Fierce store loyalty defines retail ‘super fans’

Listening to Kirsten Gebhardt talk about the first time she went to the Container Store is like listening to someone talk about falling in love.

“My breath was taken away,” she said. “I was overwhelmed.”

Gebhardt is a 39-year-old mother of two from Cary, N.C., and is normally busy running errands and carpooling. But when it comes to the Container Store, everything else takes a back seat.

When the catalog comes, it’s at the top of her reading pile. And the opening date of the first North Carolina store was circled on her calendar for months.

It’s that kind of loyalty that defines a rare breed of shopper — the super fan.

Devoted in the way sports fans are to their favorite team, these are the people willing to camp out for a store opening in the cold weather and driving rain. They’re the folks who keep active tabs on the rumor mill, hoping that their favorite retailer will announce a store nearby. And should that not occur, they will drive hours to reach one.

Beyond making a big splash on opening day, there is great monetary value for companies in having such a loyal group of fans, said Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a New York firm that studies brand loyalty.

“We call it the rule of six,” Passikoff said. “A true advocate — you’re basically talking about your top 20% of customers — are six times more likely to buy things from you. They’re six times more likely to recommend you. They’re six times more likely to invest in you if you’re a publicly traded company. And they’re six times more likely to rebuff competitive offers, especially if they’re only based on price.”

The making of a super fan comes down to customer service, value and surprising shoppers in a positive way, said Paco Underhill, president of consumer shopping research firm Envirosell and author of “What Women Want” and “Why We Buy.” Few companies do all three well, he added.

Those that do “are not just selling goods,” Underhill said. “They are a religion of some kind.... They have managed to tap into something.”

The cult-like devotion is well known and can’t simply be explained by service and value.

There’s a lot to be said for that first “perfect” shopping trip, a person’s personality quirks or even the store’s scant expansion plans. Having to drive hours to visit a place can turn a routine shopping trip into an adventure — usually with friends.

Heather Klausner, a 46-year-old who lives in Franklin, Tenn., shopped at Trader Joe’s when she was growing up in California. When she moved to Washington state, she missed it and would take a ferry and then make the two-hour drive to shop at the closest store. When she moved to Tennessee, she drove to Atlanta every few months and stayed overnight just to make the pilgrimage to her favorite store.

Klausner’s devotion came from the comfort of being able to get the products she knew from home and because of the chain’s commitment not to sell products with artificial additives or preservatives.

“When I find something like that, that I believe in, I certainly talk it up in my circle,” she said.

She was so excited when a store opened in Nashville that she rented an RV for the weekend, set up camp in the store’s parking lot and handed out samples of her favorite Trader Joe’s fare to people waiting for the store to open.

Ikea spokesman Joseph Roth said he thinks the numbers of super fans are growing, partially because social media make it easier for shoppers to spread their excitement.

The Swedish retailer’s grand openings are now so big it hires private companies to handle traffic in the parking lot and flies in security personnel from other stores to ensure the events go smoothly.

“We now only allow them to start lining up 48 hours in advance,” Roth said. “There didn’t used to be a limit. The longest stay was for our West Sacramento store in March 2006. The first person in line lined up three and a half weeks in advance.”

The number of super fans may also be growing because of urban sprawl, Underhill said.

“One of the byproducts of this suburbanization of America is a sense of loneliness,” he said. “If we live in a suburb and particularly if we work on a corporate campus, we have no way for chance to affect our lives.... In that loneliness, we as a culture are looking for other communities.”

And, Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely points out, there is also some benefit for super fans who spread the word about their favorite retailers.

“You don’t do it just because you love the company,” he said. “You are confident this will be a very positive experience for me and I will think very highly of you as the person who recommended it.... It’s really kind of a model of altruism mixed with some selfishness.”

Still, some super fans say it’s just fun.

Friends Laura Eischen of Raleigh and Troy Smith of Holly Springs, N.C., have now been the first people in line for three area Krispy Kreme store openings, camping out in some cases for almost a day.

Once, Smith left his vacationing family in Florida to return to North Carolina for a Krispy Kreme opening. He then went back to finish his vacation.

“I love the doughnuts. I love the idea of hanging out overnight,” said Smith, who is a sixth-grade teacher. “To be the first people in line was quite a big deal. While the [new] stores are being worked on, we pick up Krispy Kremes from one of the other stores and take them to the workers.”

Smith and Eischen are making plans to start going to out-of-town openings.

“If they would give me the title, I would love to be an ambassador of Krispy Kreme,” Smith said. “I wear my T-shirt. I love introducing people to Krispy Kreme.”

Or maybe there’s something bigger in their future.

“Troy’s dream is to do so many openings that they just give us a commercial,” Eischen said. “We have plans. We definitely have plans.”

Stock writes for the (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer / McClatchy.