Case Studies...

Boots Retail Store

Boots (Retail) - Studying anomalies in transaction values

Boots wanted to understand why there was a differential in transaction values for most of their customers. The largest percentage of their customers had a small transaction value but a small percentage bought more. How could they increase the transaction value of the larger group of customers?

Our discovery:

Customer behaviour did not match Boots communication patterns. Their customers largely knew what they wanted and roughly where it was in the store so they went straight to it (following their procedure).They were also focused on moving towards their aim, so they would discount anything along the way (like browsing) that stopped them from achieving their goal (find product and buy it). They needed to see and touch other products to feelcompelled to buy them and the store layout, gondola heights and signage (in words) didn't facilitate their procedure for browsing.

Suggested actions were:

Add pictures with directions (to help the procedure) to instore signage; lower the gondola heights so that customers could see more of the store (and therefore the products available) and see the signage more easily.

The result:

A pilot store was refurbished for approximately one tenth of the usual spend, taking into account these patterns. Customers started to expand their procedure to include buying more products, because they could now see and go towards more items that they wanted to buy.

"At the time (1992), the entire Southern (tourist) seacoast of England was depressed economically, so the trial was a real litmus test. The findings were applied specifically to store layout and design, linked to service improvements.

Applying 'cues' at critical points made a major difference. While turnover in comparable Boots shops in the same area remained flat at best, Worthing's turnover was consistently 4-6% above the previous 12 month period. This study provided cost effective changes through refitting that yielded significant bottom line gains, without any of the traditional disruption that refitting incurs."

Nick Stokes, Head of Research, Boots The Chemists,