Queuing is a part of Japanese habits. During rush hour, people stand in line to board trains. At amusement parks such as Disneyland, people wait for one or two hours to get into popular attractions. Likewise, people are queuing up in front of restaurants or food shops to get in. Queues mean sales growth. My recent experience shows how the first customer attracts more people quickly in Japan.
A Customer attracts customers
On a Saturday afternoon, I was looking for dinner dishes in the food section at the department store. I stopped by a cheese counter where a storewoman offered small pieces of cheese canapés to promote imported cheese. But no customers stopped to taste them, though a couple of people looked at the cheese. “These are natural cheeses, just arrived from France.” At the storewoman’s voice, I inadvertently picked up the canapé from her tray. She smiled at me and handed me a small brochure for cooking recipes. When I looked back, I realized that several people had come to the display and picked up canapés from the tray. One woman picked up one block of cheese and asked the store clerk about it. I seemed to have set something off single-handedly!
Follow crowds for a safe choice
In Japan, gatherings attract more people. And people believe the majority choice is safe. One typical situation is restaurant selection. When people have no idea which restaurants to choose, they typically go to places with many customers. A long queue means a full restaurant. People join the queue at the end without worrying about how long they will have to wait. But people hesitate to be the first customer. Of course, people do not care whether the shops are full of customers when they have prior experience with them. But people tend to rely on majority preferences when deciding which products or services to buy for the first time. Crowds in front of shows signal majority preference.
Majority influences in e-commerce
The phenomenon is equally – perhaps more – powerful in the world of e-commerce. For new products, consumers refer to the number of positive customer reviews and the popularity ranking. Five-star ratings for products on Amazon and Rakuten prompt purchases. Review sites such as @cosme for cosmetics and Tabelog for restaurants and food shops also influence consumers’ purchase decisions. Furthermore, news about the rankings of popular shops also serves as a reference for consumers when making purchase decisions. Consumers believe that purchasers’ opinions are reliable for their own purchase decision-making.
How to forecast purchase intentions?
In a market where consensus seems more important than elsewhere, the very notion of purchase intention for a product yet to launch is inherently problematic. How are marketers to measure purchase intention in any meaningful way, when in the real world, purchase intention is so profoundly impacted by context?
In a typical pre-launch survey, we ask consumers about their purchase intentions after showing the concept and product usage experiences. And naturally, they express their opinions – system 2 – based on the information available to them. Yet there’s a significant body of evidence suggesting that it’s system 1 judgments (e.g., “Are other people buying it?”) that have a greater impact. How can this be factored into the measurement of purchase intent?
First customer and its news spreads
A trend always starts with a first customer. The trend prompts most people to buy goods or services. The first customer is an early adopter, often open to new products and services. Then, news media and SNS play a role in spreading information about new products or services. Of course, sellers’ advertisements and sales promotions continue to influence consumer purchases. But the influence of news via social networks has become stronger than before.
Given that early customers and media can catalyze the trend, how can we measure purchase intention before launching new products or services? It is not easy to identify early adopters in Japan because, generally, it’s less culturally acceptable to stand out. Another challenge is that effective media differs by segment.
Yet early adopters exist, and media can spark trends. So, we should keep in mind that the first customer and media can play a critical role in driving purchase intentions for products or services.
All this suggests that no single measurement accurately forecasts purchase intentions.
Fake customers can be spotted
Some companies hire fake customers to extoll the virtues of their products or services. Some shops hire people to stand in line. These are known as sakura (cherry blossom).
But these fakes can be spotted, and the strategy can backfire; news can spread quickly and turn into a majority unfavorable evaluation. Reputations can suffer.