The Discovery Wars: From Inspiration to Transaction
By: Melina Flabiano
Tags: Retail, Consumer Goods, Consumer Behavior, Direct To Consumer, Style

The process for “getting to know” new brands is broken. This topic could fill many books, so I’m starting today with a high-level look at the landscape. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be exploring some up-and-coming solutions to the discovery problem.

Photo by Cristofer Jeschke on Unsplash

Back in the mid 2000s when I was a teenager, malls were still a cool place to hang out. I’d meet up with friends at Sbarro for a slice (or California Pizza Kitchen if it was someone’s birthday 🍕) and wander the shops.

When shopping for my prom dress, there were only ~5 stores I considered visiting. Many of these were department stores that carried a multitude of brands. Department stores did the work of curation for me.

This was the era of the traditional brand funnel. Consumers start with a set of potential brands and systematically eliminate options until they make a purchase.

Since then, the process of “discovering” a brand has become much more fragmented. McKinsey defined the Consumer Decision Journey in 2009:

The [traditional brand] funnel concept fails to capture all the touch points and key buying factors resulting from the explosion of product choices and digital channels, coupled with the emergence of an increasingly discerning, well-informed consumer. A more sophisticated approach is required to help marketers navigate this environment, which is less linear and more complicated than the funnel suggests.

In the consumer decision journey, brands can be added and subtracted from the consideration set throughout the decision-making process.

It’s amazing that there are so many brands that want to be the Perfect X for us. There is an olive oil that speaks to my millennial lifestyle, and home goods designed for tiny apartment living (I’m definitely the target customer). But as the number of brands vying for our attention grows, it becomes harder for any one to break through the noise. And it becomes frustrating for customers to navigate brand choice across myriad channels and formats.

When I shop for a formal dress today, my customer journey covers various discovery approaches:

Scroll Instagram explore page and save anything I like (downside: I wade through weight-loss tips and pictures of reality TV stars)

Google style descriptors like to identify relevant brands in Google Shopping (downside: I sift through poor-quality listings that are likely dropshipped from overseas)

Check out new styles from my favorite monobrand sites, e.g. Reformation (downside: I can look at only one brand at a time)

Look at what’s in-stock with my favorite designers on multibrand sites, e.g. Nordstrom and Shopbop (downside: many multibrand sites have poor UX and clunky filtering/search capabilities)

Google a few brands that friends have mentioned to me (downside: hard to remember)

Often, brands I’ve stumbled across and liked early on in my “discovery phase” have been forgotten by later in the process. Many times, I end up settling because I’m simply tired of scrolling.

As a person who studies the “future of retail” I refuse to accept that this is how an ideal shopping experience should look. The good news is that I’m not the only one who sees an opportunity.