Go Starbucks or go home

Is your business an experience?

Starbucks announced they would no longer sell their products on their own website. You can still buy Starbucks products online through other retailers, just not on the Starbucks website.

In the announcement, Starbucks said they want their customers to have the Starbucks experience. While they still want you to come in and purchase something to eat and drink, they want the person purchasing Starbucks products to have the Starbucks experience.

Instead, they so believe in their employees and how they can interact with their customers that they want to make sure the customer gets to have an experience first hand with Starbucks. You can’t get very personal with a website.

How many of us think the experience in our business, and the interaction with our staff is so awesome, that we want to be sure a new or existing customer has that interaction with our employees?
It is not just our employees that make a difference. What about the overall experience a person has starting when they can first see our business? Research shows that over 50% of the impression a customer has of your business comes from when they can first see your building, sign, or parking lot.

When the customer comes in, what do they see, hear, smell, taste and touch? Can we provide an experience that will overload their senses on, “awesome”? All of this in addition to wonderful salespeople.

If we can, we have something the Internet cannot duplicate. Even the founder of the largest online retailer knows it. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, said, “We can never duplicate that experience you can have by walking in a bookstore, sitting in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee and enjoying the feel and smell of a new book”.

The National Retail Federation reports that 15% to 30% of all online purchases are returned by the consumer. That speaks to the customer not having enough product knowledge to make an intelligent decision about what they are buying. Is your store providing that product knowledge? Do you have an ongoing staff education program? Or do your employees just learn as they go along?

Think about the bookstores, coffee shops and other local businesses you have experienced. Any of them like the bookstore Bezos is talking about? Any of them provide an experience for which they are so confident, they do not sell online?

If our businesses are going to beat the online businesses, we have to do the things the Internet retailers cannot or will not do.

It is not about beating Amazon and other Internet retailers at their own game. It is about playing the game the way the customer wants to play.

If you would like to send this article to someone you know, please use this form to forward this page:

Your Name:	E-Mail:
Friend's Name:	E-Mail:
	Security Code: