A store in Australia
is charging a $5 fee for customers
who are ‘just looking’.
This $5 fee is refunded
if a purchase is made.
I hope this was a play
for media coverage.
If it was,
it was successful.
If it wasn’t,
then I question the management’s knowledge
of their customers
because
40% of consumer spending
is impulse buying
and 20% of everything people buy
at a grocery store
(the fee charging store’s industry)
is impulse buying.
Impulse buying happens
when people are ‘just looking.’
The store management’s official reason,
that they’ve been unsuccessful
at converting precious foot traffic
(what every other store struggles to gain)
into sales
so they’ve decided to reduce their foot traffic,
really makes them look like dumb a$$es.
If impulse buying is important to your business,
encourage people to ‘just look.’