💁 Convenience in Marketing: The Bare Necessities
The insights behind the trend towards convenience in marketing, how we use it to meet needs, what the impact on sustainability is and can be in the future.
Hi 👋 I’m Florian Schleicher. This is the FutureStrategies newsletter of FUTURES. Thank you so much for reading along 💚 If you want to learn strategic marketing from me, then my Simple & Sustainable Marketing Academy is the perfect fit for you.
Convenience is one of the biggest big drivers in consumer behaviour.
It's not for nothing that the words "fast" and "easy" are ubiquitous in marketing.
The next Uber is just a click away. The next meal is delivered directly to me. Amazon orders that take longer than 3 days are a rarity.
Almost no one wants to wait anymore and patience is becoming an almost forgotten word.
I can still remember when I had to wait for my 56k modem to connect loudly to the Internet. Today I get impatient when a website takes longer than 1 second to load.
😳 Everything, Everywhere All At Once
What is convenience?
The Cambridge Dictionary gives us a good definition of Convenience as...
“…the fact of something being easy to do, get to, etc. and operates quickly and needs little effort. Things that cause no difficulty for your schedule or plans.”
Basically, there are 5 types of convenience:
Decision Convenience - when decisions are made easier for us through suggestions aka recommendations.
Access Convenience - when we get what we want faster.
Transactional Convenience - when we can process orders quickly.
Benefit Convenience - when the needs we have are met quickly.
Inventory Convenience - when receiving, replacing, or troubleshooting our products and services work smoothly.
The third point of transaction convenience in particular is something we can observe well by looking at the trend toward tap-to-pay (contactless payment):
“Tap to pay has exploded around the world tap to pay has gone from virtually no penetration four years ago to 50% of Visa’s payments today and 72% globally”
Romina Seltzer, Head of Product and Innovation at Visa Latin America & Caribbean
🫠 Why are we seeing this trend toward convenience everywhere?
The exciting thing is that convenience is driving the behaviour of both old and young.
Similar to the trend toward reward consumption, it's all about one thing: control
“Overwhelmed by data smog and change-averse, (people) look to frictionless commerce to maintain control and a healthy work-life balance after years of uncertainty and seismic change.”
Especially Gen X (now 40-55 years old) are known to love control and security (by the way the generation that 68% are now in CEO positions).
But also at the other end of Gen Z (about 14-25 years old) we see massive insecurities and even a looming mental health crisis.
They are very concerned about their future - from geopolitical crises to worries about the survival of humanity in times of climate crisis. Not for nothing is the 🫠 emoji, one of the most popular in the age group.
According to the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2022, the majority of consumers worldwide (61%) are concerned about the world's future prospects.
The Play Well Study 2022 found that 93% of adults feel stressed, and 80% are actively seeking new ways to relax.
We are all tired and looking for stability, security and can only deal with a minimal amount of challenges.
“Our brains are statistical organs that are built simply to predict what will happen next. We have evolved to minimise surprise.”
Dr. Karl Friston, Professor of Neurosciences, University College London, UK
Therefore, we strive for as much comfort in our lives as possible.
Any uncertainty or disturbance is seen by our brain as a threat and thus triggers stress and anxiety, which in turn draw energies.
Dr Karl Friston, says further
“It turns out our brains are incredibly greedy when it comes to energy consumption, sucking up 20% of calories while accounting for only 2% of overall body weight. When our routines are disrupted, we have to make new predictions about the world – gather information, consider options and make choices.”
So anything other than convenience is counterproductive from a biological perspective.
Or in the words of Nina Jönsson, CEO of the Swedish retail chain ICA
“Consumers will always look for ways to save time and make their lives easier.”
🛍️ How are companies addressing the trend toward convenience?
There are three themes and movements that I find exciting:
Subscription Models
Companies in gaming such as Fortnite, fitness providers as well as recently Apple, every streaming service, and even food deliveries work with subscriptions. There are even champagne subscriptions and in Brazil, there is a startup that delivers cleaning products with reusable containers.
For a monthly or annual fee, I get access to my products and services.
Why is this exciting from the consumer's point of view? Because once selected, everything works automatically and without effort. Or as one consumer put it in a McKinsey study:
“I like that I know exactly what I’m getting, how much I’m paying, and it’s convenient since it’s all on autopay.”
Auto-Refill Solutions
More and more companies are discovering the opportunity to respond to consumer convenience with automatic refill solutions.
