A New Wave of Merchandising – Indian Retail

Since the introduction of retail store format, merchants have always placed like items together for quick and efficient service. In both full service and self service stores, customers have liked to see the entire range of a product before deciding on a purchase. The customers felt they were making sure they got the best deal and the full value of a product when they shopped in this way. This method of merchandising or organising a store is called Category Merchandising. All items are placed together on one aisle or in one section of the store to get maximum exposure.

Changes in the demographic profile and the majority of women entering the workforce have altered much than just the obvious. Consumers have drastically less time to shop than before and shopping is seen as a pleasure and more as work, thus shopping habits have changed too. Stores that are attuned to their customers’ need are able to select a limited range of products and focus only on these, as they are confident about their customer’s choice. For example, Wal-Mart might stock an aisle full of lamps but Pottery Barn in the US or Kian in India will probably offer only 3-4 styles, which they are sure their customers will love, and incorporate them in their displays throughout the store. All the merchandise is displayed in a lifestyle setting so customers can imagine how it would look in their homes. Most of these stores have no separate sections for different items. Instead, the entire store is organised and displayed like a home, with living room furniture displayed with accessories, bedrooms with beds made in assorted linens complete with nightstands and sleeping attire. This method is called Lifestyle or Solutions Merchandising as it provides solutions to consumers. Consumers are not always looking for products; instead they often looking for solutions and might not have identified what exactly they want to buy.

Retailers who can provide consumers with products that simplify their lives will be winners. Today’s consumers don’t have time to decipher or even absorb all the marketing and the advertising information they are bombarded with. In these circumstances, retailer must do the job for them with solutions rather than too many options. A customer who has to decide between 10 types of floor lamps might just walk out of the store empty handed after being confused by too much information.
Customers are able to spend only a limited time on shopping, mostly on purchase of basic necessities. Shopping is no longer seen as a pleasure activity; most see it as a task that needs to be completed quickly to get back to more important things. Unless retailers are able to understand this distinction, they will lose out on an entire generation of consumers, especially women, who have learned to shop differently. In this scenario, these customers will be visiting stores that are able to provide them services and options that better fit their lifestyle.

With consumers lifestyles changing, shopping patterns have also changed. A smart retailers must keep up with these changes and may be even forecast what their customers will ask for next. Customers are quite willing to try new ways of buying products. the success of home delivery service for DVD’s is an example of how one retailer created a service that simplified customer’s live. On forecasting trends and moving with them, a retailer must not forget the target audience or they might move ahead of what their customers are ready for.

Lifestyle Merchandising besides being virtually more appealing to customers, is a more practical and modern approach. Customers are shown how products are best utilised and often solutions are found for problems that a customer wasn’t sure how to fix. They come to the store with a problem and they would like a retailer to find some solutions for them. Retailers must cautious on one front: they can practice this type of store organisation only they know their customers and their choices very well. If a retailer is not able to gauge the customer’s choice or they select the wrong items then they will end up not selling anything at all. These choices should be made carefully and cautiously.
These ways of organising retail store are not options any more. They are now the ground realities of running a successful business. Customers come to stores already quite knowledgeable on a number of products whether they are interesting in purchasing or not. They do not require instructive sales help like earlier days but instead some friendlier and hassle-free interactions. A retailer must adopt to this new wave of merchandising or be left in silence of empty cash registers.

SARIT HOTA
SCMS-COCHIN