One part of Jobs theory, according to Bob and Greg, is the distinction between shopping and restocking.
shopping – evaluating choices
restocking – finding an item
Organizations must understand this because when market incumbents, (if this sounds related to disruption theory it’s because Bob was a colleague of Clayton Christensen), serve restockers they change nothing. If it’s not broke don’t fix it.
Whereas challengers need to break into the restocking mindset. They might articulate novel criteria: Our dips have no added sugar.
The incumbent’s dips may also be sugar-free, but the challenger creates the question and the incumbent responds.
Bob tells the story of shopping of needing a new shampoo and conditioner and making his choice because it was 2-in-1. It wasn’t the natural oils (or lack of). Nor was it how charitable the company was or the number of additives. It was convenience.
His original choice (the restocking) was unavailable and like the sugar-free hypothetical, Bob had to ask himself: What’s important?
Well, there’s this.
Take from July 2023, the shortage has proved to be a shopping “opportunity”.
We’ve settled on Tapatio (side-note: weird keychains, like this, are always a hit as gifts) and depending on how long the outages last, may switch from Tapatio shoppers to restockers
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Related: hair care competes with haircuts. As Clayton Christensen wrote, your competition may not be in the same grocery aisle.
The Waiter's Pad 