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Article information:
To cite this document:
Lew G. Brown, (1989),"The Strategic and Tactical Implications of Convenience in Consumer Product Marketing", Journal of
Consumer Marketing, Vol. 6 Iss 3 pp. 13 - 19
Permanent link to this document:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000002550
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Lew G. Brown has an A.B. in Political Science and an M.P.A., M.B.A., and Ph.D. in Marketing, all from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He teaches marketing, marketing strategy, and business policy at UNC-Greensboro. In
addition to convenience, his research interests include marketing in the public sector, marketing new and/or high technology products, and marketing under uncertainty.
Appreciation is expressed to Dr. Martha McEnally for her helpful suggestions on this paper.
13
The Relevance of
Convenience
In its April 27, 1987 cover story, "PRESTO!
The Convenience Industry: Making Life a Little
Simpler," 5 Business Week quotes Faith Popcorn
of BrainReserve, Inc., a New York marketing
consultancy, as indicating that consumers will
spend as much as $100 per hour on conveniences. The magazine highlights a number of
small entrepreneurial start-ups as well as larger,
publicly held firms w h i c h are serving consumers' demands for convenience. The products provided by these firms range from prepared foods to new tires installed in your driveway. This demand, Business Week argues, is
fueled by the increase in dual-wage families,
up from 26 percent in the early 1960s to 44 percent in 1987. With more money and less time,
these consumers seek time-saving goods and
services. Further, this increase in the demand
for convenience goods and services is predicted
to continue to grow rapidly. Business
Week
notes that "Megatrends author John Naisbitt
predicts that the convenience industry will
account for franchising's biggest gains in the
next 20 years."
While Business Week focuses on the new
business opportunities offered by the convenience industry, it is also important to note
that existing businesses have responded to the
convenience trends. Lenscrafters placed its
laboratories at sales store locations to offer
c o m p l e t e d eyeglasses in "about an h o u r . "
Some Arby's now accept VISA cards. Some 7Eleven stores are experimenting w i t h franchisees such as Hardees and Church's Fried
Chicken to offer fast food in their stores.
In the face of the market's response to the
d e m a n d for c o n v e n i e n c e , it is a p p r o p r i a t e
14
Literature Review
A review of the marketing literature finds
relatively little work in the area of convenience. The general thrust of the articles has
been to attempt to determine the characteristics of households that are determined to be
more convenience-oriented. Convenience orie n t a t i o n is often focused on c o n v e n i e n c e
goods (such as consumer durables) or convenience foods. Income, socioeconomic status,
employment status of the wife (or a second
wage earner), and stage of the family life
cycle have been addressed. These studies generally fail to find the hypothesized relations h i p b e t w e e n the h o u s e h o l d characteristic
and convenience orientation. 1-4, 13-15, 16-25
What is Convenience?
It is interesting to note that none of the articles reviewed attempted to clarify the concept
of convenience. The term seems to be one that
researchers feel is clear and apparent to everyone. In one study, respondents were asked
about their usage of 52 preselected convenience food items and 50 preselected
durables. There was no specific discussion,
however, of how these items were selected.1 In
this and other studies, certain food and
durable goods are simply assumed to be convenience items. Were they all equally convenient? Were they seen as being convenient by
the respondents? It may be that the failure to
find hypothesized relationships is due to the
failure to understand and operationalize the
concept of convenience.
Webster's defines convenience as, "anything that adds to one's comfort or saves
work; useful, handy or helpful device, article, service, etc." Note that the definition
suggests a psychological dimension, "adds
to one's comfort," that is seldom if ever
mentioned in the literature. The literature
has concentrated almost exclusively on the
time-saving aspect of convenience. Things
that "save work" are seen as really saving
time. Even the dictionary definition suggests
that the meaning of convenience is not unidimensional.
Convenience: A Conceptual
Framework
In the literature review, only one article was
found that suggested that convenience is a
multidimensional construct.25 The authors suggested that there are six "classes" of convenience: time utilization, accessibility, portability, appropriateness, handiness, and avoidance
of unpleasantness. These classes, however, do
not derive from any theory, and several of
them, such as "appropriateness" are ambiguous and difficult to measure.
