Getting to know Brazilians by the way they shop

Today I was reading the McKinsey Quarterly Review and saw an article about how big retailers can serve Brazil's mass-market shoppers. I guess I could see some characteristics of the people between the lines. Check it out:

1) Brazilians are very warm

Compared with similar shoppers in China, India, and Russia, twice as many Brazilians have stopped going to a store as a result of poor service. Since shopping trips are the only opportunities that many consumers have to be served, they value customer service highly. Shoppers expect the human touch that they find at their neighborhood stores, where salespeople greet them warmly by name and extend credit without collateral or other formalities.

2) Brazilians have a strong sense of community and value the cozyness of their neighbourhood relations

On average, Brazil's mass-market consumers shop once a day. They shop frequently because they worry about freshness, income rarely arrives in the form of a regular paycheck, storage space is limited, and bargains appear and vanish daily. Since almost 70 percent of shoppers travel by foot, shopping is much easier when stores are nearby. As one Brazilian shopper explained, "Doce Lar [a neighborhood store] is about one kilometer [ 0.62 miles] from here, and it takes me about ten minutes to walk. Carrefour is five kilometers—it takes me about 50 minutes, which is too far. I cannot get back carrying my bags."

Even including the few households that own cars, nearly 80 percent of Brazilians traveled less than 15 minutes on their most recent shopping trip—about one kilometer by foot or five kilometers by car. These habits mean that a retailer can hope to attract households only within a radius of two or so kilometers (applying a weighted average). Even in an urban area as densely populated as São Paulo, that makes it challenging to attract the volume that big-box formats need to be successful.

3) Brazilians dream with a better future

Brazil’s shoppers express a preference for smaller, more convenient stores. Yet upward of 70 percent of all survey respondents (and the vast majority of focus group participants) also express a seemingly conflicting desire: to choose from a full range of products, including high-end ones, whether or not they intend to purchase those products.

In focus groups shoppers provided several explanations for this preference: the opportunity to treat themselves every now and then, a need to see a well-known branded product and use it as a reference price for the products that they would actually purchase, or the desire to impress neighbors—say, by purchasing Coca-Cola for a party instead of the local brand they drink every day. As one shopper explained, "I like to see the 25 reais brand of shampoo, not because I will buy it, but to dream a little." The challenge for retailers is to give mass-market shoppers a sense of choice, knowing that they often have no intention of purchasing the highest-end products and that the supply chain and inventory challenges associated with SKU proliferation can make it harder to serve the mass market economically.
What do you think?