Consumers are just about coming to terms with, rather than making sense of, the past 11 years (!) of financial, economic and political turmoil. However, they are developing increasing confidence in their common sense when making purchasing decisions. And those who still have jobs are working longer and harder, and possibly for less money, possibly distracted by these ongoing concerns with just living…
But for sure they are becoming super-savvy. This emerging super-savvy consumer has evolved from the combination of the mobile, social, cloud and big data developments in most markets. They have developed a healthy cynicism, a heightened sense of right & wrong, an innate appetite for fair-share…
This is in turn driving business and personal expenditure like never before. In practice, this increasing use of technology and information is helping to shift the balance of power away from retailers and suppliers to the super-savvy consumer, and is providing them with unprecedented control over price and choice in the process.
In fact, it is this ability to compare available alternatives in a truly like-with-like assessment, that is marking out the super-savvy consumer. In practice, they are comparison-shopping online and in-store simultaneously. And as a result, they know exactly what they want for their money.
They have survived the removal of key pillars of social support (bankers, politicos and economists) – they now think for themselves, and should be treated appropriately…. As a result, they are relating every £1 of ‘discretionary’ expenditure to their current and future earnings, assessing the opportunity-cost in terms of alternative uses of the money, like never before.
They are raising their own performance standards and using them as a measure against which to evaluate every product and service offering, refusing ever to outsource their decision-making to marketers and retailers again. As such, they need to be cherished, and ‘locked-in’ by continuously providing more than it says on the tin…
Incidentally, those NAMs in any doubt re the extent of these changes in the consumer should think political credibility, non-Brexitism and shrinkflation, and ponder on the High Street consequences…
Welcome to the new super-savvy consumers, the professional shoppers, discerning buyers who are simply seeking to obtain satisfaction of their needs in an open market, at a price that compares well with alternatives available, based upon simple but tech-assisted common sense.
As the newly-emerging primary driver of demand, these super-savvy consumers must be persuaded that their real needs are being met, for a fair price, and that their purchases deliver more than expected in practice. In other words, this new super-savvy consumer, if willing to spend, is unwilling to accept anything short of good value for money.
A Real Opportunity for the Good Guys
If this seems like more doom and gloom, then we are simply not expressing it properly. In fact, we believe that the emergence of the super-savvy consumer is the most positive and exciting social development of the continuing cash crisis.
We are now living through the evolution of a tech-assisted common-sense approach to buying goods and services by increasingly informed consumers, who are prepared to vote with their feet. This is a development that will obviously challenge traditional marketing and selling practices, but will provide significant opportunities for those suppliers and retailers that are prepared go back to basics, factor this new reality into their product offerings, and always strive to exceed consumer expectation.
In practice, this means that the consumer is providing an entirely new basis for suppliers to re-evaluate every SKU in their portfolios against available alternatives, and ruthlessly eliminate anything that does not clearly demonstrate a total match with latest consumer need, made available in a way that shoppers want to buy, better than the competition, with evidence all round of private label flourishing at the expense of brand deficiencies.
It follows that our customer portfolio has to be re-assessed from the same point-of-view, again with the aim of identifying and cultivating trading partners that are capable of expressing the brand offering in a way that can meet super-savvy consumer-shopper needs at point-of-sale, profitably. Culling is but the first step…
This elimination of consumer-brand mismatch and product overlap from supplier portfolios will reduce supplier costs, allowing liberated resources to be invested in winner brands and innovation with increased emphasis upon consumer satisfaction, thereby selling more to current super-savvy consumers, and making it easier to sell new products to those increasingly trusting and loyal users.
In other words, an opportunity to become super-savvy suppliers, 24/7…
