Why do shoppers know the store but buy from a competitor?
- Segment
- Building materials and home improvement retail
- Topic
- Purchase journey and brand strength
- Method
- In-depth interviews, focus groups, accompanied shopping and quantitative survey
- ✓Knew the brand
- ✓Considered the stores
- ↗Bought elsewhere
The question
A large building materials chain had an established brand and a strong market presence. Yet it faced a paradox: many consumers knew the brand, considered its stores and, in the end, bought somewhere else.
The obvious explanations were price, location and product range. None of them, on its own, explained the problem. People who build or renovate don’t make one purchase decision; they make dozens, over weeks or months.
A decision that starts far from the store
- 1Construction professionals
- 2Family
- 3Internet
- 4Comparing alternatives
- 5Storelast stop
Before setting foot in a store, consumers have already talked to their contractors, asked family for advice, looked for ideas online and compared options. The store is often the last stop in a decision that started somewhere else.
So asking “Where did you buy?” would only reveal the end of the story. The study needed to reconstruct how the decision took shape.
Hearing what consumers say and seeing what they do
The study talked to people who had built or renovated in the past 12 months, with the experience still fresh in their minds.
In-depth interviews and focus groups
In the qualitative stage, in-depth interviews and focus groups traced the journey from planning the project to making the purchase, and showed who and what influenced each step.
Accompanied shopping
But what people tell you has limits: they remember their decisions as more orderly than they really were. That’s why the study included accompanied shopping trips. Researchers went along with consumers as they shopped and watched the decision unfold: what caught their eye, where doubts crept in, when they compared options and what made them walk away or buy.
- What catches attention
- Where doubts arise
- When they compare
- What makes them give up or close the deal
Then a quantitative survey of more than a thousand people in different regions measured the behaviors and criteria uncovered, at scale.
- At a glance
- 12 months
- Respondents’ recent construction or renovation
- 4 methods
- Interviews, focus groups, accompanied shopping and quantitative
- 1.000+
- Quantitative interviews in different regions
- 5 indicators
- From known brand to rejected brand
- Price
- Promotions
- Customer service
- In-store experience
- Product range
- Services
- Convenience
- Digital channels
- Brand image
In analyzing what drives the choice, price and promotions were weighed equally with customer service, in-store experience, product range, services, convenience, digital channels and brand image. Assuming “it’s always about price” would have hidden exactly what the company needed to see.
From awareness to rejection
- 1Awareness
- 2Visit
- 3Purchase
- 4Preference
- 5Rejection
At the heart of the study was a step-by-step read of brand strength: awareness, visits, purchase, preference and rejection. Rejection is often left out of this kind of analysis, but it shows who has already ruled the brand out, and why.
Looking at these metrics in sequence, rather than one at a time, pinpointed where in the journey each brand gained ground and where it lost the customer. The same analysis by consumer type, product category and region showed that a value proposition that works in one context may fall flat in another.
- Type of consumer
- Product category
- Region
What the client gained
An integrated view of the journey that connects brand, experience, channels, influencers and choice criteria, giving the company evidence to answer strategic questions:
- 01Where should efforts be focused to increase consideration?
- 02Which aspects of the experience deserve the most attention?
- 03What role should digital channels and physical stores play?
- 04How can brand presence be turned into preference?
In practice, the study shaped the company’s digital strategy, helping define the role of online in a journey that starts on the internet and often ends at the sales counter.
In competitive markets, being known is a starting point, not an advantage.
The real competition happens in the steps that follow, many of them outside the store. To see them, it’s not enough to ask consumers. You have to go along with them.