Retail Marketing &

Establishing and
Maintaining a Retail
Image
"You never get a second chance to make
a first impression."
 What is an “Image” for a
retailer?
• Image is the overall look of a store and
the series of mental pictures and
feelings it evokes within the beholder.
For the retailer, developing a powerful
image provides the opportunity to
embody a single message, stand out
from the competition and be
remembered.
 Importance of the Retail
Image:
• Each retailer must have a strategy or plan to project
the image with regard to its category, its competitors,
and which makes customers respond to the image.
Hence the firm must have a clear, consistent image
and continuously communicate the same.
• Studies indicate that a retailer has roughly seven
seconds to capture the attention of a passing
customer. In that time the retailer needs to present a
distinctive image that not only reaches out and grabs
the customer's attention, but also makes a positive
impression within those precious few seconds.
 Components of retail Image
Characteristics of Price
Target market
Levels

Atmospherics

Customer Service Retail Image

Retail Marketing:
-Advertising
-Public relations
-Personal Selling
Store location -Promotions
Merchandise
& Geographic assortment
coverage & quality
1. Characteristics of the target
market:
The retailer may use following techniques for
selecting the target market:
1.Mass marketing (selling to a broad spectrum)
e.g. supermarkets or drug stores
2.Concentrated marketing (concentrating on
one specific group e.g. upscale men’s shoe
store
3.Differentiated marketing, (aiming at two or
more distinct customer groups) department
stores
 2. Customer Service:
• The tangible and tangible activities
undertaken by the retailer in conjunction with
its merchandise and services that it sells is
the service.
• Eg.store hours, parking access, credit
acceptance, caliber of salespeople, store
amenities such as rest rooms, toilets and
drinking water, delivery policies, amount o f
time spent on checkout etc
 3. Store location and
geographic coverage
• A retailer has several store location decisions
to make that will determine the perception of
the retailer in the minds of the public.
– What general locations to go to?
– What specific sites to be chosen?
• This depends on competitor’s locations’
transportation access, population density,
type of neighborhood, and nearness to
suppliers. Whether the retailer is a national,
local or international player will also
contribute to its image
 4. Merchandise assortment,
fashionability and quality
• The retailer decides about the quality of
goods he wants to sell. The width of the
assortment (number of different product
categories carried), depth of assortment (the
variety of products in a given category),
innovativeness of the merchandise range,
how fashion-forward or basic will the
merchandise be etc.
 5. Price levels
• The retailer will need to chose from
amongst several pricing techniques,
such as leading/following pricing, cost-
plus or demand oriented pricing, what
range of prices to set etc.
 6. Physical facilities and
atmosphere/Atmospherics:
• This refers to the stores’ physical
characteristics that are used to develop
an image and draw customers
– Exterior
– General Interiors
– Store layout
– Interior displays (point of purchase
displays)
 Store Exteriors

• Storefront
• Marquee or store sign:
• Entrances:
• Display Windows
• Visibility:
• Uniqueness
• Surrounding stores
• Surrounding area
• Parking
 General Interiors
• Flooring
• Colours and lighting
• Fixtures:
• Wall textures:
• Temperature:
• Width of aisles:
• Vertical transportation
• Personnel
• Merchandise
• Prices (levels and displays)
• Cash register placement
• Technology and modernization
 Store layout

Each store has a total store square

footage that needs to be allocated to
selling, merchandise, personnel and
customers
• -Selling space
• -Merchandise space
• -Personnel space
• -Customer space
 Store layout

• Product grouping
• Traffic flow
– Straight flow pattern
– Curved flow pattern
• Department locations
• Arrangements within departments
 Interior displays (point of
purchase displays)

Many shopping decisions are made at the

point of purchase and hence the
communication from the retailer to the
customer is crucial at this point
• Assortment
• Theme setting
• Ensemble displays
• Posters, signs and cards
 7. Retail Marketing
• Retail marketing is any communication
by a retailer that informs, persuades or
reminds the market about any aspect of
the company/store.
 7. Retail Marketing
• The following are the four elements of
the Retail promotional Mix.
– Mass advertising
- Public relations
- Type of personal selling
- Sales promotion
 7. a) Advertising
• Advertising is paid, communication
transmitted through mass media, and based
outside the store. Advertising is different from
publicity, as it is paid for, whereas no
payment is made by the retailer for publicity.
The advertising media can include
newspapers, radio, TV, the Web, magazines,
hoardings.
• Retail advertising stress immediacy, often ads
are run for specific, short periods of time.
Objectives of retail Advertising
• Increase short-term sales
• Increase customer traffic
• Develop or reinforce the retail image
• Inform customers about goods and
service or company attributes
• Help the sales personnel in their jobs
• Develop a demand for private labels
 7. b) Public relations
• This indicates any communication that
nurtures a favourable image for the
retailer among the public (customers,
investors, government, employees etc).
It may be paid or unpaid. Publicity is
any message transmitted through the
media, which is not paid for or
controlled by the retailer
 Objectives of Public relations
• Increase awareness of the retailer and its
offerings
• Maintain and improve a company image
• Show the retailer as a contributor to the
public’s quality of life
• Demonstrate innovativeness
• Present a favourable message in a highly
believable manner
• Minimize total promotion costs.
 7. c) Personal Selling
• This involves oral communication with
prospective customer for the purpose of
making sales. The level of personal
selling utilized by the retailer depends
on the image it wants to convey, the
types of products sold, the level of self-
service etc
Objectives of Personal Selling
• Persuade customers to buy
• Stimulate sales of impulse items
• Feedback information to company decision
makers
• Provide adequate levels of customer service
• Improve and maintain customer satisfaction
• Create awareness of specific products
 7.d) Sales Promotion
• Sales promotions is made up of all the paid
communication activities apart from
advertising, public relations and personal
selling, that will stimulate the customer to buy.
Included here are displays, contests,
coupons, frequent shoppers programmes,
prizes, samples, demonstrations, referral gifts
etc
Objectives of Sales Promotion
• Increase short-term sales volume
• Maintain customer loyalty
• Emphasize novelty
• Complementing other promotion tools
such as advertising
Examples of Promotional tools
• Point –of-purchase promotion : Window, floor
and counter displays to remind a customer
and stimulate impulse purchases.
• Contests :Customers compete for prizes by
completing a contest (game) such as slogan,
crossword. Winning is partially based on a
correct answer
• Sweepstakes: This is similar to a contest,
except that participants fill out forms and
winners are picked out a random, no skill is
involved.
Examples of Promotional tools
• Coupons: Retailers advertise special
discounts for customers who redeem
advertised coupons, by presenting coupons
to the retailer
• Frequent Shoppers programmes: Customers
are given points, discounts or other rewards
based on the rupee amounts they have
shopped. The points are accumulated to
acquire merchandise/services.
• Prizes: Is also a method of rewarding
customers for purchases, except that the
retailer gives prizes immediately
 Examples of Promotional tools
• Samples; Free tastes or smells of items are given to
customers
• Demonstrations: Products are shown cleaning floors,
mixing foods etc. Services may also be demonstrated
• Referral gifts :Presents or gifts are given to current
customer when they bring in new customers
• Matchboxes, pens, calendars, shopping bags etc:
Items that contain the retailer name and logo are given
to customers
• Special events: Events may include fashion shows,
autograph session with authors. Art exhibits, cultural
events, etc.
Thank you for listening