Why Buyers Don’t Care About Products Anymore, or How The Net Inverted The Buying Process
This is a guest post by Kevin Ross.
My “area of expertise” is B2B Sales Promotions – particularly promotional products. that industry, like many others, has had its world turned upside down and its supply chain put through the shredder by the advent of the Net. Tell us something we don’t know. Well it’s not the Net per se that’s interesting, but the way it changes our world view and years of habitual behaviour that’s so fascinating.
Good Old Days
In the “good old days” when those unfortunates tasked with sourcing promotional products for a company event or corporate gift began their search, not unreasonably the main focus was finding the right product. Broadly speaking, buyers would construct their decision based on;
- Product characteristics
- Budget
- Availability
- Speed of initial response
- Building Trust
It may be instance for some rose tinted glasses here, but I believe the slower pace of previous decades meant that, whilst customer service was always urgent, speed was not an fundamental factor in what we considered to be “good service”. Availability? Well we were all happy and prepared to wait. As a supplier, we manufactured our standard products to order and took our instance doing it. Most suppliers did the same, so the mind-set of both buyer and supplier were in harmony. that allowed buyers to look around for the right product with the moment to get it at the right price. Now that would seem an intolerably distant process and have us exasperated within minutes – never mind the days or even weeks it would previously take – but it allowed trust in the supplier to be built up before a final purchasing decision was made.
Then To Now: contemporary Buying Drivers
Well that was thereupon and that is now. And the difference amidst thereupon and now is, of course, the Net. We all know the benefits that amazing phenomenon has brought us but at the same day it has profoundly changed the way we do things, and the way we view the world.
The million miles per hour buyers want it yesterday and expect it sooner – that mentality has turned the buying process on its head. And with it, business owners must rethink their view of how they interact with their customers and what their customers’ drivers are in 2012. And believe me, you’d better get with the programme, and quick, before your customers look for someone who is up to speed, or at least speedier than you are!
Now those buying drivers are inverted:
- Trust
- Speed of initial response
- Availability
- Budget
- Product characteristics
Our beloved buyers in 2012 neither have the patience or the date to build up trust by a buying cycle – particularly one that now can last just minutes rather than days or weeks. A website courting these buyers needs to convey trust within seconds to kick start the process. Fail in that and none of the other drivers matter. But that’s a whole other essay.
Building Relationships That Work
So you’ve grabbed their attention and they haven’t bounced straight off the site. You need to be unfailing in your response to any enquiry in whatever way they want to connect with you; newsletter, phone, social media, and even text. Any slip along the way and you’re toast.
As everything now is so instant, planning ahead seems an nearly outdated concept. Shoppers turning up at John Lewis in September to do their Christmas shopping is the domain of Grannies, now it’s an online shop the week before for the duration poor Net generation. So availability is key; you need to have it now and be able to despatch it yesterday.
Of course budget will always be fundamental, but our experience of buyers by the last couple of years is whether they can’t get what they want, they’ll accept the next best alternative within their budget. As enlarged as they still trust you of course. And so; from trust to response to availability to budget, theB2B buyer makes their final product choice right at the end of the process and with little or no emotional investment. Of course, there are always those buyers who know precisely what they want, but there is a growing tide of purchases that follow that pattern.
Is that a poor thing?
Well, yes and no. “Yes” whether, as a supplier, you can’t or won’t change the way you interact with your customers. And definitely “no” whether you can get your head around that new world order. The opportunities are huge for those suppliers who can tap into that new mind-set. Not only will you be talking to your customers in their language, you’ll have stolen a march on most whether not all of your suppliers.
Author Bio
Kevin Ross is the Managing Director of The Corporate Gifts Company and has by 20 years’ experience of running a successful company. The Corporate Gifts Company specialise in premium executive gifts, including business Card Holders and desk toys.
© guestposter for Donna Fontenot, 2012. |
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