Don’t Live in the Years of Product Discovery Past
Season 2, Episode 3 of the NMR Podcast with CEO, Keegan Edwards on how “near me” searches have changed product discovery.
Participants:
Keegan Edwards – CEO of New Media Retailer
Video Transcript:
[Please excuse any grammatical errors, transcript is machine generated](00:02):
In the past when I wanted to buy a power drill, I drove right to the local hardware store. I walked in, I went to the power drill aisle, and I walked around until I found the power drill that I was interested in purchasing. I might have talked to the store associate, I might have looked at the different brands available in the store. And that’s how I decided what power drill I was going to purchase. Today, when I want to buy a power drill, I pull my phone out of my pocket and I search power drills near me. And I look at the Google search results to see not only the power drills that show up in the search engine results, but then I click through to the different websites of the local stores that are around me that sell power drills. I look at the different brands, the different products, the different pro, the different inventory levels at the different stores, how far away each store is from me, and then I select which hardware store I’m going to go to and purchase the exact power drill that I’ve decided I wanted.
(01:02):
Now, of course, consumers buy in multiple different ways. So what’s true for a single consumer is not gonna be true for all. But as we look at the trends of what’s occurred over the past several years, more and more people search, where can I buy this product near me? In fact, near me, searches, as Google calls them, are one of the fastest growing searches year over year in Google of any search term that exists. And the reason for that is because people know that when they want to buy a product, all they have to do is pull that smartphone out of their phone, out of their pocket, and search for who sells this product near me. And they are presented with all of the information possible about who sells that product, what price they sell it at, and whether or not it’s in stock at that store.
(01:50):
And consumers have become too lazy to drive to the store first before they find out what exactly is there and if the product they want to buy is available in stock. So when consumers behave this way, it means a few serious things for retailers. So what used to be true of rural and suburban markets where there was insulation because the store and rightfully so thought, well, if somebody wants to buy a power drill, they’ll have to drive to my hardware store, right? They’re not going to drive really far out of their way. We’re the only hardware store in town. However, e-commerce options and big box stores who ship are just a click away. And now for that consumer, when they search for a specific product that they want to buy, if their local store does not come up in that search and they don’t see the products available on the website, they assume that the store probably doesn’t sell that product. And they think, oh, well, I’ve gotta drive 45 minutes to the nearest big box store, or I can just click right over here and wait two or three days for an e-commerce company to ship that product to me in my rural
(02:58):
Market. So the insulation of the rural or suburban markets start to go away if the store is not prepared to adequately represent their products, their prices, and their inventory on their website. And even better than that, to take steps to integrate those products directly into Google so that when people search and Google for specific products near them, they find their local independent retailer. So there’s a few ways to go about doing this. The best way to do it is to talk with your marketing specialist about integrating your point of sale system to your website so that your products, prices, and inventory will all stay up to date on your website. Google will take notice and consumers will too. And you’ll see in your analytics that hundreds if not thousands, if not tens of thousands depending on your market of people who are searching for specific products in your area that you sell, and will now be finding your business as a result of your online product catalog.
(03:57):
So don’t live in the product discovery past where people drove to the store before they decided what they wanted to buy, or without knowing whether or not that store sold what they wanted. Right now that product discovery happens online and people search to see who has this product near me, and then decide based on product, price and inventory, whether or not they’re going to drive to your store to buy it. So get your products on your website, keep ’em up to date, and that’s what we’re here to help you do so that you can rank higher in Google and attract more local customers.