Customer Insights on Shopping Trends

Priscilla McKinney: Hello and welcome to Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing Company podcast. I'm Priscilla McKinney, mama bird and CEO over here with you as always. And I'm always trying to find interesting guests that can answer questions you send in to me. And we don't often have people talking about shopper insights and shopper trends. So this is going to be a special treat to hear from an expert about what's going on in the mind of the consumer.

Priscilla McKinney: So please help me welcome to the show, Vesna Fiora. She is somebody I met through someone else because I was asking specifically about shopper trends and what it means to look as a consultant at high level changes that are going on in this industry. So Vesna, welcome to the show.

Vesna Fuiorea: Thank you for having me here in the show. I'm very excited to be part of your show. You are running a very cool podcast and I'm very proud to be part of it. Thank you.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, I love it. You know, I do love finding people through other mutual friends and I love it when someone calls me says, I found somebody I think you should talk to. This is going to be an interesting conversation. And you and I did get a chance to talk a little bit before the show a couple of weeks back. And I've been thinking and ruminating a little bit about some of the thoughts you have.

Priscilla McKinney: I do love that you're a consultant and so you're a little bit removed from technology or methodologies. And so we're really gonna hear from you about like the larger aspects of shopper insights and really where it is a little bit different than traditional market research. So let's start there so people understand the context of our conversation today. Tell me a little bit about how shopper insights is different from traditional market research and why it is why people sometimes don't explore it very often. So tell me about that.

Vesna Fuiorea: The shopper insight is part of generating insights about consumer behavior obviously, but as it is in the title, it focuses mainly on the shopping behavior. And we like it or not, we are acting and thinking differently while we are going shopping. And I'm focusing more now my conversation around the fast moving consumer goods. So when we are going in a supermarket, obviously the shopper behavior could be different when we are going to buy a car or car insurance or a house.

Vesna Fuiorea: But when we go to the supermarket, we act differently versus what we are doing and thinking when we are consuming those products that we buy from the supermarket. So this is the main difference between understanding consumer behavior, how people think and react while consuming something, eating something or using a washing powder or whatever, brushing their teeth versus what are the triggers or barriers while they are shopping for that product.

Priscilla McKinney: So let's talk a little bit about a cultural difference. I'm a cultural anthropologist. You actually work in Europe. And it begs the question that when a shopper walks into a supermarket around the world, what's universal there? What can we say as humans?

Priscilla McKinney: What's driving our behavior of how we shop versus how we're swimming in our own culture? What do you know about that?

Vesna Fuiorea: The key important thing about shopper behavior, that's definitely universal when it comes to fast moving consumer goods, is that people are going in a supermarket while being on a mission. Like Tom Cruise, you know, when they are going on a mission, impossible sometimes. But if they chose to take on that mission, this is what is influencing and actually defining their shopping trip in the supermarket. Of course, there will be those very, very different people that would go just to see what's new.

Vesna Fuiorea: But usually these are marketeers that are going there on a very specific and different mission versus the regular consumer. This happens, this shopping mission driven trip happens irrespective of the culture. I had the opportunity to run shopping behavior research across three continents and being exposed to other pieces of research from the other two missing or you know big continents that I was not necessarily running myself or being part of these things and it's always the same. People go to a supermarket to buy food for the next dinner or for the next two weeks if it's a big mission.

Vesna Fuiorea: They run there because they have to buy a small gift for somebody or they need to buy the snacks for their kids lunch box for the next week or so. So it's always something that goes you know against one of these missions. It's very different versus when we go in a in a shopping mall and we browse through fashion stores and we have nothing in mind and all of a sudden oops we bought a bag a new bag. This happens to me very often. I give it as an example for was buying.

Vesna Fuiorea: Yeah, coming back to that is the shopping mission, which is universal irrespective of the country.

Priscilla McKinney: Right. Now, we do see trends and I know that, you know, having grown up in Europe, it's a much more frequent buying experience, more small neighborhood markets. And of course those cultural kind of influences play out around the world. What's interesting is here in the US we're seeing a trend back toward that neighborhood bodega or a neighborhood market. The large retailers, you know, putting smaller stores into neighborhoods.

