Retailing Mantra

Retail is a big word in today's consumer driven market. Big brands like walmart, Big Bazar, Reliance are some of the examples of the stronger and growing retail market. The brick and mortar trade contributes to a majority of GDP and for various brands. It is the present and the future.

This all makes Retail a big name, but retail is not about winning big battles. It is winning the small battles- the consumers and trade. Exploring the new avenues and creating a regular contact with the existing ones.

Retail is about winning the confidence of consumers and making them delighted through the products and services.

To make Retail successful for any brand it is must that all the analysis are done from Retail perspective: Market Analysis, customer analysis, internal manpower analysis, competition analysis, product offering analysis, existing distribution analysis and cost benefit analysis.

The brand needs to have a clear understanding of the market they are willing to enter. The customer who is king needs to be understood in detailed and accordingly the actions  are required which invoke him to purchase the product and make decisions.

Retail requires legs, the manpower is an important factor to make the retail successful. Retail is about creating big and small trade points for raching to customers and it require lot of leg work with patience. The employees need to be trained to channelise the retail chain and serve them.

A successful retail business requires clear understanding of customer expectations and their demands. The customer delight is the key to success in retail market. The happy customer experience is the secret of long run success in the market.

The retail requires correct product mix. The product offering needs to meet all the customer requirements and their expectations.

The brands also needs to establish a clear distribution channel for the successful retail business. In retail the products flow through the retail chain which involves CFA/Super Stockist/ Stockist/Distributor/Retailer . One need to have the understanding of the complete chain and the material needs to be available at all these points.

The cost benefit analysis, understanding business economies are required to chalk out the retail strategy.

Post all these actiosn, everything come down to creating a customer delight program and winning them.

Retail is the oldest form of business started with peddlers and evolving to super markets. But it still remains about winning small battles. Retail is exciting , Retail is energy, Retail is the RELATIONS!!

It all starts with a smile!

Yes it all starts with a smile! For any purchase the customer must be convinced with the features and benefits of the products. And that can be done best while explaining them with the smile. The day to day action tells that any one greeted with smile will be more receptive to your ideas and will listen out the you carefully. The smile shows the sales person is confident about its products and understand then well. 

It is not only salesman but all the faces of business require the smile while interacting with the customer, be it  internal or external.

People who speak with a smile is able to bring customers at ease and thus involving them in a smooth buying process and remains engage for long term in the business.

Sales person  looks  more convincing and confident while talking and smiling. with this he takes away all the worries and purchase inertia of customers.

So the first law of sales remains S for Sales, S for Smile.

Evolution of Modern Marekting

Evolution of Modern Marekting

Marketing has been defined in many ways by marketing gurus. Some defined it as the set of activities to promote  & sell the products and services while other defined it as the process of management through which the goods reaches from production to consumption. 

Since the evolution of marketing when it was considered the goods will sell itself to the modern marketing- Relationship Marketing.

PRODUCTION MARKETING: THE PRODUCT WILL SELL ITSELF

The 19th century witnessed industrial revolution which made the products available in plenty. And hence in 18th century & early years of 1900, the marketing was considered as a process of facilitating the distribution of products and it was assumed that a good product will sell automatically. This type of marketing is still valid in many B2B kind of business like selling of Aircrafts or Electrical Transformers or any other Industrial Products. But this type of marketing changed soon for consumer products

PRODUCT MARKETING: OVERCOME THE CUSTOMER RESISTANCE

Soon the customer had access to many products and had all needed information about the products. around 1920s, the need  to convince the consumer to buy the products was felt. Accordingly creative ad campaigns were created and consumers were exposed. The ads were created to overcome the resistance of consumers and tackles the competition as well. Apple's I Phone is the best example of this, the product is loaded with a no, of features and expected to sell itself, however still to overcome the resistance of other brand loyal consumers it spends heavily in the advertising campaigns.

CONSUMER MARKETING : CONSUMER IS KING

Post 1950, the consumers become chooser; courtesy to informative advertising of brands and various products choice available to them. And here comes the Customer is King concept. This lead to increased emphasis on consumer research to find what consumer exactly needs and then fulfill that needs. The advts were creatively designed to emphasize that the product fulfills the consumer needs. 

The customer was treated as King and his needs were considered as most prominent. The mobile company marketing campaigns are best example of it, where n number of plans are designed and promoted to suit the individual needs of customers.

RELATIONSHIP MARKETING: BUILD LOYAL CUSTOMERS

Off late the marketing reached to new heights and it was identified that for long term marketing success, it is very important to have relation with consumers . To create a long relation with customer, companies introduced Brand Loyalty Programs. The Post Sales departments were created in organisations, who keep in touch with consumers and build post sales relations with consumers.  The consumers are asked to give their feedback on services and rewarded for long term usage of products/services. The marketing campaign highlights "how much valued you are!" and Customer is treated as more than A King. Automotive companies are an example of this, they create nice creative campaigns around the Happy Family concept and then backed up by world class post sales services.

FUTURE OF MARKETING: EXPERIMENTAL MARKETING

Going forward the future of marketing is experimental marketing, Under experimental marketing the consumer would be convinced to first experiment the products and services, evaluate it and the buy the products and services, which will be backed up by best of post sale services.The experimental marketing will help in word of mouth communication also which will lead to increase in sales volume.

The marketing has evolved in last two centuries and is still evolving, Marketing Managers are finding the best way to overcome the consumer resistance. Marketing has evolved a lot and yet it has to be refined and evolve a lot. And in future we will see more colors of it.

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