Strategy and shopping carts

The devil is in the details

The devil is in the details

A major sportswear retailer’s board of directors approved a new strategy a year ago. I was not their strategic consultant during this project, but I conducted a couple of foresight workshops, so I was familiar with key strategic initiatives that became the basis of the strategy. One of them was “to become customer-obsessed” and “to improve customers’ experience both in brick-and-mortar stores and online”.

One of the ideas devised by the marketing department aiming to improve in-store customers’ experience was to offer consumers two colors of shopping carts and baskets — blue and orange, stored on different racks. If customers chose the blue one, it meant that they preferred (probably because they were as unsociable as I am) to surf through the stores by themselves. If I were their target consumer, I would have always chosen the blue shopping cart because whenever I hear “can I help you?” in a store, my spirit falls. Ordinary, I don’t need assistance, but sayi…