Revamp Your Retail Series: Consumer psychology
Consumers have a lot on their minds most days. Horticultural professionals, retailers and growers may be inclined to think they get a lot of “brain time” from their customers, that customers are thoughtful about the seller’s products, but this often isn’t the case. Customers have busy lives — some have children or parents to care for, jobs, errands, volunteer work, etc. Do most consumers make fast decisions in the retail setting? Yes! To help retailers think more about what customers are thinking, a lesson in consumer psychology may be helpful, specifically what customers think influences what they buy.
Many consumers aren’t rational. That’s a big statement, but think about your own purchases. Whether you’d admit it or not, most of us have made several purchases that we weren’t thinking about logically. If consumers were rational, economists would rule the world and we would all make choices based on cost-benefit analyses and never make an impulsive purchase. Knowing that emotions play a role in some purchases, we have an opportunity to help convince consumers that buying some flowers and plants is a really good idea.
Nearly all of the consumer research we have undertaken using the high-tech eye-tracking glasses shows that making the decision to buy a plant happens very quickly, often in 3 to 5 seconds. That is not a lot of time to influence what consumers think. All too often, retailers highlight price in a large font that can be seen from 20 or more feet away, thinking this helps consumers make a decision to buy. It doesn’t, more often than not, because price isn’t the only consideration when customers make a purchase decision. Yes, it is a factor but rarely is it the only deciding factor in whether to buy that plant or not.
Most consumers buy what they already know will work for them. That past success is usually what they’re looking for if they are planning to make a plant purchase. Think about what we make for breakfast or dinner most weekdays — we know what our family likes and we know what works well, so we stick with that choice. It reduces the time we need to think about dinner, freeing up brain time for other decisions.
The same is often true horticulturally. Many consumers know what worked for them last year, and they will want to stick with that to avoid plants dying. It presents retailers with some inertia, since we have to do a great job at convincing them the change will be worth their risk. Whether tomatoes or petunias, it can be a challenge to get some customers to try something new.
Buying the tried-and-true favorite isn’t always a bad thing. We can remind some customers that they bought a specific plant last year and would they like to add that plant to their shopping cart? Especially for online purchases, buying the same plant again this year is an easy choice that doesn’t require much thought or effort.
Selling Benefits, Not Features
This is where the value proposition can help convince new customers that a specific plant is a good choice or convince existing customers that a new cultivar is a better choice. This is a great opportunity to talk about plant benefits (not features). Benefits are what that plant does for me (e.g., produces tomatoes earlier than others, larger than others, or is more disease resistant) rather than the type of tomato (determinate versus indeterminate) or fruit shape. More perceived benefits yield more perceived value, which can be translated into a higher price. So, for new cultivars or plants with more benefits (e.g., fragrance, new or novel cultivar) charge more for those plants as they come on the market. They have a higher value proposition, will be perceived as having greater value, and will be a good buy for customers looking for new or better plants.
Not all people see the value of plant benefits equally. In fact, millennials (persons born from 1981 to 1996) expressed getting more benefits from plants (psychological, educational, social, emotional, physiological and aesthetic) compared to baby boomers (persons born between 1955 and 1964) and Gen Z (persons born from 1997 to 2012). This means that retailers might consider customizing their messages to age cohorts that they valued most. For boomers, the plant benefits they most related to were relaxation and psychological benefits. For Gen X (persons born between 1965 and 1980), those plant benefits were social and educational. The multitude of research documenting the plethora of benefits that plants bring to our lives is summarized in three articles by Charlie Hall, Ph.D., and Melinda Knuth, Ph.D. (Hall and Knuth, 2019a, b, and c).
Previous articles in this series discussed price, but one more piece of research about price needs to be mentioned here. In one study (Zhu et al., 2017) with digitally identical plants, we found that to entice customers to buy plants at a higher price point, we needed to show them more benefits (not features). At the low price point, the price itself was the best information to promote the sale. The bottom line is: if you want to sell new or novel plants at a higher margin, discuss benefits not features. When a plant is on sale or a real value, that is the only information you need to convey. In fact, this is the only time price should be the headline, in a font size that can be seen from 25 feet away.
But plant benefits aren’t valuable to price-conscious consumers (Rihn et al., 2018). Alicia Rihn, Ph.D., and colleagues showed that communicating benefits like in-state production, pollinator benefits and organic production detracted from or reduced the perceived value of those plants. In other words, when a consumer is price-conscious, they are making decisions on price alone. Showing them additional plant benefits backfires because they believe that the plant may be out of their price range. A good understanding of how price-conscious (or not) your customers are should influence some of your signage and communications.
