Comments
Skyrocketing sales figures, innumerable discount offers, long queues in malls, slew of new launches, e-commerce websites crashing due to excessive customer traffic and what not, Diwali 2014 saw them all.
What’s the big deal? What was different this year that has created the media buzz?
Everyone had high expectations from the advertising slots screaming out messages weeks in advance. So, did the festival season benefit the customers or the brands? The real retail space saw a paradigm shift towards virtual retail (or e-tail) buying, and the major chunk of online Diwali sales was that of electronics.
For these e-commerce sales, the figures of actual deliveries (and therefore, sales closures) would be imperative to study and gauge consumer sentiments accurately and the extent of the paradigm shift (online). For other retail segments such as apparel, home durables and jewellery, consumers still preferred queuing up at their favourite retail stores. The consumer’s behaviour inside the stores was more confident and people shopped with great gusto, despite the d-day being towards the end of month where the spend thrust is usually low. People dipped into their savings to buy more. Part of this confidence can be attributed to the recent strengthening of faith in the newly-elected Government.
Besides focusing on sales, and therefore revenue, brands also increased their emphasis on customer service and remained vigilant against malpractices by deploying mystery shoppers who mingled with the crowd and provided almost immediate feedback, thereby enabling the companies to stay in control of their entire retail space. These mystery shoppers not only helped the companies govern better but also kept the retailers on their toes to adhere to the pricing and customer service standards. So, if you experienced great customer service, despite a large crowd, you can attribute part of it to the mystery shoppers who were busy working while you enjoyed shopping. Overall, the market space saw changes for the better, both for the consumers and the brands.
What was your experience?
(Saurabh Bhatia is the Founding Partner at LeCapri Market Research LLP and author of “Mystery Shopping (Mock It & Fill Your Pocket)”
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.