The other day I was in the mood for fruit (not a thrilling start to a blog post, but it picks up speed soon).
While at Byerly’s, a grocery store I enjoy, I went on the hunt for a crisp apple. I landed at the Braeburn apple you see below.
I’m coming into the shopping experience knowing nothing about Braeburn apples. Are they soft? Tart? Crisp? Sweet? No idea. I purchased a Naked Juice and went home appleless.
Today at Trader Joe’s, I stumbled upon the Braeburn apple again. This time I received a nice introduction to how it tastes and where it’s from. I bought four of them.
This has nothing to do with who has a better product. Byerlys might have much better apples than Trader Joe’s. Maybe not. This is about the experience. Trader Joe’s provided a better experience and it paid off.
I went to a Girl Talk show recently. The music during the show comes 100% from Gregg Gillis’ laptop. During the 90 minute set, Girl Talk fuses together hundreds of different samples, often mashing together an old song and a new song to create something new. It’s the definition of creativity.
Girl Talk could stand on stage by himself and still put on an energetic and enjoyable show. Instead of just a performance, he provides an experience. He brings about 20 people from the crowd up on stage with him, has a balloon drop, has people firing toilet paper guns into the crowd, and there’s enough confetti to drown in.
This is the face of someone who enjoyed an experience.
You chose the experience you create.
You can educate customers, offer free shipping, choose how you package your product very carefully, send thank you notes, provide free WiFi, hire happy employees, offer a 365 day money-back guarantee, and a thousand other things. You can’t do all of them, but that doesn’t mean don’t do any of them.
Why create an experience?
Experiences are harder to replicate than products. There is always a temptation to compete on price with competitors. You compete on price and you become a commodity – easy to replicate and easy to replace. There’s little loyalty to commodities. With an experience, they’re much more difficult to replicate. The more unique and intricate the experience, the harder it is to copy and the deeper the connection you’ll make.
In a world where everything is becoming easier and easier to copy, stand out by creating an experience.
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Jason Sandquist says
That’s why SuperValu and other grocers are closing while Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s are expanding. They deliver the experience! I don’t live near any Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods (probably 20 minutes to either with 10 Cub Foods in between and other noteworthy grocery stores) but I will go to TJ or WF everytime over the others.
This morning I was at Cub Foods only because I needed to grab a few things – in and out in less than five minutes. I was looking for an organic spice, MSG/preservative free spice (I do Paleo stuff) and I asked the clerk right next to the spices scanning barcodes, he said its over in the organic aisle. So I walk over to the organic aisle, I find nothing. Walk back to the spices and there is one on the bottom shelf. At WF or TJ, everybody knows everything about the products and dive into a whole lot more if you ask them, but they’ll walk you over and ask more questions about stuff.
Ben Nesvig says
Completely agree. The joy I get from the fruit samples at Whole Foods and the little coffee sample at Traders Joe’s is probably embarrassingly high. Even if I don’t buy fruit at whole foods that trip or coffee from Trader Joes, it puts me in a better mood, which I’m sure makes me buy more things.
Have you read Art De Vany’s “The New Evolution Diet”? That sold me on paleo. Haven’t followed it as well as I would like to, since I’m a poor cook, but it got me to at least quit eating bread. Have you read any paleo cookbooks?