Evaluating Your Product Offerings
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Your
product mix has been chosen to best meet the needs of your customers.
Now it’s time to sit back and watch the customers, and profits
roll in, right? Wrong. Customer preferences change with each mood
and it’s up to you to provide products for those different
moods. You’re competing in an ever-changing retail field. New retailers have opened up shop, and perhaps existing retailers have seen your success with tea and have jumped on board. You may have been the first on the block to offer an interesting tea program, but that won’t continue to bring customers in if competition has increased. The time to be innovative is right now. Always look ahead. Evaluate product performance with each new season, or if sales are not what you’d like, do it right now. How effective is your current tea menu? Have you ignored the warning signs that your products may no longer be viable in the market? Ask yourself if your selection offers something special that can’t be found elsewhere. You have an extensive array of black, green, oolong, and herbal teas, but so does your competition. What is it that sets you apart? Is it pricing, packaging, preparation, product knowledge? What could make your products the best option in town? At the same time, perhaps breadth is not where you choose to differentiate yourself, instead opting to provide great customer satisfaction – the best product served consistently with a smile and at a reasonable price. When determining your tea product mix, you’ll need to decide how deep your offerings should be. The advantage to having great depth in your tea offerings is that you increase the likelihood that each customer who ventures into your store will be satisfied. The disadvantage is that you must carry greater inventory, and you may confuse customers as to what it is you stand for as a retailer. A general rule of thumb is to increase your depth to a point that customers will not venture elsewhere for their tea, white at the same time you don’t lose customers because you don’t carry a certain tea. Another issue to consider is the breadth of your product line. Expandbeyond the traditional black tea varieties and add oolongs, green tea, and herbal and organic offerings. When making the decision to expand the breadth of your product line, ask yourself how the new tea fits into your existing product mix. What is the message you want to send to the customer by adding greater breadth? Remember not to alienate your existing customer base in an attempt to gain new ones; therefore, the product line’s depth and breadth must make sense for your existing customers. To further evaluate the category’s potential for success, turn to your most frequent customers. Why do they return time and again to purchase tea from your establishment? If their answers include “You always have high-quality products,” “You have the widest variety,” or “Your staff is so knowledgeable in helping me experiment with new teas,” Do they champion their love for your establishment to others? Hopefully, they do. If they are enthusiastic simply because they’re in the habit or because your store in conveniently located on their way to work, perhaps you haven’t nurtured a true committed customer. As a marketer of many different products, you need to have a sense of when to rid yourself of under performers. If you have given a tea sufficient time, energy, and resources to perform and it hasn’t, then it’s time to move on, and replace it with a fresh, innovative tea. When replacing an old product, use the old to introduce the new. Let your customers know what it is that makes the new tea different from the old and put a positive spin on it. |
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