A remarkable thing happens every Saturday at the Farmers'
Market in Midville: Customers routinely overbuy, carrying
away sacks of produce they'll never eat. They talk about it
during subsequent visits, some lament their inability to
control themselves, then they overbuy again.
Mary Ann McGrath, from Loyola, John Sherry, Jr., from
Northwestern, and Deborah Heisley, from UCLA recently spent
an entire 19-week season studying this market. They watched
everything and stayed until everyone had gone home trying to
learn the secrets of Midville. Here's what they found:
The Farmers' Market at Midville is an event, like theater,
and the farmers are the characters . . . Average Joe Farmer,
Enterprising Botanist, Aggressive Food Tycoon, Middle Aged
Matriarch, Bumbling Novice, Ethnic Extended Family, and the
Hobby Farmer. Each has a distinct appearance and plays a
role to have fun and create fun for customers who thoroughly
enjoy the show. Indeed, customers often assume roles
themselves: city slickers getting in touch with their
agrarian roots.
With nothing more than numbered patches of concrete and an
open sky, these people come together once a week and create a
community -- a gathering of villagers. It arouses a loyalty
from participants that's expressed in dollars changing hands.
Customers are in no hurry at the Farmers' Market. They
stroll in and walk the length of the market, then retrace
their steps and buy themselves back to their starting points.
Most of their time is spent visiting, and most conversations
involve using the products. Farmers come armed with recipes
and freely offer advice for preparing them, and customers
often add recipes of their own.
Business owners should follow this example and find ways
to help customers use their products, say McGrath and her
associates. For example, grocery stores should create recipe
corners in their produce sections: 3 stools, a counter, paper
and pencils, a bulletin board, a few recipes using newly
available produce signed by the produce manager, with
invitations to add recipes and sign them.
They also urge us to duplicate farmers' markets with
other kinds of products. They suggest retailers work with
civic authorities to create regular village markets, possibly
patterned after European markets. Owners would create booths
and supply "characters" to staff them (perhaps the owners
themselves) and strive to create the kind of experience
observed at Midville.
They also believe we should use some of the display and
promotion practices they observed. For example, Midville
patrons are overwhelmed by sensual stimuli, the sights,
smells, tastes, sounds, and textures of the market. Farmers
display produce in overflowing baskets and offer samples to
taste at every booth. Touching is encouraged and the odor of
ripe fruit and flowers fills the air.
We should add sensual stimulation to our business
settings, they say. Supermarkets which include bakeries
should place them in the center of the store so the odor of
baking bread will dominate. Every business should find ways
to stimulate the senses in ways which will make their products
and services more attractive.
The Midville Market also creates a strong sense of the
passing of time. Every Saturday new signs appear:
"Last day for strawberries", "First day for peaches."
Produce appears and disappears simultaneously as the movement
through the growing season creates boundaries for the
produce. It creates an urgency of the slipping away of
opportunity. There is also an urgency during each Saturday
market. Everything for sale is in the display, and by 2 P.M.
it will all be gone.
The farmers at the Midville Market are authentic
characters with quirks who can best be likened to Charlie Chaplin's
"little man"
character, made immortal in silent movies of the 1920s.
These direct sales people mock themselves, tell jokes, and
display uncommon common sense. Customers develop a genuine
affection for them.
Five unique qualities: community, helping customers use
your products, sensual stimulation, movement through time,
and authentic,
"little man"
direct sales people. The Midville Market emphasizes these
qualities and the customers react with purchasing behavior
business owners dream about.
Reference:
McGrath, Mary Ann, John F. Sherry, Jr., and Deborah D.
Heisley (1993) An Ethnographic Study of an Urban Periodic
Marketplace: Lessons from the Midville Farmers' Market.
Journal of Retailing,
69 (3), 280-318.
Customer Psychology Findings, by James Larsen, Ph.D.
Lessons from the Midville Farmers' Market
A field study discovers powerful drivers for retail purchasing behavior.