1. The First Story
The story goes that Korean men are very virile and still have a strong sexual appetite at 70. This also results in very high condom consumption in the country. But there is a problem: buying condoms at a pharmacy is already embarrassing, and doing so at nearly 70 is even more so. Many men therefore face a dilemma, leading to condom sales doms stagnated for a while. To address this, pharmacies devised a method: they bundled a box of condoms with a box of bath soap as a free gift and put it on sale. Then, whenever customers came in, they only needed to say, “I want to buy soap,” and the shopkeeper understood what they really needed. This not only spared customers embarrassment but also enabled pharmacies to sell bath soap in addition to condoms.
The interesting lesson from this story is that you must understand not only customer needs but also their behavior, and find creative ways to reach them and meet those needs. To do so, you must carefully study the sociocultural factors and habits of your target customers to develop an appropriate strategy.
2. The second story
In America, they have unusual sales tactics. Go into 7 Elevent for beer and you see 2 packs of Budweiser: 1 pack of 12 cans for $17 and 1 pack of 18 cans for $18. Without thinking, you take the 18-can pack to the checkout. Only afterward do you realize you bought more than usual. Budweiser’s sales suddenly rise by half simply because of its pricing policy. The 12-can pack is merely a SALES PROP.
This is called UPSELLING through COMBOS. Customers are given choices, but none of the choices is NO.
Because we like choosing what to buy, rather than being sold to.
3. The third story
What about the iPhone 7? They only sell 32GB, 128GB and 256GB versions.
With a camera that takes photos and records 4K video, 32GB of storage is too little, and a 64GB version would be more reasonable—but it does not exist. Most people then “stretch” to upgrade to the 128GB version, which costs a full $100 more, allowing Apple to increase sales quite naturally.
This is called UPSELLING through RAVING FANS. Once someone is a fan, money is no longer an issue.
4. The fourth story
At KFC, when you buy fried chicken, staff offer a tiny Pepsi for 15K. But they always ask: ‘Would you like to add 3K for a larger cup?’ (The large cup is 2 times the size.) So I nod and choose the large one.
This is called UPSELLING through CROSS-SELLING. The easiest time to make a sale is just after a customer agrees to buy the first item.
Remember, Mc Donald simply taught employees to say, “Would you like fries with that?” and sold an extra 4 million kg of fries every day.
