QRCA Views

30 QRCA VIEWS WINTER 2 014 www.qrca.org SHOPALONG SUCCESS C O N T I N U E D Travel light Is your shopalong taking you to a big box store or a small boutique? The actual size of the retail environment will have an impact on what to carry and who should accompany you beyond your shopper. My advice is to travel light so that you are not schlepping a lot of mate- rial, a briefcase, laptop, etc. I sling a small purse over my shoulder, place the audio recorder in one shirt pocket, my smart- phone in another, and carry a small note- book and pen in hand. Extra batteries, pens and a microphone are in my purse. (I carry an extra audio recorder in my briefcase in the car.) My discussion guide is attached to the notebook, but I rarely look at it beyond the first interview. I prefer to internalize the guide, making sure I cover all the key topics, but adapting to the energy of the respondent and the situation. I don't take tons of notes, just key points and times of interesting things, which I might want to include in the report. Details are in the audio transcripts. Traveling light also means thinking through who will accompany you. At most, the respondent and I will be accompanied by one client and a videog- rapher–certainly no more than four of us walking through the aisles of a store–but often it's just the respondent and me. Make a small footprint Related to traveling light is being as inconspicuous as possible dur- ing the shopalong, whether it is being conducted with store permission or in stealth. It's imperative that we not impede other shoppers or store personnel. I dis- cuss that with the respondent in the first few minutes of our meeting. Digital audio recorder I personally use a very small digi- tal recorder (Olympus VN-722PC). It's four inches tall and about one-and-a-half inches wide, weighs just a few ounces, and has excellent clarity and tremendous capacity. With both MP3 and WMA formats, it's compatible with Mac and PC. I plug it into my laptop, down- load the recordings, and send them to my transcriptionist at the end of each day. I carry a tiny exterior microphone as well, but I rarely find need for it. Video pros and cons: photos a must A movie of a respondent walking down an aisle and pondering a selection or capturing store signage, lighting, poorly stocked shelves, or a crowded environment tells a more vivid story than one captured in words. But there are considerations to hav- ing a videographer beyond the added cost for recording and editing. If your research is being done "under the radar," it's impossible to walk through the aisles with an obviously professional camera in hand, but you might be able to get away with some very discrete little video movies from your smartphone. Remember not to capture faces or record- ings of anyone other than your shopper whom you have permission to record. In my most recent study, we had a good compromise with the videographer joining for one full day of shopalongs and generat- ing several excellent clips for the report. These movies, coupled with audio snippets and lots of photos from my smartphone, made the shoppers and retail experience feel present in my report. Bring cash to spend in store In addition to the respondent's "offi- cial" incentive, I like to give shop- pers an extra $10 cash to spend in the stores we visit. That unexpected gift adds a little extra excitement to the experience; the shop- per is encouraged to try something new, and it's a nice "thank you" to the retailer who allowed us to conduct research there. POST SHOPALONG: Organize, download, and label recordings and photos as soon as possible You've spent a great day in shopalongs walking through stores with several respon- dents, collecting a lot of material. It will save an enormous amount of time if you organize, label, download, and disseminate all media before the next day's shopalongs. Note the name of your respondents and stores visited, label, and download photos and recordings to your computer, and email audio recordings to transcription. Back up everything on a flash drive before you erase recordings and pictures from devices. And you may want to run a highlighter through your notebook to review your key observa- tions, insights, and ideas. The baker's dozen: improvise My final tip is to be flexible in your discussion design and in your atti- tudes. Respondents can get lost and show up late. That raging thunderstorm makes the short walk from greeting place to store a drag. The store you visit has loud blaring music and misbehaving kids. A store man- ager asks you to stop taking pictures or leave…all of these things happen. Go with the flow; improvise when you need to and enjoy the learning! 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

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