S2 E2 | Shopping vs Restocking

Restocking is that whole. Is that whole aspect of just, you know, I ran out of something or the fact is, like, I know what I want and I'm literally just going to the store to make sure I can put some more in my cupboard or more in my garage. And so part of it is being able to. It's not that I'm trying to switch, it's the fact that I don't have anymore or what I have, I ran out of or what I have broke. And so I'm just like, restocking, it's habit. At the end of the day, restocking is about habit.

Welcome to the Circuit Breaker podcast where we challenge the status quo of innovation.

And new product development.

We'll talk about tools and skills and methodologies used to build better products and make you a better consumer. I'm Bob Mesta and I'm the co founder of the Rewired Group and I'm one of your co hosts and we're joined by Greg Engel, who is my co founder and chief, Bob Interpreter. Join us now as we trip the circuit and give you time to reset, reorganize, and recharge your brain to build better products.

Hey, Bob.

Hey, Greg.

I want to talk about a notion we've had for a while and it's just been coming to light lately when talking with some of our CPG customers and some of our retail customers. And that is the difference between what we call restocking and shopping. And it's a very complicated topic because most people just say we shop. But when you go and watch people at the supermarket, there's actually two different things going on. There's people that go through the shelf and you can just watch them just pick things off. Don't even look. They're just picking it off, throwing it in their cart and walking on. And there's other times people stop and they look and they're really looking around for things and they're, they're, you can see them pick stuff up and put stuff back down and then they go over here and they pick something up and they put it down and there's just confusion. You can almost see the confusion on their face. That's the difference to us between restocking and shopping. And we have to understand that the difference is there because as a, as a company that's making product for people, not every time someone goes into a store is that an opportunity for us to make a new sale. So I want to walk through a little bit of that notion today, and I Want to define what shopping is to us and then what restocking is to us. So let me take shopping, and then I'm going to let you take restocking.

You got it.

So shopping to us is when you walk into the store and you know you have a problem. You know, you have something you want to solve, but it's something that you. You are still shaping in your mind and you're going over and let's just. Let's just say you're. You're. You have to clean your bathroom.

I was going to say I got mold in the shower. Right.

And you've done it before, but it didn't really work. So you're looking at all the different options, and you're picking up bottles and you're reading claims and you're reading these different things, and you're trying to figure out which one to buy, and you're really trying to make a decision at that point of sale. That's shopping. That can happen at the store. That can happen during advertising. That can happen.

A lot of places be asking, asking, you know, my brother or my, My, you know, somebody. I know about it. It's all that. All that stuff is part of shopping.

But we still see. We can see that in the. We can actually see that in a grocery store. Right. You can actually see people do it. You see it all the time.

Yep. But. But people confuse the difference between, I know what I want, but I can't find it. And like, so they stop and they pause and they look like I've been, you know, in the. In the cleaning aisle. Right. And I'll stop. And I'm like, I'm looking for this specific cleaner and I can't find it. And people mistake it. Like I'm trying to shop for something, and it's like, no, I'm not shopping. I'm literally just trying to restock what I have. I just can't see it on the shelf where it is.

All right, so you jumped the gun a little bit. So what is restocking?

Restocking Is that whole. Is that whole aspect of just, you know, I ran out of something or the fact is, like, I know what I want, and I'm literally just going to the store to make sure I can put some more in my cupboard or more in my garage. And. And so part of it is being able to. It's. It's not that I'm trying to switch. It's the fact that I don't have anymore or what I have, I ran out of or What I have broke. And so I'm just like, restock. It's habit. At the end of the day, restocking is about habit.

And that's one of the things we want to get to as, as makers of products, we want to get to habit.

You want, you want people to have you as a habit where they just buy it because that's what they've been buying forever.

So it's a good thing when we see restocking, but it's also a thing that we have to understand when we see restocking. That means our new entry has to do things before you even get to the. To someone gets to the shopping center to do that.

That's right. That's right. And so part of this is that whole aspect of like the struggling moment, right? If there's no struggling moment, that is about something better, but it's just simply about, I don't have it. It's just really different mindset going into the store. That's really what we're trying to talk about is what, what is the person's mindset as they go into the store about the things they're going to get.

