Products can’t give happiness, experiences can!

"Experiences are described as private events that occur in response to some stimulation and involve the entire living being. They often result from direct observation or participation in certain situations. They are usually induced and provide a different perception of the product or its environment."

 

It could seem weird to you, but the first time I went to the grocery store in the US was a real customer experience! My Italian provenance makes me thinking at the supermarket simply as a place where you can buy food or whatever you need for your house, health care, pet…then the American model was completely unfamiliar to me.

Don’t misunderstand me, there are stores created to offer the customer something more than foodstuffs, but they have been introduced only few years ago; most of them are located in shopping malls, where people go with a different attitude. 

Starting from the outside, the first thing I noticed was that the HEB store was surrounded by other shops and fast-foods, in order to give the consumer everything he/she needs in every moment of the day. It’s not just doing the shopping for the family, it’s taking a break from work, eating, having the hair cut. 
Second thing: you don’t have to put a coin for the trolley, 

HEB trusts you!

I perceived the same feeling of trust, kindness and safety when at the entrance an HEB’s staff member greeted me saying “welcome, how is it going?”

Once inside, I tried to follow my shopping list, but I’m in the habit of writing it following the order products are placed in the store where I usually go: fruit, bread, sliced meat, eggs, cheese, yogurt and milk, pasta and sauces, fish, meat, health care products, beverages. Don’t think I’m crazy, it’s just because I need less time, I’m the kind of person who buys always the same brands and once I’m satisfied with one, it’s difficult to make me try something new.

You can understand on your own that most of the brands here are different from those in Italy, then I had to find my new reference products on the shelves. Another piece of my new experience is the time: the usual 20-minutes-average are not sufficient…

But the best still has to come. To choose fruit you don’t need gloves and you can take bread and doughnut on your own. It doesn’t  sound special to you? Probably it isn’t, but the haptic sense is the most basic of our senses, we learn this before vision and smell and when we touch a product we are more likely to buy it because we establish a sort of attachment. Then choosing my doughnut for breakfast makes me feel satisfy when the following day I bite it: “Good choice, Linda!”.

Passing from the touch to the smell, there was a delicious scent of baked bread and cake. 

HEB involves the whole sensory system.

As for taste, it’s not common in Italy to find a plate with cheese, ham and pieces of toasted bread on the counter where sliced meat is sold. The possibility to taste flavours is particularly useful for those people, like me, who purchase repeatedly the same products, but that, while they are waiting for their salami, are curious to try new food.

I had the same perception also when I saw a bowl with warm tortillas: I’ve always associated tortillas with spicy food, and I don’t like spicy food, then I had never eaten tortillas before. But I tasted them and they were good, result: I had tortillas for dinner.

HEB was able to move me from my boring habits.

According to my list, it should be the time, or better the place, for fish or meat and what did I see?

There was a woman with a red t-shirt who cooked chicken nuggets and you could also taste them (note the red color both because of HEB logo and I think also because it attracts clients’ attention). If we analysed it with the SEMs, it would correspond to the ACT: although the customer doesn’t specifically do something, he/she can see how easily, quickly and simply he can prepare nuggets in the microwave. A perfect solution for busy, working mothers, who don’t have time to cook the meal…or for lazy students, who pretend not to have time to cook the meal.

I experienced a better example of “act” in Italy: I was in the grocery store of a shopping mall and a very elegant lady asked my mother to prepare a coffee. It was the old, famous Italian brand “Lavazza”, who had created a new mixture. She showed that everybody could make a good coffee, if the coffee itself was high-quality.

Do you want your life to be easier? HEB helps you!

The last main thing that differs from Italian grocery stores is the product position on the shelves. Apart from their bigger size, products are placed not only among their “peers”, but also on the basis of mental associations. What I’m trying to say is that I used to find all kinds of pasta in one aisle and all sauces in another, here there is also pasta near the sauce because people eat pasta with sauce! 

Moreover, always concerning the store “design” I was surprised by a pyramid built with Redbull cans that reminded me the message of energy and dynamism connected with a brand. Redbull is a brand that has always caught my attention for its product involvement. I remember the “Seifenkistenrennen” that I saw in Vienna; the participant had to build whatever with wheels (kistenrennen) that allowed them to go as far as possible in the track covered with soap (Seife). The HEB attempt to remind me this event and to connect it with the idea of power and strength through the pyramidal shape was successful.

Unfortunately my shopping list finished with beverages, then also my experience description at HEB comes to the end. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

To summerize:

- Time for doing the shopping: 1 hour-10 minutes

- Feeling after the shopping: surprise for such complete unexpected involvement

…Products can’t give happiness, experiences can!