July 2, 2007
| Category: Marketing
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Seth Godin, a popular author and entrepreneur, has made an interesting observation about a “dumb” retailing practice of grouping things together according to brand names.
This is dumb, and the web makes it obvious why it’s dumb. It’s dumb because it makes it easier for the clerk, not for the customer. And dumb because it plays to the label’s ego, not to ours.
When you go to Home Depot to get what you need to build something out of wood, why don’t you find the glue and the wood saws and the screwdrivers and the screws all together in a section called, “working with wood”?
This approach is not very customer-centric and might spur some angry customers in the long run.
Small business owners tend to follow the existing strategies and tactics implemented by bigger and established companies like Home Depot or Wal-Mart. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact most business gurus generally encourage entrepreneurs to take a peek and learn from these practices.
Take a look at Duct Tape Marketing’s lessons from best retailers and you will appreciate the power of knowing the best practices at this time.
As entrepreneurs, however, the challenge lies on how to think differently, identify mistakes in current practices, and think of more innovative ways to attract customers. If we simply opt to use a me-too strategy, we can never leapfrog competition.
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