Priscilla McKinney: And so I'm sure over the years that you've been looking at this, you've seen the trend in and out. Let's go to these huge Costco's. Let's go to these tiny, even Walmart has neighborhood stores. And so we see that flux back and forth, but regardless, let's talk about that shopper journey, no matter what, if it's large or small. So break that down a little bit and just discuss the steps for us to understand what is going on and specific to that at each place, where can retailers actually influence that journey?

Vesna Fuiorea: Sure. Yes, so be thinking about the fact that the shopping mission is the most critical thing that we have to start from there are other two things that are very very important one is how our mind our human mind is built first of all is know, we have these two, thinking systems like daniel kanman said in thinking fast and slow, you know, so we have system one and system two system one is the one that it's very impulsive, it's unconscious more or less, you know, we go on routines. This is how we are doing most of our things every single day, every most of our tasks.

Vesna Fuiorea: And the system too is the one that is the one that puts in the analytical thinking. It's much more from this prefrontal brain that we have. It's less risky. We are taking, you know, our time to think about. While we are going in in a shopping trip in a supermarket, we are using mostly our system one.

Vesna Fuiorea: So this routine type of experience when we know what we buy, particularly in supermarkets, is different when you go to an open market and we don't know what you will find there. We would use more of the system too. for the regular shopping trip to a supermarket, then we will definitely use a lot of our system one. This has a major impact on the shopping trip. Because if we already visited that store many, many times, we will have our mental sort of map of the store, and we will disregard the majority of the things that are not on our map.

Vesna Fuiorea: We will not see things in the store. We will not see secondary displays if they are not on our way through the store and they are not on our trip that we lay down, you know, more or less in the previous experiences. So this with the thinking systems is one part that also influences a lot the shopping trip and the shopping behavior in general. The other one is that feelings and emotions are very different while consuming versus while shopping.

Vesna Fuiorea: And here my most used example is think about the mother that goes to a supermarket after she collected her kids from the nursery or from the kindergarten. And she's buying mostly indulgence things, chocolate, don't know, coffee. But the feelings and the emotions she has in the supermarket in that very moment when she has to drag her four-year-old along are very different to the moment when she's really enjoying the coffee in the kitchen or maybe in a cafe going out with her friends. So this has an impact a lot in what do we communicate to the consumers and to the shoppers because she will not pay attention to these indulgence moments in the store.

Vesna Fuiorea: She doesn't have the time nor the hope. She's not open to that type of messages. She has to be quick. She has to be, you know, on the spot. She has to find whatever she wants to. She needs to buy very fast and get out from the supermarket.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, and that's humans going completely on autopilot for a reason, to be efficient. And you're right in that when we walk into a store, if we've been there many, many times, it is an autopilot situation. And so retailers may have spent lots of amazing money on an NCAP or a standalone display or trying to make different claims or changing their packaging, but this mom is on a mission.

Vesna Fuiorea: Yes, exactly, Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Priscilla McKinney: And so, how do retailers then break in and interrupt that pattern? Tell me a little bit about different things that they've used in the past and what's tried and true, and what do you see as newly emerging?

Vesna Fuiorea: Yes, it's a combination. It's not only the retailers, but also, you know, the brand owners have this urge to become more visible in front in the eyes of the consumers or in the eyes of the shoppers. So there is a combination of things that you can run in a store in order to get above the radar of the autopilot. Or to stay in the autopilot. If you are already in the shopping list of the shoppers, so there are two aspects here what?