It is proposed that the concept of convenience has at least five dimensions:
1. Time Dimension: Products may be provided at a time that is most convenient for the
customer. Home delivery of products, such as
pizza, can provide the product at a convenient
time. Note that this dimension does not mean
"time-saving." It may take just as much clock
time for the consumer to acquire or use the
product, but acquisition can be made at a convenient time.
2. Place Dimension: Products may be provided in a place that is more convenient for the
customer. The branch bank, the combination
convenience store/gas station, and at-home car
windshield replacements are examples.
3. Acquisition Dimension: Firms may make it
easier for the customer, financially and otherwise, to purchase their products. Accepting
credit cards and developing credit plans are
examples. Home shopping via television also
makes acquisition more convenient since a simple telephone call can complete the purchase.
Bank automated teller cards are now being used
to purchase gasoline, groceries, and fast food
through cash registers designed to accept the
cards at the point of purchase and debit the consumer's checking account.
4. Use Dimension: Products may be made
more convenient for the customer to use. The
impact of microwave technology has dramati-
15
Time-saving is not a s e p a r a t e
dimension of convenience.
One will note that "time-saving" is not a
separate dimension of convenience. While saving time may be a benefit of a convenient product and the reason a consumer is interested in
the product, it may not be a characteristic of
the product itself. A person may purchase a
product that has time, place, acquisition, or
use convenience whether or not the product
itself saves the purchaser any time. The benefit
of saving time is most apparent in the execution dimension.
Each of the dimensions can be scaled in some
fashion. For example, a product can be offered
at only one time, or at very inconvenient times,
or it may be offered continuously. Products
16
DO IT YOURSELF
From Scratch Pizza
Boxed Pizza Mix
Frozen Pizza
Pizza in Restaurant
Pick up Pizza
Home Delivered Pizza
TOTAL CONVENIENCE
This hypothetical continuum suggests that
where a business chooses to place its product
on this continuum should be a conscious decision which takes customer convenience and
business strategy into account.
One might expect that as the product or service position on the continuum moves from
the do-it-yourself end toward the total convenience end, the price to the consumer and the
cost to the business both increase. However, as
one moves along the continuum, the nature of
the product itself may change and alter the
nature of the price/cost relationship. For example, as one moves from pizza served in a
restaurant to pizza delivered at home, the business may be able to specialize in home
delivery and avoid the expense of the
seating/eating area and associated staff. If these
savings are greater than the costs incurred to
deliver the pizza, they may be passed along to
the customer. Thus it may be possible to get a
home-delivered pizza that is priced the same
or less than an equivalent pizza in a restaurant.
Or, the business may retain some of the savings
in the form of higher profits.
Also, each product on the continuum may
have a different level of time, place, use, and
acquisition convenience. Thus these dimensions
can vary across the continuum. One can cook a
frozen pizza at any time (high on time dimension but lower on execution dimension), or one
can order a pizza from a home delivery service
(lower on time dimension since the service must
be "open," but higher on execution dimension).
The continuum makes it necessary to consider both the nature of the product at different points as well as the distribution of customers. Customers might be "normally distributed" along the continuum with the
largest customer groups being found in the
middle. A firm might want to target market
segments in this area, or it might want to see
if there are significant market segments willing to pay for more convenience or interested
in the savings possible toward the "do-ityourself" end. Hechinger's is an example of a
firm that has developed a strategy aimed at
the do-it-yourself home improvement market
segment. For some product categories, one
would speculate that there is a bimodal distributioncustomer concentrations at each
end of the continuum. In these cases, strategies might be aimed at providing products in
the middle if customers can be drawn to this
position.
17
to my c u s t o m e r s ? W h a t is
worth to my customers?
Given the past and predicted
convenience industry, marketers
would benefit from an improved
of the concept of convenience.
convenience
growth of the
and managers
understanding
End Notes
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