Lessons in Retailing..

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Last week, me and my wife wanted to buy a TV and had narrowed down to two brands – Panasonic and LG. We did all the research that we could online and decided that we should visit a showroom so that we can see, touch and feel the product, its features and how easy or difficult it was to use them.

Frustration & Disappointment

There started our journey of frustration and disappointment.

We visited multi-brand retail outlets like Reliance Digital, Chroma, Adishwars, Vivek’s, Unilet, Pai International and a few more. All we wanted was for them to demo the product and explain its features. The result was that we found out how little the sales people in these showrooms actually knew about the features except for the top 3 features and when it came to actually show some these features, their lack of knowledge was even more appalling.

Most of the showrooms did not have an internet connection which could be used to show the “Smart” capabilities of the TV that we wanted to buy. In places where there was an internet connection, most of the times it was so slow that it was practically useless.

Most of the sales executives did not know that the TV could be controlled via my iPhone or if media share was possible through my iPhone.

So, we decided to go to the brand stores for both the brands. The consolation was that the knowledge of the sales executives was slightly better but not complete. Here the sales executives were not even inclined to spend time with us knowing that their price is high and a price conscious customer usually will not place orders with them. To a large extent that was true as well. They can’t compete with the other stores on price. This implied that it was all the more critical for these stores to differentiate themselves based on their service. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Ultimately, after having visited close to 10 stores and having seen all the features & functionalities that we wanted to see (at different stores, we saw different functionalities), we decided to buy an LG tv from a small time vendor who was a friend of a friend.

Learning for the multi-brand physical stores

From my experience, I think that the multi-brand stores would be better off by learning the following:

  • Train your sales executives not just about the top 3 features but about the entire product. IF required, have specialist sales executives who represent a specific brand.
  • Provide the right infrastructure. If you want to sell smart TV’s which can connect to the internet, provide a fast and a stable internet connection so that the sales executives can give a demo.
  • Competing just on price alone is self-defeating. So, try to compete on a combination of price, experience and support.

Lessons for the brands themselves

Some lessons that LG can learn:

  • It is the brands responsibility to ensure that all the sales executives at their brand store are well trained and can demo their product well.
  • It is the brands responsibility to continue to train the sales executives of the multi-brand retail outlets on an ongoing basis, at lease before a high profile promotion.
  • It is the brands responsibility to ensure that there is not much disparity in pricing in the market (I was offered anywhere between 51500 INR to 62000INR for the same product) depending upon which retailer I spoke to. And this does not include any online promotion being run by any store. This kind of disparity always leaves the customer thinking if they paid too much for the product irrespective of the price that they paid.

Buying experience Vs Product being bought

Overall from the experience of buying the TV, I have realized that the only way that physical stores can continue to survive in the long run is to be provide exceptional buying experience as competing on price is a game that physical stores will not be able to win in the long run.

These are based on my experience. Do you agree with the learnings? What has your experience been?

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Mukesh Gupta
I currently work for SAP as Customer advocate. In this capacity, I am responsible to ensure that the voice of the customer is being heard and play the bridge between customers and SAP. Prior to joining SAP, I have worked with different organizations serving in different functions like customer service, logistics, production planning & sales, marketing and business development functions. I was also the founder-CEO of a start-up called "Innovative Enterprises". The venture was in the retail & distribution business. I blog at http://rmukeshgupta.com.

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