Market research news
The blog of the market research agency IntoTheminds lists opinionated articles, examples of alignment with marketing theory, highlights and bad buzz, carefully selected by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, his team and influential experts.
Merci : the recipe for a concept store that attracts millions of visitors
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The Merci concept store, located in Paris, has been a pioneer in responsible retail since 2009. This article explores its unique model, the challenges it faces in 2025, and the lessons to be learned from its approach.
50% of companies do not apologise when they respond to a complaint
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Research conducted on 226 companies showed that 50% did not apologize when dealing with a customer complaint. This is the opposite of good customer satisfaction practice.
Is the future of online pure players in brick-and-mortar shops?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The question may seem provocative but the reign of pure online strategies may slowly come to an end. Consider the following 53% of all EU retailers are selling through the internet In Ireland, Denmark and the UK, between 88% and…
4 advices to remember when measuring customer satisfaction
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The Heathrow airport has installed devices to measure satisfaction after the security checks. Yet, we think did not get customer satisfaction right. The biggest mistake they did was to put the device too far away from the lane, making it…
Create a discipline to become more creative
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Sharing thoughts with our clients Nicolas and Christophe the other day, we discussed the very interesting topic of how to find time, as an entrepreneur, to be creative. We had invited Christophe and Nicolas offsite for a Design Thinking session…
Lessons learned on a Design Thinking session: DO’s and DON’T’s
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
I’m just back from a Design Thinking workshop we organized in Bordeaux (France) for a e-commerce project. The least I can say is it was successful and extremely enriching. We had invited a group of people from different horizons representing…
Have supermarkets signed their own death warrant ?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The latest stats show that prepared shopping carts tend to help supermarkets sustain their growth. Whereas in France supermarkets (-0.2%), hard discount (-0.4%) and small urban stores (-0.2%) all lost market shares, “drives” gained 1% on the same period. It’s…
Visit at Stella Cadente shop: well worth a design award
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Stella Cadente proves it’s possible to obtain outstanding results with (relatively) little money. We visited their unique store in Paris (opened in April 2012 on 102 Boulevard Beaumarchais) and although it’s relatively small (<50m²) it offers a wonderful experience. We…
One Day One Idea : Aesop’s technique to get customers in the store
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
On our latest trip to Paris, after we interviewed Merci’s managing director Jean-Luc Colonna d’Istria, we went for a tour in Paris’ trendy area “Le Marais”. One of the stores that caught our attention was Aesop in Rue Vieille du…
3 steps to align your online and offline experience with your global brand positioning
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Brands sometimes take advantage of their positioning to launch some funny initiatives and propose a funny communication. Yet, when the positioning doesn’t match the communication, it can backfire (remember for instance the example of this bank that we gave a…
What does branding mean? The example of Miss Vicky Wine
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Anne-Victoire Monrozier has an interesting entrepreneurial story to tell. Despite having little experience in the wine industry, she built a new wine brand from scratch. How did she succeed and is it really a wine brand? This is what we…
Consultants, learn how to be flexible!
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Flexibility and goodwill are of the essence when you are an entrepreneur and when you work with entrepreneurs. Being in the 2 categories, I pay great attention to those qualities when I meet a candidate for a job at Intotheminds.…
One Day One Idea: Let customers try your products and make them buy
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
We already mentioned the increased probability of selling a product when a customer has tried or touched it before. This principle is applied perfectly by Bodum, a Danish manufacturer of kitchen appliances and accessories. The flagship store they opened almost…
An illustration of why you should quickly get back to leads if you want to close deals
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
To follow up on our post regarding the correlation between speed and the probability of closing deals, here's the comment of a friend -and customer- of us. In his business Michel sells goods and services for 5-digit prices. And believe…
How design contributes to the overall customer experience
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The design of your point of sales is of utmost importance. It not only attracts people in the store, but it also keeps them in the store. this is something that Silvera has understood very well. A winner of the…
What you need to do to make your clients sign a contract within 24h
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
If you want to do business and land new customers, time is of the essence. Yet I see that very few entrepreneurs have this culture of responsiveness rooted in their DNA. Here is a story that happened to me last…
The Wine Business Innovation Summit in Brussels
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The Wine Business Innovation Summit (WBIS in short) was organized on Jan 19th in Brussels to gather entrepreneurs and leaders of the wine industry and fuel inspiration among the participants. The least we can say is that it was successful.…
Service quality and the role of employees in the customer experience
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Previous posts have dealt on several occasions with the important topic of service quality. After re-reading what we had written we found out something important: employees are crucial. Employees are of course important to deliver the service quality that customers…
Affordable and efficient design strategies
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
When it comes to design regular readers know that we firmly believe it can be a differentiating factor and it can add value to a business. Yet, design depends on trends, on taste, in other words on lot of external…
The secrets of market research: how to avoid pitfalls when creating a new venture. Part 2
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
In our first article of this series of 3 on market research, we dealt with the methodology of market research and with trends and competition analysis. Today we move to the analysis of demand and will go in depth on…
“Les Causses”, an example of successful retail concept
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Sometimes I feel fortunate. I do a wonderful job, have a lot of wonderful clients, advise a lot of very different businesses. And on top of that I meet inspiring entrepreneurs when going on market research tours. The story of…
One Day One Idea : use offbeat humour to sell your stuffs
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The marketing idea in brief Sometimes in worthwhile to be "offbeat", i.e. not to follow the rules (especially the marketing ones). Look for instance at the example of this store I came across while in Barcelona on Passeig de Garcia.…
One Day One Idea: the management of customer experience by Cerdan Heritage
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Santa Claus brought me this year some very cool “Cerdan Heritage” stuffs. If you don’t know about Cerdan Heritage, read the article we wrote a while ago about this SME started by Marcel Cerdan’s grandsons. The idea in brief Not…
What’s new in 2013: more advices for entrepreneurs with a focus on market research and innovation
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Looking back over our shoulders Looking back at 2012 we’ve written a lot (like in 2011) but took a pretty long break after the summer. With a sudden increase in workload we had to concentrate on clients’ assignments. This is…