Vesna Fuiorea: The brand owners usually do pre store to make sure that they build the mental availability of their brands So people were before going to the store if they think about buying I don't know cream cheese They will think about Philadelphia without any other thing around I was choosing this brand that exists both in Europe and in the state Yeah, so if they have this thing in their mind before they will disregard all the other cream cheese is available, yeah, if there is there. So this could be pre-store. When you are going into the store, there are things that can be done and usually retailers and brand owners are spending a lot of time to understand the shopper behavior and also a lot of time to execute these things in the store in order to create the easiest flow for the shopper to reach the cat first of all in order to buy something after you got into the store you need to know where that category aisle is yeah so going the fastest to the category aisle that makes the shoppers life much easier and in the aisle then the shoppers need to understand very fast how is that all the category is segmented where do I find my product where do I want do I find

Vesna Fuiorea: Do I get it is I don't know it is it split by brand? Is it the more expensive ones on the right or on the left or up the shelf below the shelf? Where are they? And this

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, where are my sugar-free options? Where's something that's higher protein?

Vesna Fuiorea: Exactly, where are my protein high protein things? Where are you know my flavored whatever water? In this big shelf in you in Europe in a medium-sized supermarket, which I don't even think there are in the states Honestly, it's might be like a trader Joe sort of you know that size there are between 30,000 and 45,000 products in every second of when you visit, in a household in Europe. they are bought probably about 350 to 400 items per year.

Vesna Fuiorea: I mean, single units, SKUs, selling, keeping units, different products, which are very similar every time they buy because for every category, a household will have probably a range of three to five brands that they are interchanging based on the preferences or the promotions that they are on, you know, so all this type of things. So then the challenge is

Priscilla McKinney: Or sometimes, sometimes they don't even know that they're choosing a particular brand. I was talking with Reina Raznik from StarKist and we were talking about branding and in-store elements and I had just bought tuna the day before and so I told her about the two different flavors I bought. Later on that day, I went in my kitchen, realized only one of the flavors was StarKist. The other one I had bought store brand, a private label, and I didn't even, I reported to her that I bought two different Starkist because that's brand I think of immediately.

Priscilla McKinney: But I bought that one and then I tried something else. And so in my own mind I even didn't have my story right about the SKUs that I, you know, will continually buy. That's a very interesting concept.

Vesna Fuiorea: Yes, and then so you you in in this in the shelf coming back to the things that you can do brand owners need to make Everything possible to differentiate their brand Building exactly on the example that you you just shared. Yeah It's very important to use the brand assets at the maximum possible brand assets on the packaging brand assets on the form of the brand on the logo There is you know, and We were talking about fact that shopper insights are underused or the research in that area is underused.

Vesna Fuiorea: The area that is really, really very, let's say not so much tested upfront is the packaging design. Testing the packaging design and changing the packaging design could have immense, enormous impact on the brand visibility in store. There are these famous examples, like the Tropicana brand that happened in 2014, 15, something like that in the US, they lost 45 % of their sales, when they changed completely the appearance of the juice bottle, and they had to come back to the original one, because people were not seeing the brand in the store. And it happens every now and then.

Vesna Fuiorea: We were having, when I used to work for Mondale, as we were having this joke that every time we have a new brand manager somewhere he thinks to change something on the packaging which is one of the least recommended action to do when you when you do something to the brand try not to touch the packaging because this has a major impact on the shelf visibility of the brand so making sure that your brand is visible and accessible in the store are two things that sound silly when we are talking about, but there is an immense number of examples where these are not taken into consideration. Visibility of the front face, you know, it's so easy to put it, but they are not using it.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, that's such an interesting conversation. And I just had a discussion with a great friend of mine, Darrell Travis from Brand Trust, who really knows about brand building and about the human connection and the human, the entirely human understanding of your brand. And he and I were talking about this push from a CMO or a category manager, a new brand manager to come in and quote unquote modernize the brand. What does this mean? You know it feels like you're getting work done and it feels it feels good but the brand equity has to be understood and the human connection that people have to your brand has to be understood which is very ethereal.

Priscilla McKinney: It exists only in the mind of the consumer and at the very beginning we use these heuristics you know to very quickly within seconds find the thing that we're looking for or make it emotional connection with a brand that we trust or even if we're not even aware of it, we have a trust and a rapport with this brand. And so we feel better in that moment. And so when we feel better, we reach for that brand. And so I love this idea of, know, yes, we are trying to impact the journey, but that doesn't always mean going crazy and changing everything about the brand.

