No one likes higher prices. But if you have to charge them, what’s the best way? One big hit? Or lots of little increments? It’s a tough call because the answer probably depends on who you ask. It’s like getting into a chilly swimming pool – some prefer to steel themselves and take the plunge all at once. Others would rather ease in, acclimating bit by bit. What’s ideal for one is torture for another.

Whichever form price increases take shoppers must be made to feel that they’re getting something to balance it – some tiny or random bonus (a little flower, a piece of candy, a sticker for the kids, an occasional price break, however small)…or just a little dollop of respect or rueful commiseration. They need something, anything, to ease the sense of ceaseless monetary assault. These days it’s like being swarmed by piranhas – each bite survivable but cumulatively horrifying.

Loyalties can make it through bad times intact as long as everyone feels they’re in the same boat. Shoppers will, or should, understand that retailers’ expenses must be covered. What they won’t accept is anything that appears to be disdain – or opportunistic gouging. Just ask my mother. Two retail interactions. Both small, local retailers. One earned her goodwill; the other her enmity.

The good experience could easily have become a negative, or at least neutral, one. She’d picked out a large number of annuals at a local nursery, many to plant at the graves of family members. When the sales clerk quoted a delivery charge my mother demurred, saying she’d come back and pick them up in another car. When she did return, however, the owner not only insisted on waiving the fee but threw in four more plants of her choosing as well. She beamed with renewed sense that she was a valued and appreciated customer. There’s no doubt she’ll be back – and many along with her.

Not so with the other retailer. She’d had a question about the bill for a service call to fix an appliance bought there just over a year ago. The service call was remarkably pricey, but that was not the issue. It was the extra, hefty charge on the bill for 'expert advice' (which boiled down to "don't overfill the dishwasher") – and a fuel surcharge (for driving four short blocks.) When she called to say that though she would certainly pay the bill, she felt that he might be doing himself – and his loyal, local (and many older) customers – a disservice with these extra fees. What followed was not regret, or commiseration, or even firm, polite distance; but instead a spew of bile that will no doubt cost the retailer more in the long run than he’ll make with hundreds of surcharges.

We're all under pressure, retailers and shoppers alike. Things are going to cost more and no one is going to be happy; but managers and staff must constantly be on their toes to deal with the pain that they are, however necessarily, inflicting on their customers. Bad times don’t last forever. Bad feelings do.

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Lynda Gutierrez is the Content Manager of PlainVanillaShell, a product of the Nielsen Co. that provides news, analysis, and data of interest to commercial real estate and retail executives around the world.  She was formerly Managing Editor of Trade Dimensions, directing research and publication of its numerous print and database products, including the Retail Tenant Directory. Lynda currently writes three weekly columns for the US and Global editions of PlainVanillaShell, as well as the US and Global email newsletters.

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