3am inspiration.

At this morning's 3am feed, with my head lolling back on the headboard, I was suddenly struck with a clever idea to do with dual merchandising and the internet.
Dual merchandising is where the same product appears twice in a store. For instance, you might make the case for handwash to be sited in the soap section, as well as the kitchen section. Or there's that famous case of the beer and nappies which I've mentioned before (briefly, one of the grocers did an experiment, siting beer next to nappies because they reckoned men would be sent to the shop to buy nappies, and wouldn't be able to resist the lure of the sweet, sweet beer if it was right next to them. According to legend, it worked.) Space planners and commercial analysts hate dual siting because it's a waste of space and an unnecessary complication, and sets a precedent for the buyer mucking around with stuff. The problem is that once you site a product in a couple of places, a case can be made pretty easily for siting it in a third, fourth and fifith place. Before you know it, you've got a store in a right mess and plummeting margin per linear foot.
On to my clever idea. It dawned on me at 3am that online stores don't have the problems of real world dual siting. Space is free, pretty much. You're not trying to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of your footage. So there's no reason why products can't be categorised and sited in as many ways as possible. The basic arrangement can still be in standard categories, but there's so much scope for some innovative bringing-together of some pretty crazy - but possibly quite inspirational - product combinations. For instance, wine and chocolate next to books for a nice night in; OU courses next to serious non fiction; telescopes next to astronomy books. You get the gist. Care to name any possible innovative pairings in the comments below? Then together we can take the idea to Amazon and sell it to them for a million pounds. Perhaps.
Comments: 4
Emma - a deeply interesting question and one that has taxed librarians in particular whose philosophy is that a book belongs in one place in the classification scheme even if it spans different subjects (e.g. Psychology in Sport goes in Sport and tough luck to anyone browsing in psychology - or vice versa) because 'dual siting' is just too confusing (for the library manager!) These problems are meant to be overcome by indexing/cataloguing and making sure that the reader uses said catalogue/index. On the internet, shoppers/readers are constantly exposed to databases and indexing systems so why not make the most of it?
Oops - I've probably just repeated the point you already made - never mind - maked me feel clever on Monday morning.
AliB
Posted by: AliB on October 28, 2008 11:39 AM
You *are* clever, AliB, and I'd not thought about libraries suffering from this too - but it's Tuesday!
Posted by: Em on October 28, 2008 12:29 PM
So it is!lol
But we geniuses never worry about such details ;)
AliB
Posted by: AliB on October 28, 2008 04:30 PM
I spend my life perplexed by which category to put things in to make the most sense. Despite being entirely online my softwear permits me one category. I wish I was in charge of my software and not the other way round but I came into this job from a books perspective not an IT one (sadly I thnk sometimes, often ...). I do try and use keywords and match things that way round too, but that can be time consuming. Cataloguing, or merchandising if you like, is an interesting topic though.
Posted by: Catherine on October 28, 2008 07:53 PM