Kay Caunt Realizes Need To Be Her Own Customer

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO—Kay Caunt regularly walks into Criterium Bicycles armed with a camera. As soon as she steps through the double automatic doors, the camera starts clicking.

"This helps me see the larger picture that the customer sees," Caunt said. "Many shop owners fail to recognize the difference between the trees—the particular details of a display—andthe forest, which the customerperceives."

Kay and her husband, Chris, built a new home for Criterium Bicycles in 1996 with the customer's perception in mind. Inside the doors one is greeted, not by displays or bikes, but a lobby replete with bathrooms.

"The first impression is that there is plenty of room for you," Caunt said. "It's a battle to guard the customers' space from merchandising. But if you notice, all the really pretty stores are aired out."

Caunt wages the battle for space on two fronts—against staff and suppliers.

"Our ideas often run headlong into supplier plans. They want to cram your space with as much product as possible," she said.

To defend against this encroachment, Caunt penned the Seven Commandments of Merchandising. Three address the importance of non-product space.

The common refrain, "We don't just sell bikes, we sell cycling," means freedom of movement and fresh air to Caunt. The store's open-air aesthetic incorporates this with vaulted ceilings and 8-foot windows.

"You should feel like you are outside, not in someone's garage," she said.

"Signage is graphic blasphemy," reads the subtext of the sixth commandment.

Caunt accomplishes scarcity of signs in two ways. When the fourth commandment—keep lines of sight clear—is followed, customers don't need to read the word "helmet" when they can see the product.

Caunt makes signs superfluous with a layout anticipating consumer instincts. For example, to the left of the lobby two stands prominently announce the service center.

Harley Davidson researched a consumer's instinctive movements upon entering a shop and found they nearly always gravitated to the left. Caunt followed suit.

A loop layout gives a panoramic view with bikes in the center. Moving around to the right begins a trail of accessories grouped by category.

For the same reason grocers bury milk in the back of their stores, the rear location of tires and tubes nonchalantly entice the "just need a tube" customers with a slew of visual suggestions.

"People like to interrupt a busy personWhen you're busy it makes them feel like you're not waiting to pounce and steal their wallets," Caunt said.

For this reason her office—smack in the store's center—and the mechanics' station are quite visible. Customers can see mechanics working on truing stands at a table in front of the window.

"Wheel work is a beautiful art. We had a table built to showcase this," Caunt said.

Customers can look through parts drawers with shop employees. Cyclists appreciate the fact that, unlike a car, their bike components are out in the air for all to admire. This should not change in the shop, Caunt said.

But Caunts warns against making pretty displays, and then sitting back, waiting for the sale. Merchandising is an interactive process. She cited the experience a Specialized rep had while shopping for a tuxedo.

"He came out of the dressing room to find an array of complimentary accessories laid out.

"That is exactly what we should be doing. I'm embarrassed when a customer brings up things I forgot to suggest," she said.

After sales plateaued at $1.7 million annually for a decade, Caunt bumped them to $2 million through interactive merchandising. "We got our 11 percent increase no sweat. Just by doing a better job with every sale—socks and cleats with shoes, tubes and liners with tires."