Accessibility, Convenience and Comfort - Examples

Location, Location, Location
Consumers generally purchase regular items wherever is most convenient (if pricing is OK), and buy more specialist items either as diversions during trips made for other reasons (accessibility to the items, unplanned or otherwise) or in destinations where they believe they will get a decent choice and/or good advice. Wherever consumers plan their shopping, they are reflecting their beliefs and attitudes about the location.

The flip-side to this is the well-established principle in retailing is that the location of a shop has a greater impact on it's sales potential than nearly anything else. Good retailers seek out locations which match the target market for their outlets.

Differences in locations include the number of people who frequent the area, demographics, ease of parking, modality of customers (e.g. passersby, people on shopping expeditions, lunchtime forays, recreation, "retail therapy"); time of day patterns (e.g. city-centre after work traffic; mothers on the school run during the week, weekend shopping excursions).

Pregnancy Clothing
Pregnant mothers shop for clothes in ways that demonstrate the importance of good customer franchise. Since pregnancy clothing is not carried by most shops, specialist retailers offer a combination of convenience, advice (if needed), and an the comfort of dealing with staff who understand the context in which the mother is shopping.

Betamax v VHS
The famous Betamax v VHS video recorder format "war" is an example of winning market share by leveraging the customer franchise of accessible, convenient, and familiar distribution channels:

In the early days of the consumer video recorder market, JVC (the company who originated the VHS format) had much broader coverage of electrical retailers than did Betamax's owner, Sony. Both had established relationships with distributors and retailers from their sales of television sets (in JVC's case, sold under several brand names).

The Betamax format was technically superior to VHS, though the benefits required some initial explanation. VHS-based products were, like Betamax, of good quality (for the time), performed well, and met the needs of most consumers. There were no initially no significant price differences between the two formats.

At the time, the staff of these retailers provided face-to-face explanations and advice about products to individual customers as "part of the service". Customers were familiar with the electrical retailers, and often returned to the outlet where they had bought their colour television.

Despite Sony trying to counter the broader availability of VHS by establishing networks of Sony branded retailers, most consumers turned to the advice available in established retailers they were familiar with, and the market share of VHS quickly outpaced that of Betamax.
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