Branding Behavior
Does branding plants really work? In other words, are there some customers who believe branded plants are better than generic or plants without a brand? Yes, indeed (Behe et al., 2016). It is hard to imagine a world without plant brands today, but branding is still relatively “new” to plants and there are still some skeptics. In our study, 28.1% of our sample participants who viewed branded and unbranded plants (unbeknownst to them, the plants were digitally identical) said that the branded plants were of higher quality, which merits a higher price.
Not all customers agreed. Nearly 12% of that same sample said the generic plants were of higher quality than the branded plants. You can imagine their thoughts on pricing — and it probably was that the branded plants were priced too high and not worth more than the generic. But look at the difference in what customers thought about both the branded and the unbranded plants. Sixty percent of the sample said the plants were of equal quality (and they would be correct in this study since they were digitally identical plants). The point here is that some (over a quarter of the sample) consumers believe branded plants are better than plants without a brand. We’re not selling digitally identical products but the point is that those customers perceive a difference and that difference can bring additional revenue and potentially profit to the garden retailer that can attract that kind of customer.
The Local Environment
What do consumers think about plants grown locally? Locally grown products got a lot of attention during and shortly after COVID pandemic restrictions went into place. Even before COVID, the benefits of buying local were prominent in many areas. People wanted to support their friends and neighbors in local businesses. People still love local products, and retailers have a great opportunity to connect with their customers about their plants and businesses with local roots (pun intended!). One surprising finding was that consumers believed that locally grown plants were of higher quality, again meriting a higher price (Khachatryan et al., 2017). The more a person identifies with a certain region (for example, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) the more likely they are to buy local products (Zhang et al., 2022).
The environment is a big concern for many plant buyers. From air to water quality, water availability, and pollinator health, the topics within environmental concern are numerous for us to connect with our customers. Many growers and retailers are using less water, safer pest management strategies and other decisions that influence the environment in a positive way. But do we see any of that in communication materials? Rarely. If any other industry on the plant produced oxygen, do you think they would remain silent on that point? All other things being equal, many customers will more likely spend money with a company with values that align with theirs, especially on the environment. Consider communicating those values and decisions in the store and online to help create a more positive perception of your company. Just ask Patagonia or Allbirds how their communications about their environmental impact shape customer decisions to buy their products.
Our customers have very busy lives, as do we. What they think in the short amount of time they actually do think about buying our products is critical in the purchase decision. Don’t make price the headline of any communication, either instore or online, except if it is a sale or real value. Communicate other positive information like brands, locally grown, pro-environmental and the benefits to humans when communicating with them about the products and services you sell. That is leveraging the power of consumer psychology.
References
Behe, B.K.; Huddleston, P.T.; Hall, C.R.. 2022. Gardening Motivations of U.S. Plant Purchasers During the COVID-19 Pandemic. J. Environmental Horticulture. 40(1):10–17. doi.org/10.24266/0738-2898-40.1.10
Behe, B.K.; Huddleston, P.T.; Sage, L. 2016. Age Cohort Influences Brand Recognition, Awareness, and Likelihood to Buy Vegetable and Herb Transplants. HortScience, 51(2):145-151.
Hall, C.R.; Knuth, M.J. 2019a. An Update of the Literature Supporting the Well-Being Benefits of Plants: A Review of the Emotional and Mental Health Benefits of Plants. J. Environmental Horticulture 37(1):30-38.
Hall, C.R.; Knuth, M.J. 2019b. An Update of the Literature Supporting the Well-Being Benefits of Plants: Part 2 – Psychological Health Benefits. J. Environmental Horticulture 37(2):63-73.
Hall, C.R.; Knuth, M.J. 2019c. An Update of the Literature Supporting the Well-Being Benefits of Plants: Part 3 – Social Benefits. J. Environmental Horticulture 37(4):136-142.
Khachatryan, H.; Rihn, A.; Campbell, B.; Behe, B.; Hall, C. 2017. How Do Consumer Perceptions of “Local” Production Benefits Influence Their Visual Attention to State Marketing Programs? Agribusiness: An International Journal, 1-17.
Rihn, A.; Khachatryan, H.; Wei, X. 2018. Assessing purchase patterns of price conscious consumers. Horticulturae. 4(3):13. DOI: doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae4030013.
Zhang, T.; Chen, J.; Grunert, K.G. 2022. Impact of Consumer Global-Local Identity on Attitude Towards and Intention to Buy Local Foods. Food Quality and Preference 96:104428.
Zhu, Z.; Behe, B.; Huddleston, P.; Sage, L. 2017. How do Pricing and the Representation of Price Affect Consumer Evaluation of Nursery Products? A Conjoint Analysis. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review. 20(4):477-491. DOI: 10.22434/IFAMR2017.0003
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