21-06-2012, 05:11 PM
DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF THE CONSUMER EXPERIENCE INDEX IN RETAIL INDUSTRY
DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING.docx (Size: 77.15 KB / Downloads: 42)
INTRODUCTION OF THE RETAIL INDUSTRY
Shopping has transformed from necessity to an adventure. It’s more of an experience, opportunity for celebration. Gone are the good old days when a list is made and shopping is done at the nearby Kirana store. Shopping is a welcome break from hectic schedules; time to let your hair down and hit the malls. Retail giants like Central woo their patrons with mottos of “Shop Eat and Celebrate”, and Big Bazaars rule hearts with “Is se sastha aur achakahin nahi”. Do those attractive mannequins and 3D displays of play stations actually make more sales at your store? The double conversion theory talks about visitors converting into shoppers and shoppers ultimately in to buyers. Marketers around the globe are pouring efforts and currency into shopper’s marketing.
At this juncture it is important to notice that visual merchandising, which deals with the display of products and creating an ambience is involved in the first two stages. A good display makes people walk into the store and also helps in making them feel like taking a look around. Since visual merchandising is directly involved in 2/3 of the entire process of converting a mere visitor into a buyer, the need arises to seek a correlation.
Introduction To Retail Industry
Retailing is considered as one of the most agile industry, where the individual stores comes in contact with the customers and responds to their everyday needs. To be successful, retailers must be able to convince the shoppers, that they can satisfy their needs better than their competitors. Retailing one of the largest industries in India, with an employment of around 8% and contributing to over 11% of the country's GDP. Retail industry in India is expected to rise by25% yearly as it is being driven by strong income growth, changing lifestyles and favorable demographic patterns. Shopping in India has witnessed a revolution with the change in the consumer buying behavior. In India there are multi- stored malls, huge shopping centres, and sprawling complexes which offer food, shopping, and entertainment all under the same roof.
Retail industry in India and its growth
i. India has the highest shop density and is rated the fifth most attractive emerging retail market in the world.
ii. 2nd in the global retail development index out of 30 (AT Kearney Global Management Consultants)
iii. The growth of Retail Companies in India has a long way to go and great potentials within this sector is yet to be explored.
Reasons For Emergence
Gender roles: Gender roles are now changing. Females have started working outside. So, they have no time for actively looking out for new stores for their needs. They want all their needs to be fulfilled in one single shop.
Paucity of time: People have no time for product searching. Because of emergence of working women and also number of other entertainment items, people want to spend their time either at work or with family.
Double income group: Emergence of double income group leads to increase in disposable income. Now people have more disposable income so they can spend easily.
About Industry
The retail sector in India is witnessing a huge revamping exercise as traditional markets make way for new formats such as departmental stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets and specialty stores. Western-style malls have begun appearing in metros and second-rung cities alike introducing the Indian consumer to a shopping experience like never before. The sector is at an inflexion point where the growth of organized retailing and growth in the consumption by the Indian population is going to take a higher growth trajectory. The Indian population is witnessing a significant change in its demographics. Organized retail is on all-time high in India. The growth is boosted by various factors such as availability of professional practices, media proliferation, various brands which are gaining value thereby enhancing industry growth, availability of various funding options, regulations like VAT implementation to make processes simple, sea change in demographics of country and international exposure.
This report is structured into three major parts. First part comprises of Executive Summary and highlights of the retail sector. Second part consists of 12 chapters which includes an introduction and discusses vital topics in retail industry like A Brief Overview of Global Retail Industry, Indian Retail Industry, Organized Retail Formats in Indian retail, Food Retail in India, Apparel Retail in India, Growth Drivers of Indian Retail, Technology implications, Issues & Challenges faced by the sector, Critical Success Factors, Regulations and Policies and Future Outlook of the industry. The third and final part consists of supporting literature in the form of Annexure.
Conclusion :
So far, shoppers in India have been studied on the time and money they spend on shopping. While these are important aspects of deriving value out of the shoppers, these studies do not address the issue of managing shoppers at the outlet for a lasting experience. In this paper, they studied the shoppers and found that it was difficult to segregate them on their demographic profile as well as the value of purchase and therefore derive implications of managing them at the store. They suggest an alternative way to understand the Indian shoppers based on their orientation towards shopping. While this study corroborated some of the orientation and typologies described in the current literature, it has brought out the differences in the orientation of the Indian shoppers. In this study, they found that the orientation of the Indian shoppers is based largely on entertainment derived out of shopping.