How does the customer change?
The income level of the population and, let's face it, the distribution of income among different groups of the population is changing. I would say that, little by little, the middle class is beginning to "drop out. The structure of the population is also changing. On the one hand, there are "new" pensioners - people who are fundamentally different from the classical idea of a pensioner as "a grandmother on the bench" or "a grandfather with dominoes.
These are people with an active lifestyle, not alien to modern technology, with all the attendant consequences.
Generation Z has grown up - young people "born with a smartphone" whose interests are more in the virtual world than in the real one. I would divide this generation into two groups: those who spend on the Internet, following fashion trends, and those who earn by creating these trends. And they earn a lot.
The attitude to credit and its availability has changed. The lack of credit frightens people and makes them go bankrupt. The state imposes new restrictions, banks toughen requirements. All this limits the unsecured growth of consumption.
Some part of population has some "extra savings", the trend of the near future is that people think where they need to invest them urgently. Why? Because, firstly, with the current interest rates on deposits to keep money in the bank is becoming less profitable. Secondly, in light of the announced plans to inject more money into the economy ("maternity capital" for the first child and other initiatives), there will inevitably be a depreciation of money and higher prices for certain groups of goods. First and foremost, real estate and cars. So for those who have 3-5 "free" millions, I would recommend thinking about what to buy now: the "interest" is minimal, but prices may rise.
What's changing in retail?
Stores are changing their offerings not so much to meet customers' needs, but for another reason: retail has to fight for customers and constantly offer something new. Recent years in retail are characterized by active experimentation with formats and levels of service. I think that the aim of these experiments is to create an offer for certain groups that customers like so much that it will attract all members of the group to this particular format.
We can no longer understand what it was in the beginning, the growth of online sales, and so all the stores put points of issue, or thanks to the points of issue online sales began to grow at an increased rate? Was the segment of specialty stores (alcoholic, health food) in demand over time or was it created through competition and poached the customer?
In order to fight effectively for the consumer it is necessary to segment him. And here, too, new technologies have emerged.
Three ways to segment the customer
And the main question of this material is: How do you segment customers? There are three methods of segmentation.
1. Hierarchical.
Let's talk about the first one, which I called hierarchical and described in my book "The Arithmetic of Category Management". What is the essence of the methodology? We make up a set of attributes, usually "social" - gender, age, marital status, income, etc. (information about customers is gathered through polls or questionnaires for loyalty cards), we rank them according to importance, and then "go down" the "hierarchical tree", eliminating secondary groups (relatively, those occupying less than 5% of turnover or traffic, depending on the objectives).
Now we need to identify significant groups, i.e. groups that have a significant share in the total mass of consumers. To do this, we also perform a small arithmetic calculation.
From the point of view of algorithms, our actions can be described as follows: we add attributes until the share of the group is below a certain threshold (in our case it is 5% of the total number of buyers).
If there is information about how much money to buy each of the groups of customers, the calculation can be adjusted and estimate not the share of the group in the number of potential buyers, and the share of the group in the budget that customers are willing to spend to purchase products, or turnover of the store.
As you can see from the figure, in terms of mass, we are interested, first of all, from men 25-55 years old with low income. We are also interested in middle-aged men with middle and high income.
Further study of the results of the study allows us to draw portraits of the most common groups of customers.
2. Based on decision logic
How else do you segment customers? For example, you can create a two-dimensional portrait of the consumer.
The second methodology - to classify customers can be based on the logic of decision-making, this option was proposed by GFK.
In the table below, the left column shows what is important to the buyer when making a purchase (economy, love of shopping, etc.), and in the top line: social benchmarks (for themselves, neighbors, etc.).
3. Depending on the consumption situation
The third methodology has become popular relatively recently and is based on the consumption situation. It can be presented in the form of a two-dimensional table, but the question in which situation the consumer makes a purchase comes to the fore. This classification is particularly evident in the management of assortment in the pharmacy business, where neither the first option does not work (everyone gets sick, regardless of age and presence of children), nor the second - what pleasure can you get from buying drugs? And experiments here are dangerous!
Accordingly, there may be such situations of consumption:
For prevention.
For strengthening and maintaining health (healthy lifestyle, sports, taking care of oneself).
For a prescription ("man with a list").
For an unexpected illness (cold, injury).
When a chronic illness occurs.
Naturally, the logic of the decision in different situations is different. And in this case, writing a portrait of the buyer is built not on the unique characteristics, but on the features that depend on the situation. So, for the "prescription person" the portrait will be "combined" at all. We need to understand how the person who wrote the list chose drugs, and what to do, so that he sent a "messenger" to our store, and what to do to "messenger" came to our pharmacy, if there was no direct instruction about the location of the purchase.
A similar logic can be applied to DIY stores: for their own needs (small repairs, new repairs, home improvement), to do repair work (individual builder, foreman, supplyman).
At the grocery store: daily purchase, weekly purchase, holiday purchase, pampering, "didn't have enough", "momentum", etc.
As of today, I think this method of classification is the most promising. And it is not the "portrait of the consumer" but the "portrait of the check" from the analysis of which you can understand a lot, not about the prerequisites of purchase, which, as it turns out, is an "assumption", but about the actual performance, which shows how the buyer actually evaluates our offer and in what situation comes to us. As world chess champion Robert Fischer said, "What matters is not how many moves ahead you calculate your actions, but how correctly you assess your strengths and the current situation."
Only by correctly assessing the current situation, the retailer can understand with whom and how to work in order to win the competition.
Why do manufacturers need information about the structure of customers and the consumption situation? Today, in my opinion, many large manufacturers, working with all the federal networks, as well as with distribution, regional networks and traditional retail, have even more expertise in their category than the networks. The problem is that producer managers cannot "sell" themselves as an expert. The expert shares information, but also has the right to make recommendations. Think about how to help the chain win the competition, and how exactly your products will attract the target consumer or solve their problems in typical situations, and then you will take your rightful place on the shelf.
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