And I think the reason why I want to talk about this topic a little bit is because it's kind of boring. It's kind of, you know. Oh yeah, it seems really mundane. Right. But. But it's, it's something that companies struggle with all the time. And it's not just CPG companies struggle with it. Everybody struggles with it in a way. But in the grocery store, in the, in a NSC store, you can actually see it. And the reason why I want to talk about is because we often get upset as CPG companies, as companies making product when we see people not choosing our product. But we have to understand that there are times that people aren't. They're not looking to change. But by using jobs to be done, by understanding empathetic perspective, by understanding how things work, we can actually do things before they get to the store to cause people to realize their old solution might not be working. Right. And that's where we wanted. We talk about this concept because we need people to understand it. And then we also need to use jobs we've done in advertising and in point of sale stuff to put people in context. Because that's what starts the question in their head of is this product really working for me? And I think you have to do that in advertising and in your positioning first before they get to the store. Because once I get to the store, I'm in that mode of restock shop and if I'm not in the shopping moment, I might just forget about it until the next time it doesn't work.

It might not be bad enough. And so this is where like, you know, it's almost like I think about it as when somebody walks into the store, they've got a thousand things in their head. They might have a list, but they also have other things they're holding in their head. And so part of it is, is like there's, there's a list of things they know they got to get and there's list of things that like they got to figure out. And my belief is that's what we're trying to actually as people who help build new products, we're trying to find the places and spaces and times when people actually have the space in the brain for something new and trying to get in their way when they're in the middle of just trying to restock, if you will. We end up pissing them off more than anything else. Right?

Yeah. Or we change locations of stuff. Right. It throws them off. Or we change the color of pack. Oh yeah. Our office talked about cat food and she always bought this cat food that was a certain color, it was in.

A certain spot, didn't read anything, but just saw it, knew the image of.

It and then they changed the pack. So they created a sterling moment. So she actually bought a different brand because she couldn't find what she was restocking for. So, so this is the, this is the important part of understanding the difference. Right, Is because sometimes we make decisions that then cause people to shop because we've changed pack, we've changed claims, we've changed different things. We don't think about that all the time. So I think this is a two edged sword and I think we want to talk about both of them. So let's talk about Catherine's struggle first, which is you change the pack because you think it's going to be more impactful. And they might have, I think they changed color and they changed the picture of the cat. So she knew the picture of the cat. It was this type of a cat. I can't remember it, but it was this type of cat. And then all of a sudden it was a different color cat and it was a different thing and she couldn't find it and she couldn't remember all the claims it had before even the name of it. Right, because she changed. Right. Because she went from shopping to restocking and when she went to restocking it was. I didn't care about the claims anymore. Just keep buying that same thing that my cat eats and we'll set the name of the cat.

But the moment she couldn't find it, it's like all of a sudden, well, it doesn't exist. Or you start wrestling with your mind, like, why? What is it? Can I remember what it was? And then you start looking at the. Then you've got to actually go deeper than you thought. And that's the point where all of a sudden that's an opportunity to switch. Right. And so most people think they're actually making the package better, and what they're doing is they're actually making it worse.

Well, they could be.

Could be.

Depends, right? If you have a top selling thing and you change the pack to make it better, are you really going to make it better or are you going to make it harder for people to find?

Yeah.

And that's going to be that. That's going to be the question. And the other thing people can use it for or understand this concept for and use this for is advertising. So when we talk to people about the difference between shopping and restocking, when someone gets in the habit of buying, it's really hard to get them out of that habit of buying something unless you tackle one of the core things we talk about in jobs, which is context. So we believe, and I want you to talk a little bit, and if you can come up with an example that's. That would be great. Of people have changed their ads to be more context driven. So it shows that they're struggling, and then it actually gives them an opportunity before they get to the store, before they get into restocking mode, that maybe their old thing doesn't work and they should look for a new.

