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~ Welcome ~

FOREWORD

The recent decline in brand loyalty is one of the elements
that made the middle so chaotic. Consumers don’t have a
clear journey in mind when they’re looking for products. They
might have an idea of a product type or a brand in mind,
such as a round baking mould. But they’re still on their way
to the actual purchase and everything can happen en voyage.
Another webshop might offer free shipping or have better
reviews. These nudges can motivate consumers to switch
to another brand. You might lose some customers because
of that loyalty, but there is also potential to attract new
shoppers.

Research has proven consumers nowadays are more willing
to choose a lesser-known brand if buying biases are similar
(or better) than a well-known brand. So this is what you
can do to face the aforementioned challenges: you can have
biases mise en place that influence the purchaser, such as free
CLAIM YOUR SLICE OF THE PIE: cake decoration samples and recommendations from regular
GO INTERNATIONAL shoppers. These biases tidy up the messy middle for the
consumer. Compare it to baking – it is so much easier to do
magine that you started a webshop for passionate when all the supplies are already put in place.
amateur bakers in 2015. Shows like the Great
IBritish Bake Off kicked off a widespread baking But the real opportunity is beyond local markets. With
frenzy, which was good news for your webshop. After the reduction in brand loyalty, it’s easier to convince new
that promising start, 2020 happened. Confined to consumers in new markets to pick your brand without
their homes, more people started figuring out how to having to invest in brand awareness. Going international
cure their boredom by baking bread. E-commerce was might sound ambitious for your e-commerce enterprise, but
booming while your enterprise was at the height of its specialised marketing agencies can help you out with this.
power. To deal with the gargantuan demand, you increase Crossing borders with your webshop gives you a chance to
essentially everything: stock, personnel, distribution. boost your sales and decrease your dependence on the local
Now that we’ve returned to the ‘old normal’, people can market. Baking virtuosos in new markets are more than
go out again, and their ovens are running out of cakes to happy to relieve you of that extra stock you have left from the
bake. Your sales drop and the stock continues collecting lockdowns. By simply being present with the right biases, you
dust at warehouses. The costs of all the upgrades from the can nudge consumers from exposure to purchase. It’s almost a
lockdown days remain, and growing competition drives piece of cake.
up marketing costs. What are you going to do?
All the best,
The secret ingredient is preparation. I’ll walk you through
it. Brick-and-mortar stores, where people would usually get Roel Linssen
their rolling pins, had to close during the lockdowns. This Director & Founder Tomahawk
accelerated the rise of e-commerce, where people had to
make new purchasing decisions. The customer journey has
always appeared to be a linear procedure where customers
make step-by-step choices for purchase. The past years made
clear that this is not the case: the process is not a predictable
funnel. Google describes it as a ‘messy middle’. Calling it the
messy middle implies that the steps the shopper takes from
exposure to a product to the actual purchase are beyond our
influence and unpredictable.

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