When my refrigerator knows when I need new milk, my contact lens provider sends me an email when my supply is running low, or Amazon enables automatic reordering of detergents with its specially developed Dash button - they all understand: We want to save ourselves as much effort as possible.
Pre-Orders
Imagine finding your right product or service after a long search only to find the message "Temporarily unavailable".
What an inconvenience!
Through Pre-Orders, these items can be ordered now and they will be delivered as soon as they are available. So don't waste any more energy, everything will arrive.
🤫 The dirty secret
So everything's great, right?
Not quite, unfortunately.
Because our pursuit of convenience creates huge amounts of CO2 emissions. Throughout the retail supply chain, from the energy needed to run stores to the fuel consumed by delivery vehicles, our convenience is driving us further into crisis.
After all, easy shopping from the couch and fast delivery collide with environmental sustainability.
According to McKinsey, Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions - which include all emissions generated in the supply chain - can account for up to 80% of the total carbon footprint in retail. For household and fashion brands, this figure can rise as high as 98%.
The good news is that consumers - especially younger generations - are willing to pay a higher price for sustainability. Even more, they also want to proactively shop with brands that are committed to incorporating sustainable practices into their operations.
“75% of Gen Z shoppers say their purchasing decisions are influenced by whether a brand or product aligns with their green values.”
Research of Alchemmy
🚦Convenience and sustainability - is that possible?
The short answer is, "Yes."
The long answer is, as Thomas Walters, founder of advertising agency Billion Dollar Boy introduces it:
“Sustainability has to be long-term, holistic and consistent across the business.”
Two possible solutions at this point:
Companies must create transparency in the supply chains
As previously described, a lot of CO2 emissions take place here. For example, when companies offer free returns, they need to demonstrate that those returns are not simply going to landfill.
And at times when you may not be living up to your climate responsibilities, you need to be honest and say, "We're doing this well, but we know we can do better, and that's how we're going to achieve change."
“At its core, sustainability is about waste management, reducing impacts, and building systems that can regenerate.”
Platforms like Zoolert and NowInStock can track coveted products directly, also curbing unsustainable overproduction.
After all, when companies try to minimize returns by providing better sizing, more detailed product descriptions, and highly customized personalization to connect consumers with items they are then less likely to return, they can improve the customer experience and create even more convenience and service.
We need to understand the problem of the consumer.
If the problem comes from stressful daily life, insecurities, and loss of control, maybe there is a potential on that side too...
😍 Oh how beautiful
Indeed, a good antidote to fear and insecurity is awe - it also increases our empathy.
Neuroscientists in Germany have found that the experience of awe decreases activity in the brain's default mode network. The result for respondents was lower levels of stress and brain fog.
“Experiencing awe heightens people’s focus on the present. When you are more conscious of the present moment, you feel that your experiences are fuller”
Melanie Rudd, Co-Autor, Awe Expands People’s Perception of Time
Awe is the feeling of being confronted with something greater than our present understanding of things.
We can experience awe in the presence of beauty, nature, and extraordinary abilities. They are moments that make us reevaluate and rethink things to accommodate this new experience, writes Julie Smith in "Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?"
How does this work in practice?
The clothing label Ginlee from Singapore has introduced GOOD (Get Order On Demand) manufacturing.
As the company explains, "In an effort to be more sustainable and eliminate waste, we're introducing an option where you can play a role. Just wait three to five weeks. We'll take 15% off your order. That's your reward for helping us be more sustainable."
And clothing label Early Majority designs inclusive fashion that is so versatile it can be used for all stages of life. So that the closet needs to be filled less and resources are saved.
There are also exciting approaches in the tourism sector where relaxation is offered through special experiences rather than all-inclusive convenience.
The list of reimagined comfort and relaxation is growing.
Admiration, delight, and awe have been explored for several years as key drivers of a shift toward sustainable consumption.
We are not looking for speed per se.
We're looking for an escape from stress and anxiety.
So let's make convenience sustainable.
Thanks for reading along!
🐢 Something good 🪸
The impact start-up faircado has developed a very convenient and sustainable solution for online shopping:
A simple browser plugin finds easily and automatically the best second-hand offers for your wallet and our planet. And without any extra effort but simply while you shop in over 1,600 webshops. This extends the life of products, and saves time, money, and CO2.
🌱
PS: You can also read this posting in German.