Priscilla McKinney: Sometimes it means helping people come home to your brand, which is interesting because that's what Starbucks is doing right now. This concept of come home to Starbucks is like, you know, we know you've you've run out on us a little bit. And so that's another issue with Tropicana, too. And I would add as an additional layer, we are in heaven forbid I say it this way, uncertain times. There's a lot of volatility in the market.

Priscilla McKinney: And even if it's not actual, it's perceived. And the buyer feels very fragile. So you talk about that mom coming into the store She's already under pressure. She also is probably feeling some kind of financial pressure. You know, am going to indulge? Should I buy a name brand? Like just not knowing, you know, is my husband going to have a job, you know, next week?

Priscilla McKinney: All these things that everybody is thinking in order to make incredibly, incredibly quick decisions about which brand. Are they going to spend 20 cents more on this cream cheese or is it worth a dollar fifty more to get something that's sugar free? Or are you willing to buy the thing you came for and buy it a second one more than you came to buy but in a different flavor so you can try it?

Vesna Fuiorea: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Priscilla McKinney: And so much of that is happening. But you're an expert on these trends. And so I don't want to let you leave without talking a little bit about a subject that is very difficult for people right now. But we just talked about the whole in-store. And it's very visual. We all understand it.

Priscilla McKinney: I'm not even the shopper. I've been to the grocery store 10 times in the last 20 years. I'm not the shopper in our house.

Vesna Fuiorea: Really okay yes super good you probably could share some of your tips and tricks how to avoid doing that

Priscilla McKinney: Just that, that's it. Yeah, but you know when I go into the store which is very rare, I don't know where anything is. So almost everything grabs me, but you know my husband can go in, knows exactly what he's getting and he's on that mission. But that's very visual, it's very easy for everybody to understand. Even me, I do occasionally go into a grocery store, you know everybody understands that.

Priscilla McKinney: But take us now to the real world of everybody buying online and that online offline is not only changing the way people buy period, but when they are in the store, it is also changing the way they are buying in the store because they are often looking at, could I get this offline or can I get this online and can I have this delivered? They're making other comparisons so it's gotten deeper. But I know there's a lot to unpack there, but maybe tell me a couple of high level things that you think are interesting about how not only AI the online search is affecting us but also just how the the readily availability for so many people across the world to get products to their home without having to do that grocery mission. What is happening? What are the big swath trends you're seeing?

Vesna Fuiorea: Yes. Talking specifically on the e-commerce part, this conversation of, my God, the supermarket, the regular supermarket will disappear and everything will become e-commerce. We have heard this for like maybe we were We have been worried for, I don't know, 10, 15 years already. However, although this Ecom for groceries is growing dramatically in some parts of the world, it's still a small part of the total grocery shopping.

Vesna Fuiorea: And the supermarkets continue to exist, and they are continuing to incorporate various other types of digitalization in order to cope with the e-commerce. In Europe, for example, also driven by the pandemics, this e-com had a boost, but then people returned to the regular shopping. And pending on the geography, know, some countries are much more in favor of going to the physical store versus buying in online. Particularly the southern Europe where the food is fresh and the cuisine is fresh.

Vesna Fuiorea: Italy, Spain, Greece, people enjoy going to the small store and buying their veggies and their meat and their cold cuts that have this freshness thing is very important. The northern countries in Europe particularly are maybe more in favor of e-commerce grocery shopping. However, so this was for e-commerce. Convenience is one of the trends that continue to be up, you know, in in the development of the supermarket shopping.

Vesna Fuiorea: Inconvenience meaning stores that are closer to the shoppers. You are mentioning that even in the US, Walmart has smaller formats nowadays. In Europe, this became one of the drivers for the retail development in the last years. Big retail chains like Carrefour, Tesco, the other French big retailers like Oshan, they are trying and doing their best in building smaller formats, like the 7-11 sort of, that format of a store, that you'll find in a walking distance.

