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On-board retail in passenger travel today is where internet commerce was more than 15 years ago: a slow crawl with lots of potential. Airlines, Railways and Ferries are pretty much offering the same products today as they did 25 years ago. For many, on-board retail still involves only duty-free and drink/snack food sales, with not much concern about variety or quality. Compared to retail activities elsewhere, on-board retail simply doesn't register on any scale. Yet, its potential is enormous.
What can the passenger travel industry learn from today's successful Web retailing which currently represents hundreds of billions of dollars in consumer goods and services sales annually? To get to the next level in on-board retail, operators need to think about serving the 'audience of one', an approach widely used by the most successful retailers. GuestLogix calls this on-board retailing concept 'Passenger-Centric Merchandising'.
In traditional retailing, the 'rubber meets the road' in terms of the point of sale 'moment of truth' at the retail store shelf or a retailer's web site. However, in on-board retailing, the 'moment of truth' is delivered to the passenger. Because passenger motives and on-board buying behaviours represent the single most significant differences between on-board retailing and traditional retailing, operators can most effectively serve each passenger — 'audience of one' — by focusing their merchandising efforts.
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