red sea, needs that exist and are important, fullfill them all :)

Service Safari

I went to the store on a Wednesday and there were not a lot of people but there were definitely people going in and out, and walking around in the store. I noticed that the majority of these people were women about 40+.

Going in to the store I noticed that the entrance didn’t look so nice from the outside, not very attractive for me, but the inside of the store looks nicer. The café to the right when you come in looks quite nice and luxurious. The rest of the store I think looks nice at the first look but when you actually try to find something it’s quite hard because there isn’t a logic to where everything is, it feels more like you just have to kind of guess.

Most of the staff that I saw were quite young and they weren’t really paying attention to the customers/potential customers, but spent a lot of time talking to each other and one guy, who apparently worked in the store, even had coffee in the café chatting with the girls working there which I found a bit odd since he was still wearing the t-shirt of the store.

All and all I think the store is a bit messy and it can be hard to find what you’re looking for, and I think that the staff could be much more attentive to the customers and try to look more professional.

-Mary

Russian Experience

We have been in Russia (St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Moscow) from the 13rd to the 20th of october. We took advantage of this travel to explore the customer's behavior in this country. We discovered relevant informations and we will share it with you. 

In the street there are sandwich men to attract customers and they distribute promotions and special offers that can make the customers come in the store (as we can see in the pictures). However, when we walk in the street, we bump into to much sandwich men and is it may annoy potential customers because every 100 meters they propose to take a paper.

Inside the shops or mall they are relaxing musics, a lot of colors and sometimes good smell. According to us, Russian malls are very different because people do not go there only to spend money but to spend time and have a good moment. For instance, in one afternoon you can see around ten weddings inside the mall. They take pictures with the smile, as if the mall was a very popular place, like a beautiful park. This happened in the Red Square mall which is located in Moscow.
Furthermore, most of Russian's supermarket are opened every day and every night. This lead people to come there and after that this become an habit. This selling strategy bring new customers and thank to that they can reach new kind of target. In addition, the brand become stronger in the client's subconsciously.

During the camp, we thought about the nature impact in the mall and in Russia, nature is in the hearth of development mall strategy. When you go inside, the first thing you can see are trees and plants. It's in harmonization with the sustainable development. Plus, we saw wood's aisles and we heard people saying that it was really attractive because high-end. However, this strategies depends also on the mall's location and the target to because for example this red square mall is for tourists. Moreover, we have the impression to be in the forest thanks to bridges, rivers etc. For instance, during autumn trees have orange leafs. It's truly in coherence with seasons and it requires a constantly adaptation. 

We were surprised when we saw the mall for different reasons:

-       The architecture of this mall: In effect, this mall was constituted by the top column modules and the décor of column (Hausmann styles). We can saw different entrances and exits very impressive (very tall and big entrance very majestic)

-       The main plan : The mall present with three floors and all the floors was connected by the escalators. The majority shop were famous brands and proposed a high end products likes “Max &Co”, “Gucci” or “Rolex”. This mall answered the different customer’s need. In effect, There was also many restaurants in order to keep as long as possible the people and there to buy (marketing strategy). The complex has a spacious entrance. There is also, a monumental glass roof.

What’s more, the mall was illuminated for the night inside and outside; it’s for this many reasons that always, the mall was full because it attracts many tourists.

We have a similar mall in France with many common points: The passage Pomeraye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_Pommeraye

We found something interesting, all the restaurants are in the last upstair deck. So, if you want to eat, you need to pass by all the shops and you can be attract by one and come back to do some shopping later.

In the street they are a lot of luminous signs, and even too commercial area so that we are a little lost.

One thing we can blame them is that they also do not speak English and make no effort to understand anything and yet we were in St Petersburg or Moscow so we imagine in non-tourist areas.

Picture in front of St. Petersburg mall. 

Attractive aisles

Center of the mall

Red square mall entrance

Emeline, Thomas and Aymeric. 

Sunday Service Safari

I did the service safari today. I know it's Sunday, but on the other hand it was a good day to go and have a look at the department store and the environment because the store should be able to function on every opening hour. Below are some of the conclusions that I made (I would love to show some pictures, but because we don't want to give a bad lable to the department store I am not going to put any pictures):

+ The ground floor with the cosmetics is very light and beautiful and has a real power effect. The perfume area for women is really beautiful and a great attention attractor. On the other hand there are both white and black shelves and in my opinion the white shelves showcase the products much better and looks fresh. On the third floor there was also a few really beautiful interior items that stood out from the crowd. These "stand out" items could be used on the ground floor, since the ground floor is the first area the customer sees when he/she comes inside.

+ The areas that attracted most people was the cosmetics and women's accessories. There was mostly younger women in the cosmetics area and "older" women in the accessories and clothing area.

+ they have music inside which makes the experience more pleasant

- The outside of the building is quite dull. The windows are boring and dark and do not attract any attention. They are not used to their full potential. There is really nothing on the outside which screams "come inside". 

- The entrance from Kauppiaskatu is not very attractive. It is messy and boring and the first thing straight forward that you see is a very cluttered Veikkaus area. Also the entrance itself is quite cluttered.

- All in all the shelves are really packet up with stuff, so it looks quite cluttered. They could make it neater and bring out the different products better by cutting down the amount of products on a shelf. 

- The layout is confusing. An example: kids toys and books on the second floor with the men's clothes, but still the childrens clothes are on the third floor. I find the layout really really confusing. Why not separate the areas for example like this: 1st floor - womens area, 2nd floor - mens area, 3rd floor childrens stuff and interior design. OR 1st floor - cosmetics and home interior, 2nd floor - womens clothing and accessories, 3rd floor - men's and children's stuff. 

- There was no staff at all helping out the customers. They all stood behind the desks. For example there was a man on the 2nd floor where the men's suits are and he looked quite lost without anyone around able to help him. At one point there was also a woman hanging on the desk waiting for somebody to come and take her payment.

- The café is quite hard to see

- They have health & fitness products on the 1st floor, why not bring down the fitness clothes from the 2nd floor down?

Here are some main points that I caught today. I may have to go on another more busy day, but let's see. Now I am going to enjoy the rest of the weekend and so should you ;). Cheers / Sarina