teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

Internet entrepreneurs in Vietnam are figuring out how to overcome challenges posed by the country’s infrastructure.  Among Vietnam’s 88 million people, there is growing interest in the convenience of online shopping.  There are now more than two dozen Vietnamese sites copying Groupon’s “deal-of-the-day” concept.  These companies adapted the strategy used in more developed countries.  So for example, few Vietnamese consumers have credit cards or PayPal style accounts.  To over come this, at least one of the Groupon copycats NhomMua, relies on a team of more than 100 moped-driving couriers that deliver vouchers directly to consumers and then collect cash.  Read more in this Bloomberg Businessweek article, “Vietnam’s Dot-Com Boom” (January 19, 2012).  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

The examples here might work well when you cover Place, retail, Price, or Promotion and want to provide an example of how a concept is adapted in international markets.

Some businesses smell an opportunity to really tie together their integrated marketing communications.  They communicate distinct brand identity through the scents that customers smell in their stores or hotels.  Read more at “The smell of success” (Baltimore Sun, January 19, 2012), watch a short Early Show news story (4:35) below, or check out ScentAir Technologies website.  This has also been posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

Retailers and packaged goods makers are responding to a shift in consumer shopping behavior.  According to a study by ESPN (yes the sports channel, which may have a vested interest here), 31% of men nationwide are the primary grocery shopper — up from just 14% in 1985.  So how have retailers better appeal to this new grocery shopping man?  Some are creating “man aisles” that put all that “man stuff” in one aisle instead of having is spread across several aisles.  Read more examples and details in ”More men taking reins of the cart” (Chicago Tribune, December 27, 2011).

Wow, I guess this is suddenly the hot topic.  Yesterday I posted a couple of stories on retail analytics.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell you about a third, but Holly Finn’s story, “Spying on Your Buying” (Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2011, non-subscribers may need to click here and click “view original” in upper right corner if a white screen shows up) and interview in the Wall Street Journal, but she provides a more optimistic view of these analytics with much less fear of the privacy implications.  Plus the video might add some visual effects that might help in the classroom.

A couple of interesting stories about how retailers utilize high-tech analytics to better understand customer shopping behavior.  I heard “The secret life of discounts” (Marketplace radio, December 16, 2011, link to listen or read the transcript) as I drove to the airport last night to pick up my daughter who was coming home from college.  There are some examples about how stores use analytics to try to remain profitable with consumers conditioned to buy only at a steep discount.

In “Big Brother is Watching You Shop” (Bloomberg Businessweek, December 15, 2011), you can read about retailers using in-store video cameras and tracking your cell phone to better understand how you move through a retail store.  Analyzing video from a Miami store allowed Montblanc managers to more strategically locate merchandising, signage, and salespeople.  The result — a 20% bump in sales.  Other retailers follow customers’ cell phone signals to track and map movement through stores.  This of course is raising privacy concerns.

These two stories can be useful examples for marketing research (where we cover dashboards and marketing models), retailing, and in discussions of privacy.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

The battle of the brands is the “competition between dealer brands and manufacturer brand” (from our text books) over which will be more popular. Dealer brands, sometimes called private labels, are brands created by store chains (for example Safeway’s O Organics line of organic foods) and manufacturer brands are created by a producer (General Mills Cheerios). Dealer brands have been gaining share — boosted recently by economic downturn induced consumer price sensitivity.

This Bloomberg Businessweek article “Why Grocers Are Boosting Private Labels,” gives an update and some great examples. Dealer brands used to differentiate on price and then more recently offered comparable and sometimes higher quality. Now many retailers are adding brand managers and investing in more aggressive promotion. Surprising fact: in 2009, 8.7% of food and nonalcoholic drink new products were private label – by 2011 the number more than tripled to 31.4%.

The article will provide good examples when you cover branding and/or retailing.  Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

Online retailers seeking to enhance their customers’ shopping experience are focusing on what’s in the box.  In Basic Marketing and Essentials of Marketing we note three primary roles of packaging:  promoting, protecting, and enhancing the product.  This multimedia Wall Street Journal story (which includes an article, interactive graphic, and  video) “Boxing Up Shopping’s Magic Moment,” (November 17, 2011, non-subscribers may have to click here) provides great reinforcement of all three roles of packaging:

1. Extensive testing of many packaging materials to assure that packages survive the trip from the retailer’s warehouse to the customer’s home in good shape.
2. Many online retailers are wrapping the inner package in a beautiful manner to enhance the overall experience when the package is opened at home.
3. The beauty of that inner package makes people feel better about the brand and promotes the next purchase.

This Wall Street Journal “package” offers a variety of examples you can use when you teach product or retailing.  The video might work well in class because it is more than just talking heads and includes some nice images to complement the story.  This was also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

This Wall Street Journal article “Food Fight in the Produce Aisle” (October 20, 2011 – non-subscribers may have to click here) describes the growing popularity of the produce section.  Consumers perceive all products sold there — even packaged goods — as fresher and of higher quality when they are placed in the produce section.  So you are seeing everything from corn chips to V8 vegetable juice vying for that premium shelf position next to the tomatoes and bananas.  You might show the video in class or simply describe the phenomenon and ask students the advantages and disadvantages from a retailer’s perspective.  An interactive graphic and article describe other grocery store merchandising tactics — like placing bananas in the back to encourage shoppers to move through the produce section and placing milk in a cooler at the front of the store to compete with convenience stores.  The latter example is interesting, since milk has traditionally been placed at the back of the store so customers would pick up additional items along the way.  The article outlines concerns for retailers — of course they might also be able to charge for this premium space.  The 3:54 video is “talking heads” but includes many highlights from the article.

I have been reading a lot of articles this week about the new line of Amazon Kindles.  The most intriguing of these is the Kindle Fire which appears to provide a worthy competitor to the Apple iPad.  While more limited, the Fire is also less than half the price.  The best article I have found on the new Kindles is from Bloomberg BusinessWeek, “Amazon, the Company That Ate the World” (September 28, 2011).  This article, while long, really digs into the marketing strategy angle from Amazon’s perspective.  It also provides a nice compare and contrast of the marketing strategies of Amazon and Apple — two companies that are bound to have a big impact on American business for many years to come.  The article is also very relevant given our recent post titled “Tablets Drive Online Shopping” (September 30). The article also provides an update to the case scenario on Amazon that opens chapter 3 in each of our books.  We have also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps.

This article provides examples you might find useful when you cover price, competition, marketing strategy planning, new product development or retailing.
 

Recent research finds that consumers enjoy online shopping on tablets (like the iPad) more than they do on their standard PCs.  All kinds of measures — from conversion rate (orders divided by visits) to order size — are showing this trend.  This knowledge is driving online retailers to invest in optimizing the online experience for the tablet shopper.  This Wall Street Journal article, “Tablets:  Ultimate Buying Machines” (September 28, 2011, non-subscribers may need to click here).  We also posted this at Learn the 4 Ps.

This example suggests some interesting ideas to bring up in class.  For example, the customer market continues to fragment for retailers, many now aim (at least) two segments of online shoppers — PC users and tablet users.  And retailers are adapting their marketing strategies to each target market.  The article provides some good examples of the types of online retailers are using to better address tablet customers.  While many retailers initially invested in apps specifically for their store, research shows that most tablet shoppers still prefer the browser interface.