Since retail, including retail giants, are made up of humans, it is prone to error. It is also prone to success.
I will not mention one major coffee chain that has become a household word but it is known for making less errors, and creating success.
Starbucks, like any other coffee chain, is more or less an “impulse buy”. We want our coffee and snack and want it now. The fact that it averages about $6 per visit, means nothing. But if one sits and calculates what they spend a year, they better have had some pretty productive business meetings in the interim to justify the cost of aging but tasty ground coffee.
Who am I to speak with authority?
Aside from owning my own private label gourmet coffees that are sold in gift baskets, I did quite a bit of research on worldwide farms, how to make better coffee, and some psychological benefits of the packaging of coffee (whether it be in gift baskets or at a table in a shop).
As popular as Starbucks may be, I believe it was a big error to print provocative philosophical text on their cups. I do not want to talk about deep subjects first thing in the morning. My newspaper editor and probably yours too knows what we like best. We like to laugh. He/she has devoted an entire non revenue-producing page just for us called the comics page. The editor is fully-aware we are going to be reading some “pretty nasty stuff” before we wade through to the comics.
I’d prefer to laugh in the morning than wax philosophically or discuss war and terrorism.
I did.
Finally last September, I launched the world’s first cartoon gourmet coffee gift basket (with whole fresh beans from 5 different countries, some flavored, some not). I included a set of four cartoon coasters, both the oversize cup and the coasters have the cartoon of the customer’s choice. I put it on my website. I posted it at Shop.com, Amazon.com, Ebay.com, and a bunch of others. And guess what. I was right. People enjoy the coffee and laughter, not coffee and Emanuel Kant or coffee and today’s crime du jour. And I toss in a gourmet biscotti for free.
So why am I revealing this to you? I decided to not only discount the coffee gift boxes but offer engraving of one’s company name and URL for only $2. Do I take a loss on that? Sure do. I make up for it with a decent markup, however. I am not becoming Bill Gates, but the marketing concepts works and with very good reason. You are providing a great product, a service, and saving your client money, not to mention he/she seeing your name first thing in the morning while smiling.
And the reason is psychological. Think about it. There are a million ways to advertise you and your business. But there is only one way to advertise your name and business to your client or potential client in which he/she, first thing in the morning, sees not only your name and URL, but a very funny cartoon that immediately puts them in a good mood. As time goes by, when they think of you or your company, they think positive thoughts.
Now I’ve added 22 other products with 8500 cartoon images to my store. They can all be given as corporate gifts and, still, I only charge $2 to add one’s name and URL. It is a win-win-win every time.
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