The Winter Sale Continues – Is it Price you want or Quality?
I even saw a “Turkish Durum” outlet having a 1+1 offer. Brands like C&A, Esprit, Mango, Celio, Zara, Foot Locker, Media Markt have their shops absolutely full of shoppers jostling their way around the store. Checkout lines have never been longer before and I tweeted my frustration during one of these long waits !
But here is the question that I keep asking. Are these so called “Winter” & “Summer” sales really worth it – to both the shopper & the retailer?
For the retailer, the focus during this period is primarily to give the shoppers a great bargain and clear old stock at the same time. But I get the feeling that the quality and choices at offer seem to suffer. My colleague posted a blog on a topic which I have only come across too often. Are retailers risking losing their brand image by offering low quality products at a cheaper price just for the sake of joining the sale season and with limited choices to boot? Is this a phenomenon that is exclusive only in Belgium or is it the case elsewhere?
My question is not based on what I have seen this year but in what I have experienced during these sales periods during the last few years. I also love a bargain and there is nothing more thrilling that buying something which saves you 50%. But more often than not, my experience has been that the product I bought either conked out after a couple of months or came apart at the seams after 6 months. (And these are branded products that I’m talking about)
For the shopper, don’t you want something which will at least last you a year or at the minimum - until the next major sale period?
Almost every retailer is building systems for competitor price comparison and analysis. So, why cannot this price comparison and the competitive pricing be done more regularly? A study to understand shopper behaviour during the “sale period” and “no-sale-but-competitive-price” period would be interesting.
Your thoughts?
Comments
Dear Mr. Ramakrishnan,
You need to delve deep in the Shopper Insights to answer your question. The answer is based on the model of volume versus quality. The consumer Product Industry has its major hurdle with its customers not the consumers, that is where price and quality are very much mutually exclusive arguments.
We spend a tremendous amount of time and energy making sure that customer margin and promoted price meet the customers excpectation. A large part of our budget 30-40% is spent on those activities managing price and promotion to both our expectations as well as our customers (not to be confused with consumers).
So the simple argument of why wouldn't a consumer want something that fall aparts in 6 months is simple: they do not want to pay for it and the turnover of product is directly related to ROI and profitability.
Posted by: Morris Hoover | February 9, 2010 2:38 PM