Sell to Their Shopping Lists

Good piece from Herb Sorensen's Views site.  Read the whole thing.

Sell to Their "Shopping Lists" (Tell'em Which to Buy!)
December 20, 2010 - by Herb Sorensen, Ph.D., Scientific Advisor, TNS Retail and Shopper

This issue of the Views provides further insight on how and why you can use the dominant path through the store to increase sales. Ten years ago I articulated "The Holy Grail of Retailing:"

To know exactly what each shopper wants, or may buy, as they come through the door of the store, and...   To deliver that to them right away, taking their money and speeding them on their way.

So we want to focus here first on "what each shopper wants, or may buy," and will use an expanded view/definition of the "shopping list" to encompass exactly this – what the shopper wants or may buy. It is a mistake to limit this "shopping list" to a piece of paper or other overt evidence of a shopping plan. In fact, with a better understanding of the role of habit (or the subconscious mind) in shopping, the "wants or may" abbreviates what Neale Martin refers to as the executive mind (wants) or habitual mind (may.) (See Neale Martin, Habit: The 95% of Behavior Marketers Ignore.) ... "