Yes. And there's many different examples, but I think the one that comes to mind about things we just keep buying over and over again is insurance. Right. I think of the Allstate commercials where they basically have, you know, you're covered when this happens. And it's all these extreme situations where you're like, ooh, maybe I'm not covered if I have this happen or not covered if I have that happen. And it's a part of it is advertising, creating the space in the brain for it. Right. I think the other thing is, like, I look at the Tide commercials, right? And most people will, why do I need a pod? But what they show is in the commercial, they show that the teenager doing the laundry, they show, you know, the partner doing they do show other people doing the laundry. And so all of a sudden they're actually saying like, ooh, maybe if I buy pods, people can actually help with laundry. And so you start to realize there's these other aspects of it, to realize that it's too complicated when it's the powder. Right. And so it's that kind of thing where you start to realize is like you need to actually, the advertising is the place where you create the space in the brain for a new solution to fall into. And so part of it is that's the role marketing should play is not only on the positioning but also to help frame the struggling moment of what better could be like. But not from a, not from just a benefit side, but also from the, from the, you know, the struggling side.

So in this concept, it's not like a hard concept, right. But it's, it's one of those things that we don't often think about when we're developing products, when we're developing strategies, when we're developing those things. So can you talk about like how, how do you use this theory, this thing that we're coming up with, like, how should people use it? We talked a little bit about changing product, we talked a little or changing pack, we talked a little bit about advertising. Is there other reasons why you need to keep this in the back of your head as a developer?

Yeah, so, so part of this is to realize that as you're developing something new, the real thing is what is the struggling moment you're trying to solve for. And ultimately, how do we actually, what are people going to fire when they hire you? And so part of this is, is a lot of times one of the people, people ask like, well, how do I actually do job interviews before, you know, I've developed the product? And so part of this is where we study that, you know, basically what people would fire and why people chose it and what are the things that are, what are the trade offs they're making, why they're picking that product. Right. And so you start to realize, like at some point in time you need to actually understand that people, for your product to take off, people actually need to either use it in a new situation or they need to basically stop using something else and start using yours. And so having that frame around it all the time is kind of how we're always thinking about it from that perspective. We all want to get to this habit part, but the fact is if they're stuck in habit, it's very hard to get them out. But it's the moments that they're not in habit where they're literally willing to look at something different is where you have to actually kind of focus.

Yeah. So I. I kind of like in this. And then we're struggling with what to call it. It's. It's a. It's a framework. Right. Shopping restocking framework that we use. And. And I actually use it as empathetic perspective. Right. As I'm developing something, I have to look at it as through the eyes of. If I'm just restocking and I'm developing this new product, how do I. What. What are the problems with the. The category I'm going into? What are the struggling moments? And how do I actually talk about those so people know that my new product will do something better for them? Then the other thing I use it for, empathetic perspective, is if I'm redesigning it, if I'm changing it, if I'm changing pack, if I'm doing those things, how does it interrupt the restocking phase of my customers? Right. So I have to look at both sides all the time. So it's another way of bringing in empathetic perspective. If you understand and you're looking at these things and saying, how does it affect him when I'm in this situation? How does that affect when I'm in this situation?

Yep. And, I mean, I'll reveal a little bit, maybe too much, but, like, I've been. I was a big pert user, like, for 20 years, and then P and G sold pert, and you couldn't find it on the shelf. And like, I bought shampoo maybe once every six months. I don't, you know, you don't go through shampoo that much. And so it's one of those things where I kind of went back to the shelf and it's like, it's not on the shelf. Like, what do I do? Right. And ultimately I kind of know the different products, but, like, the hair care aisle is, like, just ridiculous. Like. Like, it's way more thought than I want to give to it. Right. And so the only thing I could remember is that the reason why I liked it is because it was two in one. Right. It was like, okay, I could put the shampoo and conditioner in the same thing, and it worked out great. And so eventually the thing I ended up buying was Head and Shoulders two in one. Right. And so I switched over to Head and Shoulders two and one. Not because I wanted to, not because I was literally, you know, looking for a Better shampoo. At the same time, I'm like, do I have dandruff? I really don't know or not. But, like, it works. It's fine. And to be honest, I've been using it for 10 years. And so it's one of those things where it's like, just because they wasn't available at the right spot. Do I love Head and Shoulders? Not really. Do I really need anything better? Not really. You know what I mean? Like, that's. That's. So I buy Head and Shoulders over and over again. And so you could say that I switched from pert to head and Shoulders, but it was purely because I couldn't find pert.

