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Giving Your Customers a Product Vote
Should you give your customers a vote about the merchandise in your store? Consider this:
A recent article on entrepreneur.com called Vote For Art: Democratizing Collegiate Apparel, tells the story of a young entrepreneur named Jeremy Parker (he's 24-years-old) who has broken into the lucrative collegiate licensing category in the States in a unique way. VoteforArt.com partners with universities and colleges, and through it students at these institutions vote for T-shirt designs created by peers, which will, in turn, by sold in their campus stores. Parker's impetus for creating VoteforArt.com was his own visit to a university campus, where he couldn't find a T-shirt with a design he liked. Why not, he thought, combine crowdsourcing and licensing and let the people who actually purchase the merchandise do the designing and make the selection.
Reading the article, I wondered what other retail applications this "democratizing" might have. Would it be good business for a retailer in a tourist area to hold a T-shirt design contest and let customers determine the winning design? Could a customer vote help you narrow down your choices of product in any given category? Customers have always voted with their dollars but it's an after-the-fact vote. What would happen if they got to vote for something that you didn't yet carry in your store? Just an idea.
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Lori Smith, , Editor-in-Chief
Lori Smith is the editor of Gifts and Tablewares, Canada's premiere gifts and tablewares magazine. Written for retailers of gifts, tablewares, housewares, stationery and home furnishing accessories, its objective is to help readers increase their sales and run their businesses more profitably by providing information on new products, merchandising, small business management, customer service, consumer behavior and industry news. The magazine is published six times a year by BIG Magazines, LP, a leading Canadian information company.
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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on February 8, 2010 4:51 PM.
The previous post in this blog was Negotiating: Think Win-Win, Not Winner Takes All .
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Comments (4)
Great topic Lori!
You have to admire the approach that Jeremy Parker took to introduce his new line of products. He focused on what the customer wanted!
One of the first lessons that we learned many years ago about selecting our product mix was to ask our customers what they think. (We've found that it's always much easier to sell your customers with products that they have told you that they want to buy than to try to convince them that they need what you have!) There have many occasions where we have been surprised to learn what our customers were actually looking for. We have also learned that we have to be humble and that we are here only to serve our customers. Asking them to have a "vote" in what products you offer only makes good business sense...
Greg Sprout
Co-Founder,
www.epicureanfoods.com
Posted by Greg Sprout | February 9, 2010 8:57 AM
Posted on February 9, 2010 08:57
Hi Greg,
Thank you for the comment. I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if a retailer allowed their customers to pick a product. As a consumer, I think it would be novel--and memorable--to visit a store and be asked to cast a vote for a possible new product line. I hope to see someone trying it.
Lori
Posted by Lori Smith | February 9, 2010 12:56 PM
Posted on February 9, 2010 12:56
This is a great idea . Some store get customers involved in designing products and then product the item. Jewellery designers do this as well as T-shirt companies. They reward the winner but most of all end up with lots of great new ideas.
If you look over the internetshopping sites now you will see many are using product reviews on the sites.
We have for a year now. Some clients do comment but for the most part they don’t. I guess when you think about it you tell all your friends about a great product but do you go back to the company and tell them? Not normally and yes it would be nice to hear how our products are received. As Canada gets onboard with online shopping I believe it will change and clients will become more involved with the stores they support.
RT
Ernest and Lee Gifts
Posted by Anonymous | February 9, 2010 3:00 PM
Posted on February 9, 2010 15:00
Thanks for posting this, Lori. We have recently had a couple of sample gardening gloves out for customers to try because we weren't sure which of several very similar styles to carry. The customers' votes have been very helpful. We're going to go with the customer choice.
Posted by Elizabeth | February 16, 2010 10:55 AM
Posted on February 16, 2010 10:55