John Williams of J.C. Williams Group, the 3rd largest consulting firm in the world, delivered some revealing and enlightening observations on the changing face of retail at a recent CBA gathering. These changes reach beyond retail to virtually every organization in America. They are:
· Time deepening is causing stress. Because of the continuing exponential rise in demands from job, family, church, and relationships—Americans are more time starved than ever before. As a result, more and more are finding ways to do several things at once, e.g. drive and listen, phone, eat, shave, apply make-up, etc. In fact 22% of Americans will not even take a vacation this year.
· People are spending less on stuff and more on experience. This doesn’t mean they will spend less, it means their motivation for spending is changing. Two of the biggest motivators are to ‘find’ more time, and to acquire a stress-free experience. One way they can ‘find’ time is to buy a brand they can trust to shorten the shopping time required.
· People shop with their heart, not only with their checkbook. To win their purchase, we must ‘grab their heart.’
· The battle for every retailer, church, or ministry is to get on the customer/constituents ‘short list’, then build a relationship for life. (Foster Letter 3/15/99)
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