Selling 'Stories' not just products

In a previous blog I talked about what the biggest differences are between cruise retail and airport retail. At the heart of the argument was the important unique advantage of 'time'.

With plenty of time, the traditional retail journey from the first step right through to selling product can change dramatically. As we know in travel retail, the key trend that has appeared much more so in recent years has been that price is no longer the only factor in making guests interested and motivated to shop.

Indeed, new research by Mind-Set has shown just how important experience is becoming as a driver of footfall. And for our part of the sector, the best single experience that cruise retail offers, are the advantages of time and our people.

To illustrate this point, I can give you an example from my own experience.

I was on a cruise a few years ago in the Caribbean, and working alongside our team in the duty free shop. I was intrigued as to why Hennessy Pure White was always the no.1 best seller article in the liquor category, and wanted to see if we could try an experiment. We took a humble bottle of limoncello, a product that most of our guests had never heard of before. As a team, we then learnt and perfected the emotion behind this niche product, the way to share the uniqueness of this drink and the connection to the cruise... The lemons of the Amalfi coast, the generations of Sorrento families involved, the designs of the bottle, the warmth of the mediterranean sun etc.

We created and perfected the 'Story'.

We then went to work on day 3 of the cruise. We practised our pitch with our guests, and immediately we started selling, as guests got inspired in our storytelling. And then the magic happened. Not only did we sell the product to our first wave of guests something more important then occurred On day 4, our first guests started to bring their friends into the shop and also started to sell the product for us. The story was being told not just by our team, but most importantly also by the guests who wanted to share the emotion and the experience for us. They had become our brand advocates.

By day 6, we had sold out of our entire stock of limoncello and the lesson had been learnt. We ordered a lot more product, and the niche product went onto to be our no.1 best seller from then on in for the next years.

When you have time you can sell stories more powerfully than you can sell products. Stories then sell more stories and you create a true experience.

And for brands, this can be the true and untapped magic of cruise retail. An experience that is built from advocation and recommendation, not just from price / value / marketing etc.

When you recruit brand ambassadors who share your story on your behalf, then you create a much deeper connection. One which will not finish at the end of the cruise, but will be with you for much longer than that. How many guests over the past years have we converted into real limoncello connoisseurs?

There are very few channels of retailing that can do this so effectively. It doesn't work online because the medium is passive not active. It can work to a certain degree in TV home shopping as you watch the stories behind the products and then customers phone in to advocate their experience. But in no other retail channel that I can think of, can you share a story that others will share on your behalf immediately - the true power and uniqueness of cruise retail - word of mouth. And in the hands of the right sales staff, and with the right environment, it could transform nearly any product into a best seller.

Creating this unique retail 'magic' is also at the heart of one of our aims of our Brand Academy. To help share and communicate some these amazing stories of products to onboard teams efficiently and effectively. The more brand ambassadors there are, the more that 'Stories' will shape lasting and deep retail experiences.

Come and join us for our first brand academy session, with LOUIS XIII Cognac Academy on 11th September or 24th September. To sign up for free visit our What's On page.

Thank you!