It’s Not About You (Sorry!) - Why Product Selection Must Start with Your Customers
Are you holding back your business because you assume your customers like what you like and have the same tastes as you? I hate to break it to you, but your customers are NOT just like you.
I have never come across a bricks and mortar retail store yet that doesn’t have a diverse range of customers - not just in how they look but also what appeals to them. However, I have walked into stores and salons where I felt like I wasn’t the ‘right fit for them’, I really didn’t belong there, so I walked back out with unspent money burning a hole in my pocket.
Making customers feel like they’re not the right fit for your store happens in lots of subtle ways but it’s something that you need to actively work against or, like those stores I walked out of, you will be leaving money on the table. Can you really afford to do that?
It’s not uncommon for retail business owners to project their own tastes and preferences onto their customers. After all, you've poured so much of yourself into your store, and it's natural for that passion to be a part of your brand identity. But what if holding onto that personal vision too tightly is actually blinding you to what your customers truly want?
The number of times I’ve been in product selection meetings and heard someone say, “Nah, I wouldn’t buy it.” Well, that’s hardly a surprise if they’re not the target market.
Would a middle-aged steak-burger fan really buy a product aimed at a 20-something vegetarian on a gluten-free diet? Would a minimalist who prefers clean lines and a spartan aesthetic really buy a highly ornate, vintage-style chandelier with dangling crystals and intricate carvings? Probably not. And that’s the point.
Your mantra as a retailer has to be: “It’s not about me.” Because product selection is always, Always, ALWAYS about the customer.
Every business decision you make must be customer-centric. Their needs and wants have to be the priority and the central focus of every choice you make. You have to go to where your customers are, stock the products they want to buy, and give them the experience they want to have.
You’re Not the Customer
Your personal taste, budget, and lifestyle are not representative of your entire customer base. If you only stock what you like, you’re essentially limiting your business to a single-person market—anyone who is just like you. As long as everyone likes the same thing as you, your business should be fine. Spoiler alert: humankind is far more diverse than that!
The Customer is Always Right (About What They Want)
Your business survives by selling what people want to buy, not what you personally would buy. Ignoring demand in favour of your own preferences is a recipe for low sales and wasted inventory.
You May Be Leaving Money on the Table
Some of the most profitable products might be items you’d never touch yourself. If you're not open to stocking items that appeal to different segments of your potential customer base (not just your existing), you’re leaving money on the table. Don’t let your personal filter block profit.
Strategy, Not Emotion
Choosing products because you like them is an emotional decision, not a strategic one.
Smart retailers are market-driven. They look at customer demand, competitor offers, industry trends, social and economic factors. Stock what sells, not what you would buy. Be a smart retailer. That’s how you future-proof your store.
Growth Needs Newness
If every decision for your business is vetted through your own personal filter, you will never try new products that could attract new demographics. Growth requires experimentation. New news is good news! A business that isn’t evolving risks becoming stagnant—or worse, irrelevant.
“If you only stock what YOU like, you’re essentially limiting your business to a single-person market — anyone who is just like you. As long as everyone likes the same thing as you, your business should be just fine.”
SO, WHAT DO YOU DO?
Your Decision Making Mantra - ‘It’s not About You’: Say this to yourself every time you make a customer-facing decision. Write it on a sticky note and put it above your desk. Say it at the beginning of every product selection meeting.
See Your Customers for Who They Really Are: Not a mirror of yourself. Not a stereotype. Not even a rigid “customer persona” taped to the back room wall (a technique often used in marketing, but in retail is usually flawed). Your customer base is diverse, and their tastes, budgets, and lifestyles are likely very different from your own. How well do you really know your customer demographic?
Be Data-driven: Successful product selection is not just a gut feeling, it’s a numbers game. Leverage your existing data to identify what's selling and what's not. Look at your POS reports to analyse sales trends, track customer demand, and identify your most profitable products. Pay attention to industry reports and consumer trends to get ahead of the curve. Listen to your gut but don’t trust it until you have the data to back it up.
Conduct Market Research & Stay Current: The retail landscape is constantly changing, and what was popular last season might be obsolete this one. Beyond your own data, it's crucial to stay on top of market trends. This could involve reading industry publications, attending trade shows and analysing what your competitors are doing. You need to understand broader social, economic and fashion trends to ensure your product mix remains fresh, relevant, and appealing to a wide audience.
Listen to Your Customers: They’re the best source of information. Chat with them, get to know what they’re looking for or trying to find, and train your team to do the same and log it in a book. Short surveys by email or on your social media every now and then can also be fun for your customers and insightful for you.
Test and Learn: It’s impossible to get every product decision right the first time so "test and learn”. Introduce new products in small quantities to gauge customer response before making a large investment. Create a "new arrivals" section to highlight them and track their performance. If they sell well, order more; if not, you've minimised your risk.
THE PERILS OF PERSONAS
Some businesses use customer personas, fictional generalisations of their ‘ideal’ customer, to guide their decisions. This can work when selling a service, but rarely works in retail with its large customer base.
For example, a bookstore might create ‘Eleanor, the Literary Enthusiast’, a retired teacher who loves quiet spaces and historical fiction. Imagine how many customers they will alienate if they design their store with Eleanor in mind.
Whilst they can be a useful starting point, they can also become a trap, causing the very problem they were designed to solve.
Personas can lead to a form of tunnel vision, causing you to hold on too tightly to a rigid idea of who your customers are. Your decisions are then justified by whether "Eleanor" would approve, rather than by what your actual, diverse customer base wants and needs.
Don’t be like Eleanor.
AND ANYWAY, IS THERE SUCH A THING AS AN AVERAGE CUSTOMER?
Let me introduce you to 'The ‘Jaggedness Principle’. You can thank me later when you artfully bring this up at dinner parties the next time someone starts talking about ‘one-size-fits-all’ clothes.
It’s a concept introduced by Harvard Professor Todd Rose in his book, The End of Average. He argues that the idea of an "average person" is a myth, and that trying to design systems, products, or even education around this so-called average person is fundamentally flawed.
He says that no individual is average across all dimensions - like intelligence, physical abilities, or body size. You might be able to find someone that’s average height, but it becomes impossible when you add in their weight, arm length, shoulder width and so on.
The "jaggedness" comes from the fact that an individual's profile across all the different dimensions is highly uneven. You might be above average in one thing (such as height) but below average in another (like weight). You might think that you’ve got average taste in food but you like less salt but more spice than most people. He argues that, if you measure a large number of traits across a group of people, it's highly unlikely that any single person would be "average" across all of them.
The example he gives is the U.S. Air Force, which in the 1950s discovered that despite having data on the average pilot's body measurements, not a single one of the 4,000 pilots they studied was "average" across all 10 key dimensions. So, they ended up abandoning the one-size-fits-all cockpit design and move toward adjustable seats and pedals.
Honestly, any woman who has ever tried on a one-size-fits-all dress could have told them that!
What does that mean to you as a retailer? Lose the idea that you have an average, or even ideal, customer. They don’t exist. Trying to appeal to that average customer will have all the other customers waving their hands at you saying, “Hello, what about us?”