Yeah. But what I would take out of that story. Well, first of all I want to take out of that story is Bob shops at bulk places. So don't start doing calculations on whether Bob is hygiene is good or bad. But I shop at Costco. The real thing, I take the real thing I take out of that. That is if I want to get Bob to switch, and I'm using this framework. The important thing he said was two in one. The important thing he said was those types of things. So we have to look at people that are struggling with those types of things. And it could be time, it could be efficiency, it could be a bunch of different things. But if I want to get his attention, I have to be talking about those situations. I can't talk about, oh, you're going to have luxurious hair.

Right. So the weird way I look at it is like, shampoo is not something I want to think about at all ever. Right. And it's the one time where all of a sudden it was there and. Or it wasn't there and I had to find out something else. And it was like, oh, this is good enough. But there are things that kind of pop up that are those moments, but for the most part, they're not predictable. And typically, I don't want to think about it.

Yes. But I wanted. So you're making it sound very simple. Right. And I want to.

It's not simple.

And I want to just make sure we're talking about the. The things in this.

Shopping, which is you were forced to shop. You went through. I heard you go through your things of. I imagine they were showing, you know, shampoos, if I know shampoo commercials, you know, they're showing great hair. They're showing all these different things. They're showing scent. They're doing all these things. And that's not what mattered to you?

No. I didn't.

I didn't even matter to you. The claim that mattered to you, the thing that mattered to you was two in one.

I'm not even sure it mattered. It was the only thing I could use to describe why I bought it. I mean, so that's. But it's not like I was looking for it.

But in. But you were. You were looking for it because if it didn't say two and one, you weren't buying it.

It turns out that's right. But I. Again, it was. It was what I would call is in the subconscious. And my thing is, is when I struggle, that's when it brings it up to the conscious. But I would literally want to get rid of it as fast as possible.

I understand that boat, but when you were shopping.

Yes.

What was the criteria used to pick the shampoo?

It was pert first.

I know, but it wasn't there. So you were shopping and then.

And then all. All I could remember about the old thing was two in one.

That's my point.

I. I get it.

So. So we want to make sure that we're. When we're talking about that shopping things, what is important to the person? And if we kind of know the jobs for that stuff, and that is a. There. There is a portion, a desired outcome, a hiring criteria that encompasses that.

Yes, correct.

And it's a much bigger thing than just that one thing. But it's part of one of the functional criteria that you have to have in one of the jobs for hair care or for beauty care. So we know a lot more. We don't want to really share all of that, but that's why we're being a little guarded here. But the important thing to realize, when you were shopping, you had criteria in your head. And as a company, I have to know that criteria when I bring a new entrant in or when I'm trying to get someone to change when they're in the shopping mode. And that's the important takeaway here.

That's correct. And I guess the other thing to realize is the moment something's out of stock is an opportunity. But at the same time, most of the time when people like, I didn't. I didn't sit around watching commercials and thinking about my hair. It's like, literally, no pert. What do I do? Two in one. I mean, it was that quick, that fast. And so part of this is to realize that those opportunities do exist, but that's not really. My belief is you're not building your product to do that. You should be building your product to solve a problem that people have. Right. And then they'll see your product.

Yes. And we. Yes.

So I just pissed Greg off for some reason. I don't know.

You didn't. I'm just trying to make sure we're making this so people can understand the story or understand the thing that we're trying to get out. Which is when you're in shopping, you are making criteria off of a job to be done.

That's correct. Off of what? The outcome that you're. The outcome that you're seeking and the problem that you're. You're trying to solve.

And you're making it sound trite, and it's not trite.

I'm not trying to make it sound trite. I'm trying to. From an empathetic perspective of the person in. Seems like it's very, very simple, but actually when you look at it through the lens of. Through space and time, it's actually very hard.

Yes. And that's what I'm trying to get out. The example you gave, it sounded very simple.

Well, again, from the customer side, it sounds simple.

And that's the thing I want people to take away from this is, look, there's things that when you're in shopping, you have to understand. And it's not just a job. There are shopper insights that go into this. There's different things that go into this. And you have. And you have to take in all the different ways to get a customer to buy your product. And it starts from first thought, which could be advertising all the way to point of sale or claims on the bottle. Right. And that's. And that's what we're really trying to get you to understand here is when you have the opportunity at shelf to shop, you need to have the right things in there. But also know that that opportunity starts way sooner than at the shelf. Because once I'm in restock mode and they have it and then there's no problems. I'm not even looking for another alternative. When the opportunity presents itself, then I will shop. But even in Bob's case that he. The story he gave is he switched all the way over all the time and out of stock.

