I recently watched the programme about Sainsbury’s – Inside the Supermarket on the BBC. Here are my thoughts on episode 1:

This episode was about Mother’s day and particularly selling flowers. I thought they got some of the plans quite wrong.

For a start there was too much choice on flowers

There was lots and lots of choice for flowers. People think more choice is better but not always.

Although more people will notice and stop by the stand most people won’t buy.

Why?

Infinite choice can be unsettling, disorientating.

With infinite choice it’s almost impossible to choose, so we don’t choose anything because we are afraid of choosing the wrong thing.

One thing they could have done is influenced the choice. 

For instance, if I was wanting someone to buy a printer, I want them to choose ‘printer’ over ‘keep £200’.

So to influence the choice I could:

– Display two printers, the one I want you to buy for £200, and a second, slightly better model for £350. – The consumer thinks he’s getting a great deal because the features are the same.

– Display two printers, one I want you to buy for £200 and the second a much worse model for £190. – The consumer thinks he’s getting a bargain. 

So they could have done this with the flowers. 

They used data but could of been used better 

In the programme they showed that they used data that went back 20 years. But if you misuse the data then it’s worthless.

Data is a tool. It isn’t going to do the work for you.

What is the average price people buy in the south compared to the north? Is it higher or lower? Do people in some sections of the UK prefer different types of flowers? 

It seemed like they had a product range and delivered it all across the country, when the country could have totally different tastes. Each county does have it’s own flower, this could have been a unique product for each area – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_flowers_of_the_United_Kingdom 

Lancashire’s flower is the red rose. So the product is red roses for Lancashire mums.

Data is a tool and you do the legwork. 

High priced items

The typical family of 4 spends £152.40 each week on food. The highest priced flowers with a vase was £35 – that’s an increase to the weekly shop by 22%

Are people going to spend that sort of money on that sort of product? Probably not. They might buy something but they won’t spend at that level.

And the proof was in pudding as they struggled to sell that product.

They were their customers already

Also, the programme detailed that people were going to Sainsbury’s for just flowers instead of the competition.

But let’s think about the reality.

Retailers don’t really have a good or bad reputation on selling flowers.

People were already going to Sainsbury’s for their weekly shop.

Once they entered the shop they saw the flower stands and either bought or didn’t.

Sainsbury’s weren’t taking any customers from other retailers. They were just selling to current customers. Upselling is the term.

The problem is the people working for Sainsbury’s weren’t thinking like consumers. 

When we are in business, marketing etc we need to think of how consumers think and behaviour.

It’s quite easy really because if you think about it, we are consumers.