How People Shop in a Post-Pandemic World: Helping Samsung Reimagine Retail & Appliance Decision-Making
The Challenge
Samsung wanted to understand how consumers shop for large appliances in-store following the disruption of COVID-19. While online research had become increasingly important, shoppers continued to visit retail stores before making major appliance purchases. This raised a fundamental question: If shoppers can compare products online, what purpose does the store actually serve?
The challenge was understanding what role stores actually play in modern appliance shopping and how Samsung could improve retail experiences, merchandising, and messaging to win brand preference.
My Contribution
Research Design: Designed research activities, shop-along protocols, and observational frameworks for in-store fieldwork.
Ethnographic Field Research: Conducted in-store shop-alongs across multiple retail environments, observing how shoppers navigated, evaluated, compared, and selected appliances.
Behavioral Analysis: Synthesized behavioral patterns across shopping journeys, decision-making styles, brand perceptions, and purchase criteria.
Journey Mapping: Mapped appliance shopping journeys spanning online research, in-store evaluation, and purchase decision-making.
Framework Development: Developed behavioral frameworks illustrating how shoppers discover, evaluate, compare, and purchase appliances.
Strategic Storytelling: Led synthesis and translated findings into retail, merchandising, and experience recommendations.
Key Insight #3: The opportunity isn't more products—it's the right products
A detailed comparison of operator sourcing needs against the GFS catalog revealed that most Mexican operators already purchase 60–70% of their products from broadline distributors. Even many "specialty" ingredients were domestically available and commonly sourced through existing channels. The challenge was not assortment breadth. It was:
Carrying the right brands
Offering appropriate pack sizes
Meeting operator price expectations
The problem was less about product availability and more about product-market fit.
Strategic Outcomes
Research revealed that stores are not primarily places where shoppers learn specifications. Instead, they are places where shoppers validate quality, imagine ownership, and build confidence in expensive purchase decisions.
These findings informed Samsung's retail strategy, merchandising approach, and communication of key platforms including Bespoke and Smart appliances.
Key Insight #1: Mexican cuisine is not a segment—it's a spectrum
The category spans a wide range of concepts, from regional traditional restaurants to modern Mexican interpretations, fusion concepts, and Americanized formats. These operators differ not only in culinary approach, but also in:
Product preferences
Service expectations
Purchasing behaviors
Business priorities
Treating Mexican restaurants as a single customer segment obscures meaningful differences and leads to generic solutions that fail to resonate.
Key Insight #2: Cultural credibility matters more than language
While Spanish-language capabilities were helpful, operators consistently evaluated distributors based on their understanding of ingredients, regional cuisines, sourcing realities, and operational challenges.
Trust was built through demonstrated knowledge rather than language alone.
This shifted the conversation from hiring more Spanish-speaking representatives to building deeper cultural and culinary fluency across sales teams.
Key Insight #4: Authenticity and business realities coexist
Operators care deeply about tradition, heritage, and authenticity.
They also care about labor costs, margins, customer preferences, and operational efficiency.
Even highly traditional operators routinely adapt menus, substitute ingredients, and introduce Americanized offerings when necessary.
Authenticity was not an absolute goal—it was continuously balanced against business realities.
This revealed opportunities for GFS to support operators beyond traditional Mexican ingredients alone.