Specifically, the store wanted customers to enter on the left, shop clockwise, and finish on the right.
Why? The heart wants what it wants, I suppose.
So, they made the right-side entrance difficult to reach. Problem solved, right?
Not exactly.
Shoppers did begin entering on the left, but once inside they immediately headed to the right side of the store.
Flummoxed but undeterred, the manager of the store placed several pallet displays to act as obstacles.
“This will prevent those simpletons from cutting through to the right,” the manager likely thought to himself while laughing ? maniacally.
He was wrong.
Instead of seeing the pallet displays, giving up, and turning around; the customers refused to be denied.
Like a cat with a small box or a large-headed child with staircase railings, the customers pushed their way through the tight quarters.
They wanted to begin their shopping spree on the right-hand side and, doggone it, nothing was going to stop them!
Inside The Mind Of The Shopper
Swimming upstream is hard work. So why are you trying to bend your audience to your will instead of catering to them?
No one is quite sure why, but American shoppers like to shop counterclockwise. We start on the right, loop around, and end on the left. It’s theorized it’s because we drive on the right side of the road, but that’s neither here nor there.
You see, the WHY doesn’t matter. We just do. And because we do, companies such as Wal-Mart and Kroger design their stores and display their merchandise accordingly.
The mistake the store in our story made is it tried to go against this mindset. Instead of catering to its customers, it expected them to happily agree to a paradigm shift.
Now, sometimes a paradigm shift is necessary. Sometimes the old way of doing things is flawed, outdated, or dangerous.
But most of the time?
That’s why it’s important to know your audience. Know them inside and out, as Demian Farnworth would say.
And once you know them, cater to them. Write headlines that will appeal to them. Create content that answers their questions and helps them. Write for them, not for you.
Make it all about your audience and you’re golden.
Make it all about you and no number of pallet displays will be able to prevent your audience from going where they want to go…
Elsewhere.
A tip of the hat to Mary E. Fernandez of Persuasive Blog for tweeting an article that included a mention of this story. Creative Commons Image via DVIDSHUB.