Vesna Fuiorea: Europeans walk more, for sure, than the US. And we have even this thing that we could go and grab a small bag of things from one of these retail stores just for the dinner tonight to grab something for dinner. And I remember this story which is really funny. When Walmart decided to go to China, they were getting in partnerships with various of their suppliers in order to understand how to build a format for China. And I remember a very dear colleague of mine that was the shopper inside director for Asia Pacific that did all this research in China and then in front of the you know, entire Walmart board of development for China, he stood there and he said, the shopper in China has two legs and two arms.

Vesna Fuiorea: This was his opening phrase. What he wanted to mean by that was that in China, at that time, it was like 20 years ago or something, people did not have cars. They were not driving to the supermarket. They were going on a bike or they were walking. So this huge Walmart format would have never fit in the Chinese culture.

Vesna Fuiorea: Now it's changed probably but at that time you know this was an eye opening for one because people were not driving there. Now coming back

Priscilla McKinney: Now, and it's totally in the US, like people can't imagine not buying toilet paper in 64-roll format. I mean, that's the only thing you're taking home on the bike. You're not taking home any food, you know?

Vesna Fuiorea: No, and probably also, you know, the houses are much larger. I was amazed. First time I went to a Costco in the States, I was really like the Goldilocks in, you know, in the in the birds house because I was seeing this, you know, huge cereal boxes in my house. I would never have the space to store that thing, you know, all this.

Priscilla McKinney: Right, right. No, we have a pantry and then some people have an extra store. It's like, we'll put that down in the storage. You know, put how many in the US? I would love to know this number. How many people in the US have a fridge in their garage?

Priscilla McKinney: Everybody has a second fridge that I know. You know, and we, everybody calls it the drinks fridge.

Vesna Fuiorea: Yeah, so in Europe it's slightly different because we do not have these big storage spaces for food or we are not used culturally to store these, you know, things for forever. And yeah, so convenience plays a big role. But even in the US nowadays, you know, we see that people are going towards this type of smaller shopping trips. And then if there is a smaller shopping trip, it's no no reason to visit a large format store, to waste half an hour just to go across a big Costco just to buy a few items.

Vesna Fuiorea: Another challenging thing that people will need, and we were talking prior to this conversation about the importance of the artificial intelligence, that people are in the past and still they are still doing that were comparing prices, for example, or they were looking where to buy the best offer for whatever. And they were Googling it. Google whatever, and they were saying, OK, in my neighborhood, I could buy this from the store on the next block or in the next neighborhood. But now they are instructing their AI agents.

Vesna Fuiorea: And they are asking them. And this would be probably the battle for the next years, years, I don't know how fast this will get adopted because you know it's really going as in the same pace with the adoption of the various AI agents. And it will be probably pushed by retailers and brand owners as well. And then, you know, using a CHGBT could become tricky because if the brand owners or the retailers will start putting in the algorithm recommendations of what to buy or what to buy and That would become very interesting for the humankind, let's say.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah. Well, we're going to see a lot more and a lot more. We have more questions than we have answers about that. But two things before we close. One thing I'd love for you to give a little bit of your insight about the aging population and what that means for trends in shopping.

Priscilla McKinney: I know for me, know, it's interesting, I moved my parents to a new house last year and lo and behold, right after they moved in, just like a walking distance away, a small dollar general market came up, which actually is great for them because for some families that would not be great because they have smaller packaging, smaller sizing, smaller format for everything and it's that to your point, the convenience. But for my parents, it's not just convenience. It's like they can't eat that larger amount of food before it goes bad. And so it's actually a really great point for them. I know we have, it's not just the US, we have Japan, we have Italy.

Priscilla McKinney: I mean, these are aging markets. And so tell me real quick just about your thoughts on that and what that means for a shopper. And then I wanna talk just a little bit about what a little birdie told me about your book. So tell me about the aging trend first and what your thoughts are on that.

