Do we really need 10 varieties of salt?

Do we really need 10 varieties of salt? comment 39

Sometimes I think the consumer’s life is a tough one! The consumer is sometimes forgotten by commercial decision-makers, even if they do feel concerned about his needs and interests and makes him the centre of the world. We have been shadowing the consumer for 20 years; literally following him. We specialise in Consumer Behaviour Analysis, but we forget the consumer is not a machine. He is still a human being. So I’d like to take a shopper’s point of view of today’s “Supermarket World”. illustration by rahel eisenring

Paradise lost? Let’s go back to the time when, little by little and with a heavy heart I had to give up with Paul, my greengrocer. He was just down the street. He knew how to advise me on what to serve with my stuffed turkey. He used to choose the best courgettes for me and would give me only the same size if I had to stuff them. He would walk me home carrying my

shopping basket if it was too heavy. He would call me by name and didn’t need to read it aloud from a loyalty card. I can still remember the sound of his voice wishing Good Morning Signora Scandroglio. How different from the mechanical and also mangled Good Morning Signora Scan..dro..lio (or worst, the familiar Guisi)! But time went by, progress dictated the rules, and I started shopping in the supermarket nearby- beautiful, modern, efficient, rich, and multicoloured. One can find anything in there. Nevertheless I was not used to it. I could not find my tin of breakfast biscuits on my own- the red box with the goldyellow edge. Is it the one on the upper shelf? To me it looked smaller or maybe bigger... different anyhow. But I had to find it on my own and had to look around, search, and when finding it, I had to keep it in mind. I had to learn. In the beginning I wandered about the

© ecr

Giusi Scandroglio Milan, Italy

journal

vol. 4, no. 1

summer 2004

Consumers enjoy quality, value and service, so is it too much to