Do You Really Know Your Customers?

Recently I visited one of my favorite streets in Chicago that is filled with different boutiques, cafes, restaurants, and more. Included among these stores is one of my favorite. With respect to this store, I won’t name any names here.  However, I will tell you that this store carries mostly apparel with some accessories, as well. Trina Turk to Three Dots fill the floor among various other lines, so you can imagine the price points I am referring to here. While many shoppers who purchase $100 t-shirts and $400 jeans can still afford to shop a little, most are not shopping a lot. Because of this, I would still expect to see some markdowns or discounts being offered. Unfortunately, I didn’t.

Being optimistic, I thought that business must be great. I would have been so happy for the owner if this was in fact the case, however after chit chatting with the sales associate who I happen to know makes most of her salary through commission, I found out sales were very slow. This didn’t surprise me. What did, however, was that the store had not reacted to the ongoing retail slump and economic struggles that all customers are facing. It made me wonder if the store owner really knew who her customers were anymore.

After a bit more chit chat, I found out that most of their store clientele is not repeat business but rather tourists in Chicago and occasional splurges by Chicago college students and spoiled high school kids. She said they actually had very few “regulars” anymore. The key being anymore. According to this sales associate, ladies who use to stroll in and out of the store once a week were rarely seen and now the store foot traffic was mostly just browsers. It made me realize that their customer had truly changed before their eyes, and yet it appeared that the owner didn’t even realize this. Had she, I would imagine, she would try to keep up with this change in order to survive a possible retail death. Turns out, sales were less than half what they were a year ago on a daily average!

As store owners, it is easy to become comfortable with the idea of who your customer is. However, customers often change over time, and it is easy to dismiss the reality of who our customers really are when this happens. It’s important, however, to take note of the changes and react to them accordingly. The way I see it, there are two simple first steps to identifying what you should do next here. The first is to change with your customers by responding to what your targeted clientele needs are. The second is to accept who your new customers are and react to how you can better serve them. The third option, which I do not support, is to simply ignore the reality of your customer base changing and not do anything at all.

While target markets are often identifed on store business plans prior to store openings, they are not always revisited once the store opens. Make it a point to revisit who your customer is in order to survive the changing pace of retail.