Vesna Fuiorea: Okay, thank you. You know, some years ago when I was much younger, I was participating in an experiment with an aging suit, which is really fascinating and scary at the same time. There was this agency in Germany that was putting on you various things to make you feel and see and also to disrupt your senses like you would be a 75-year-old person. So first of all, you are not able to use your hands very well because you have arthritis when you are 75 or even if you are not having arthritis you are not so everything has to be easy to to grip yeah so it has impact not only on the size aging has impact not only on the sizes on the dietary constraints and everything but has impact also on visibility of the logo and of the and of the and of the flavors because with aging you will not differentiate colors, not you.

Vesna Fuiorea: People in general will not differentiate the colors anymore. And something that is in between green and blue, it's some kind of a gray. You can't lift your arm on the upper shelves. So you would buy everything that is somehow in between one meter to one meter and 40. You will not bend because it will be difficult to bend.

Vesna Fuiorea: You will not hear very well. So whatever they will announce that it's a promotion on the, you know, in the, in the store, you would barely hear. It was a very scary experience, but that opened a lot of opportunities and understanding understanding that packaging again has to be very clear and standing out and for the flavor differentiation and for the sizes differentiation the small very small Written things Disappear completely even us, know younger people are not reading what is written there or we are not reading what is written on a on a secondary display you know, big display.

Vesna Fuiorea: Nobody goes in the supermarket to read things. Yeah, they are going to buy things. It's very easy. I was never getting a popularity prize from my trade marketeers, you know, because I was telling them, who cares?

Priscilla McKinney: You know, I'm in my 50s and I'm often surprised at how small, you know, Words are on packages and I'm sitting there thinking, gosh, I have great eyesight and I can't see this. So how on earth is my mom ever going to read this? And to your point, I remember seeing in a store individually in the produce section in a plastic, an actual orange already peeled and placed in a dome of it. And somebody commented to me, my gosh, that's so wasteful with plastic. And I thought to myself, If I was 80, had arthritis, and I could not really go buy an orange and do that, like living alone as an elderly person, that would be the most amazing buy for me.

Priscilla McKinney: And I would be willing to pay for that convenience for someone to have done that for me. And I thought, that's great for my parents.

Vesna Fuiorea: Exactly. Yeah, I know, yeah. Yes, so sizing Simpler messages flavor differentiation stronger flavor differentiation shelf arrangements, you know forget about very low very high shelves they will not touch them even if they want something from those shelves is too difficult for them to grab it and All these dietary constraints, you know less sugar higher content of protein, easier to chew, whatever, which becomes When we stay in the back and think about them, they are very understandable for the aging population.

Vesna Fuiorea: But when we look into the store, brands are not catching up so fast with those. Everybody is focusing on Gen Z. In parts of Europe, Gen Z is a very thin layer of population that are leaving homes in Europe. We are not going away from our mamas very easy. So in Romania apparently they are living around 27 or 20 years old.

Vesna Fuiorea: They are living their home, their parents' home. I hope my kids will get off earlier, but I don't know. Who knows? Yeah, so the Gen Z are eating whatever is in the house. They don't care. If it's in the fridge, they will eat it.

Priscilla McKinney: Right. Right. And it's the older generation that has the disposable income to choose based on convenience and to choose those brands. OK. So I just want to give you just as a thank you for taking your time. Tell me about this book, Vesna.

Vesna Fuiorea: Thank you. Yes, although I am overwhelmed by the imposter syndrome, I am writing a book about Chopper Insights. This is to put together many of the things I came across. It will not be about new things that happen or new methodologies to try out in this area. talking to my clients and talking to various brand owners and retailers.

Vesna Fuiorea: I realized that there is a lot of knowledge that every single person I was talking to has, but not everybody has all this knowledge put together in a book. So I'm working on that. I hope it will be finished and ready to publish this year. So I will keep you in the loop when this will happen. It's basically something where I I want you to take the reader from the pre-store thoughts to after-store thoughts from this lens of shopping behavior.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. Vesna, Fiorara, thank you so much for joining us today on Ponderings from the Purge. And from all the peeps here at Little Bird Marketing, have a great day and happy marketing.