Service With A Smile...No, Mask July 2020

How the Coronavirus has Shoppers
Missing the Sensory Experience and
the Effect on Private Brands
I miss the grocery store, I mean
I really miss it.
But, there are many who don’t.
For shoppers who already saw it
as a mind-numbing, robotic and
repetitive chore that just had to be
done, then you might not be missing
a thing, embracing the digital
or curbside experience in all its
passionless glory during the coronavirus
pandemic. It is this group,
the newer digital/curbside shoppers,
who private brand marketers should
worry about.
Yet I miss it, and I especially miss the
sights, sounds and everything sensory
as it applies to my local supermarket.
The smell of the bakery, the
color-breaks and display pyramiding
of a good produce section, product
sampling munchies, chickens turning
on the rotisserie and even the smiles
and conversation from customer
service. My local store succeeds in
everything sensory.
But today COVID-19 does not have
us valuing anything sensory. Rather
it has us valuing the functional
experience, premised on safety and
efficiency. For the foreseeable future,
it more like service with a mask, not
service with a smile.
A Sensory Gut-Check.
Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
our five basic senses. Two of them
have basically been taken away. No
product samples and in-store cafes,
so really no “taste”. You can only
count “touch” if that includes touching
something with rubber gloves.
“Sight” is also a little impaired, as
most shoppers just have their heads
down, walking with the forced aisle
flow, and just trying to go as fast as
they can. We also can’t see any people’s
expressions in the store, as they
are covered by masks.
That leaves “smell” and “sound”. As for
“smell”, it is tough to smell anything
except the overpowering scent of hand
sanitizer these days, and the “sounds”
of the store have also been muted.
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