In the bakery, no cookie-cutter customers

It's well known that there is a difference between supermarket customers who shop the in-store bakery and those who don't. But among bakery patrons themselves there may be an even wider divergence. As the accompanying tables show, the customer who buys fresh baked bread can be vastly different from the one who buys fresh baked pies.

The data is drawn from Spectra Market Research and looks at consumers of five fresh bakery items. By combining databases that focus on media, Internet use, lifestyles, and other products used, the process develops a profile of each bakery product's customers. An index of 100 for any item equals average consumption. An index above 100 shows above-averarge consumption; below 100 indicates below-average consumption.

Fresh baked bread buyers, on the one hand, seem to be very young parents, indexing high for baby and parenting media and for children's Internet sites; more likely to have a dog than a cat, but unlikely to consult The New York Times.

Those who buy fresh pies seem to be older and, based on their use of financial Web sites, more affluent; to be Scotch drinkers who've taken a cruise but wouldn't think of chewing gum or tobacco.

This is the type of data that retailers increasingly will have to understand and be able to use in their efforts to survive and succeed.