We saved a penny and confused the customers

President's Choice Tomato Clam Cocktail, Superstore (Loblaws)

I had to take this photo on the sly in a Real Canadian Superstore. (The store does not permit photography.) Superstore is owned by Loblaws, Canada's largest grocer.

These are two bottles of Tomato Clam Cocktail, one spicy and one original flavour. This beverage, Tomato Clam Cocktail, is the store's version if Mott's Clamato Juice. (Clamato Juice is a odd beverage that is only really popular in Canada. It is used to make a beverage called a Caeser, or Bloody Caeser, that is a cousin to a Bloody Mary.)

Anyway, enough beverage trivia.

What has Lowlaws done? The Spicy version of the Tomato Clam Cocktail used to have a red lid, while the original flavour had a white lid. Now both flavours have a white lid. And customers are probably confused. I came in looking for a bottle of the spicy version, and when I looked at the shelf I initially thought that they only had the original flavour in stock.

Retail is dependant on a whole raft of details, and when you don't get the details right then you run the risk of confusing customers and losing business.

And at the moment, it looks like Loblaws is not getting some of the details right. So, either this change was made to save a few pennies, or the change was slipped in by the manufacturer and no one at Loblaws noticed. Either way, it is one of those details that makes life easier for the customer. And when you make the customer's life easier they buy more. And what retailer does not want their customers to buy more?