Profit from Understanding Your Customers' Purchasing Process

Successfully serving your customers requires more than you think. You must recognize where they are in the purchasing process to adequately meet their needs.
July 21, 2008

By Doug Fleener

To be a successful retail salesperson, you must understand how and why customers buy. Purchasing is a financial decision resulting in the exchange of money for goods. The process itself is very linear. The time it takes to move through this process varies according to each individual and the product or service purchased.

The decision-making process of buying a soda is the same as buying a new car, but the amount of time it takes to move through that process will obviously vary. The better you can pinpoint where customers are in the decision-making process, the better you'll be able to deliver a positive store experience and sell more products.

Four Steps of Decision Making

1. Recognize a need or want. After recognizing a need or want, a person will either act on it immediately or file the thought in the back of his mind. Many customers enter your store without a recognized need or want, but they always come in with an interest. That's why there is no such thing as a "looker."

Success Tips
• Engaging customers with your products can move them from a piqued interest to the first stage of the decision-making process.
• Listening closely to what customers say is an easy way for you to identify if they have recognized their need or want.

2. Gather information. The customer is now discovering what he needs to know and begins to gather information to make an informed decision. For a simple purchase such as a soda, that information would include what drinks are available and how much they cost. For apparel, a customer needs to look at different fabrics, colors, cuts and sizes.

Success Tips
• Many retail sales associates mistake where in the information gathering stage the customer is. Rather than ask specific questions about what the customer wants, associates often assume the customer is only beginning to gather information.
• You'll be viewed as an expert and are more likely to make the sale if you help the customer understand what information is necessary to make an informed decision.

3. Evaluate choices and alternatives. This is when the customer tries on clothes, tastes samples, tests different golf clubs, compares choices side by side, etc.

Success Tips
• Reduce the number of choices customers have to choose from. Instead of showing them every one of their choices, recommend one or two products that you believe — based on the questions you've asked — best meet your customer's needs.
• Get the product in customers' hands, on their body, etc. It's amazing how many sales people will talk about what a product does, but never actually show customers what it does.

4. Make a (purchase) decision. The customer has decided to make a purchase. That doesn't mean he will make a purchase at that moment or even that he has chosen from whom he will purchase, but he has made a decision.

Success Tips
• Deliver a great experience and you'll be the clear choice when customers decide where to buy.
• Often customers have made a decision to buy, but since the sales associate doesn't assume the sale, the purchase is not made. Always assume customers will buy today unless you are told otherwise.

I encourage you to identify what stage each of your customers is in. Once you do that, try to help them come to a decision that will make both of you happy.

Doug Fleener is president and managing partner of Dynamic Experiences Group, a Lexington, Mass., retail consulting firm dedicated to helping retailers boost their sales and profits. A veteran retailer with more than 25 years of hands-on retail experience with world-class retailers including Bose Corp. and The Sharper Image, he also has owned and operated his own specialty stores. Fleener is the author of the book "The Profitable Retailer: 56 Surprisingly Simple and Effective Lessons to Boost Your Sales and Profits." Contact him at (781) 861-7803 or visit dynamicexperiencesgroup.com.

Profit from Understanding Your Customers' Purchasing Process
Successfully serving your customers requires more than you think. You must recognize where they are in the purchasing process to adequately meet their needs.
To be a successful retail salesperson, you must understand how and why customers buy. Purchasing is a financial decision resulting in the exchange of money for goods. The process itself is very linear. The time it takes to move through this process varies according to each individual and the product or service purchased.
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