The experience of shopping for premium branded goods in India

A question for you, dear reader: Have you ever shopped at a top-line apparel or accessories store in India and felt that the exclusive store experience was far from satisfactory?

Our loyal reader, Nafisa, definitely thinks so. She feels that salespersons at these stores often fail to carry through on the expectations from the brand. The manner in which they fell short of her expectations:

• At the very basic level, lack of adequate knowledge of the product. Unaware or unable to explain the USP, don’t know of competition or how their product is different / better
• Lack of interest in the overall category which could be  crucial to the brand experience
• At a service level – lots of aggravation for customer and rarely do they respect customer’s time. No different from cheap brands and stand-alone store
• A level of disinterest relating to customer concerns
• Laze / lack of earnestness– no follow up with potential or existing customers. No follow – up or feedback loop when the brand has a website with the requisite options especially for the purpose

Why we think this is important:

In all interactions and transactions in a store, the organisation is presenting itself – or part of itself – to people with whom it either has a relationship or is trying to build one. If it is to be successful, it has to be consistent and clear in what it says and does in all these relationships; in addition, the impression transmitted from all touch points with the consumer must be consistent too, i.e. in-store interactions must match what the brand promises through other media such as TV and print ads, PR etc. In-store experience is a significant component of how people sense the brand and contributes to their perception of it, especially in the premium segment, where part of the reason for the purchase is the image that is being sold, the identity or idea which the consumer buys for himself / herself through the purchase.

Nafisa’s rant on this significant issue prompted us to run this as a theme for a series of blog posts. We’ve been doing some ground-work for this series – visiting retail outlets and making observations, speaking to a few people from the industry to get their opinion on the topic etc. We haven’t restricted our work to apparel and accessories either; we’ve looked at premium brands in a few other categories too. So do keep visiting our blog regularly to know more. Also, we’d love to hear from you about your point of view on the topic, so do write in with your comments, the more detailed, the better.

By,

Nafisa De Figueiredo and the Escape Velocity Team