I didn't plan to do that.

Out of stock means I might buy something different to solve that time, but I might go back to the old.

Exactly.

And we don't know that when they're shopping for that stuff. So don't count on out of stock, I think is what Bob was really trying to say. There is don't count on out of stock to be your opportunity to get new sales, to get into habit. But know that out of stock does cause problems. So you have to worry about that if you're an incumbent, that new entrants can come in from that space. But the real important things to take out of this is that when people go into a store and they go into this to buy things, they are in shopping or restocking mode and there's little opportunity then to switch somebody over to your new to your product when they're restocking. So you have to think about this before you have to think about it in development, you have to think about it in advertising. You have to think about this. And you have to use empathetic perspective to do that at very early on to understand how do you get people into a different context before they get to the shop, before they get to restocking? If you, if you're in a shopping mode, anything you do in the restocking mode to get, to get people to understand the new context or get people into different contexts will work in shopping as well. Right. So it's those things. But think about the consequences of when you have somebody in habit, when you have somebody in restocking and you start changing things. Think about that as that could be an opportunity for a new entrant to come in.

That's right. I mean, it's the same, same problem when people, you know, they just, they get a new iPhone after a new iPhone and it's like, that's just restocking. Right. Versus I got a new, you know, I got, I went from an iPhone to a Samsung. That's not restocking. That's like, that's a change. And so what, you know what, what I think about is, is Deming would always talk about like things are a process and you want it to be consistent. And I think of restocking is about kind of, kind of the consistency, like building consistency. And shopping is when I have an anomaly, something's not working, something's not right, I can't get what I want. And I need to actually understand the anomalies because that's where growth comes from, is anomalies.

And just to kind of like wrap up what we're talking about as we kind of wind down this. It's not an argument, I don't think, because people that know us would say that wasn't an argument. People that don't know us might say we were having an argument.

So who knows language, I think Part of this is, the hard part is language in that there's not clear language around. And, you know, a consumer will say they're shopping, but they're really restocking. And so part of this is it's a mode that we've picked up because of intent or people's intent.

I also think you're seeing a little bit of personality of Bob wants to make things Bob doesn't want. Bob has a thing of trying to make things very easy for people to grasp. And I want people to really struggle with things. So I think there's a personality thing there as well.

Yes.

But to wrap up, kind of what we're talking about today is really think about shopping as when someone goes in and they don't know what they're going to buy, they're trying to figure it out. They're looking at labels, they're looking at the claims, they're looking at all those things. They're trying to figure out whether it's going to fit in their life or not. And restocking is the. I'm just picking up whatever it is. The other thing I think we want you to take away is think about this framework when you're developing product. Think about this framework when you were thinking about advertising, positioning, but also think about this product when you go to change something that's been on the market for a while, when you go to update your brand or update your package, think about this. Think about what struggle, what struggling moments are you creating for your customer? And then I think the takeaway or the homework or the assignment we give at the end is, I just want you to. Next time you go to the grocery store, take a couple minutes. Don't be a creeper and talk to people.

That was going to be my suggestion, but that's because that's what I do.

Don't be a creeper and talk to people. But I just want you to watch. And you can do it with your own behavior. But it's actually really, really powerful when you watch other people walk up and down an aisle. Look, watch people observe what they're doing. And can you identify shopping versus restocking? And what I would tell you is shopping usually indicates picking up more than one item and restocking. You can literally see it in a lot of places where they're just. They don't even slow down. They just slap it right off when they're looking.

They're just looking for it and they just grab it and then they move on to the next thing.

So I want you to take the time. And I want you to think about that and watch that happen. And then just think about how many times do you do it in your life and however many times you do it, how many times you saw it, that's how many times your customers are doing it as well. What are you going to do differently to change that paradigm for people? If you have a new entrant coming in, you have to change the change the give people context. You have to change things at a first, you have to create first thought, you have to create events, you have to create all those things on our timeline to get there. And if you're in the restock mode, how do you prevent people from getting into that? And that's what I want you to really think about as you think about this this podcast. Thanks thank you.

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