A Retailer's Paradox
By Rick Segel

Do you change or do you keep it the same old way?

We are all faced with dilemmas like this. We all know the standard clichés. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, or “Why are you trying to destroy a good thing”, or “You’re going to kill the goose that laid the Golden Egg”. Better yet, “But we have always done it this way”. My other favorite is “Everybody likes it that way”. Another is “We tried other ways and they just didn’t work”.

I suppose before I comment about what all these clichés mean to us, I should first define what the “It” is.

What are we talking about changing? EVERYTHING!!! I can hear you saying to yourself — this guy is nuts! He wants us to change the way we do everything. We built this business and now he wants me to destroy it.

First off, I don’t want you to change everything all at once. As a matter of fact, I don’t necessarily want you to change anything at all. But what I do want is for you to understand what change means to you, your customers and your business.

Change can be a very powerful and profitable tool in building a retail business.

Think about the success of the Saturn automobile. They have been selling cars in this country in the same way for decades. It worked. No one stopped buying cars because of the way they were sold. Sure, American-made cars dropped off in sales for a time period because foreign cars were supposedly made better. But those foreign imports were still sold by the same car dealers that sold Chevys, Fords, and Chryslers.

Then on to the scene came Saturn who adopted a laid-back, hassle-free way of selling a car. A Change. A New Loyalty. A Soft-Selling Approach that brought 40,000 Saturn owners to a picnic in Tennessee.

Is Saturn that much better a car? Maybe, but to muster up that much brand loyalty indicates a personal connection with the company. Saturn didn’t have to change, but they did, and because of the change, they catapulted themselves into another orbit. (Maybe that’s why they call it Saturn!)

The Saturn experiment was an unnecessary change that worked. Everything was working; it might not have been working to its full potential, but it was working. Yes, they might have failed and fallen flat on their faces. But they didn’t. They took the chance and CHANGED.

Why are we retailers so afraid of change? We want everything in the same place. Are we just comfortable in the way things are? Or are we afraid we are going to upset that one customer who says, “I can’t find anything anymore!” Or is it because we are just a little lazy and don’t want to learn a new system?

We are all creatures of habit. None of us really want to change our ways, especially as we get older. I park my car in the same spot everyday. I hang my keys in the same spot every night. I even flip stations on my remote control TV the same way every night, while I am sitting in the same chair, patting my dog in the same spot, while she sits in the same place every night.

Simply put, we just don’t embrace change. We then rationalize change away with those standard clichés. The sad truth is that our customers love change. I will prove it.

When was the last time you had a display on one side of the store and moved it to the other side? Then you moved the display that used to be on the other side to the first location. In short, you just switched displays — nothing else. Then customers come in the store and say things like, “Oh, you got a lot of new things in.” You just nod your head in approval, while you are saying to yourself, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

The point is that our customers love change. They love different things.

Did you ever notice what a customer will say about a piece of merchandise they really like? The first thing they say is “ WOW!” Then, “That’s different!” Followed by, “I’ll try that”, or “I’ll take it”.

Different sells! The computer industry is based on different. That industry has taught us that it is OK to throw away a computer for which we might have spent $3,000 to $5000, just because it is three or four years old. Planned obsolescence is a beautiful thing.

The business we are in is different than many. In what other business is change for the sake of change good? Change makes a business more exciting. Customers want to come in just because it is different. Customers want to stop by just to see what has come into the store, or what was just marked down, or even to see the new displays.

Change is good for business.

Too many times we try to prejudge our customers and attempt to give them what they need. But what they need is not necessarily what they want.

Wants are exciting; needs are boring.

I need to go on a diet, but I want that piece of pie. I don’t need to get one of those really small cellular phones, but I really want it.

Wants create change, and that in turn creates higher sales margins.

Needs can be a commodity. Just the sound of the words associated with change tell the story. Different and exciting are far more powerful than staid and status quo.

I recently wrote a positioning statement for a small flower shop that helped to increase their business significantly. It was “Lorraine’s Artistic Petals — Where the exciting difference is the difference”. Lorraine has positioned herself as the exciting difference. She embraced change in the most powerful of all locations — in her name and what it represented. Change has become more important. Change has become an even larger factor than ever before, because of this high tech nano-second world in which we live, where everything is instant. If we wait 30 seconds for a computer screen, we’re ready to update our computer.

What’s hot today can be old fashioned tomorrow. Our society has retrained us toward new, different, and exciting as a way of life and a way that has set new standards.

No, don’t change everything today or tomorrow. But what I do want you to do is to accept the awesome power that change can have in our retail stores. Changing displays more frequently, bringing in new merchandise daily or at least weekly, fresh markdowns continuously, new ad campaigns, and different, never-done-before promotions brand you as a store where things are always happening. That in turn will create traffic, and traffic will generate sales.

Change is healthy, even if it causes us some slight degree of mental illness.