The retailers are constantly searching for innovative business strategy planning ideas in order to acquire a competitive edge in the market and serve customers the best and better. And why would there be no competition? When there’s a new product and the same market to acquire, there will be other entrepreneurs as well with the same but modified product structures.  In this blow, we will learn Growth of Retailing – Major Retail Marketing decisions.

 

Therefore, with time the concept of product differences is diminishing. On the other hand, customers are becoming more price-conscious and realizing the multiple options they have in the market with little or no difference at all. Hence with these changes in marketing environments, trends, and technology advancement, marketers are now searching for new business strategies to operate profitably.

 

Keeping these challenges in mind, we will discuss some significant and potential retail marketing decisions to add value and develop new business ideas for improving your services.

Major Retail Marketing Decisions

Target Markets

Retailers make a common mistake of offering their services to everyone without actual customer targets. And in the end, they end up satisfying none. It is hard to keep everybody’s demands. On the other hand, smart and intelligent retailers first analyze their target audiences and their market positioning, followed by implementing the right business strategies for growth. 

 

This way, it enables them to infer what their customers are demanding, their changing decisions, quality demands, price range, features, etc. And it will also help you to work efficiently alongside customers.

Merchandise Assortment

The aim here is to recognize the merchandise that customers want and make it available for them. Hence, retailers should understand the three variables when deciding upon their product, i.e., product assortment, store vibes, and service mix. 

 

Product Assortment

As the topic explains, your retail shop must have products according to customer needs and expectations. Customers aren’t only interested in multiple choices but also the quality of their options available. 

 

Competitions will definitely prevail, but you have to look for innovative and creative ways to differentiate yourself. There are always effective business strategies ready to be implemented. 

Store Vibes

Your store and its vibe matters a lot. You might be reading this for the first time, but it is a fact. Customers feel more at ease when they get to enter a shop that serves more comfort and excitement. 

 

For example, a spacious restaurant enough to hold numerous visitors might not have the vibe for the customers to feel connected. On the contrary, a nearby cafe which is small and compact and has designed the interior with lots of beautiful plantations and lightings will attract more customers than the other one.

 

Therefore, the retailers should also maintain their store atmosphere and aim to connect their customers’ moods. This point falls under one of the powerful organizational strategies to improve sales and profits.

Service Mix

Smart and effective retailers also execute the idea of serving their customers with add-on services other than their initial services. For example, offering free home delivery, customer loyalty discounts, credits that usually many stores avoid, etc. 

 

Enabling such a service mix attracts more visitors profiting you and adding value to your retailing.

Store Location

Adding an easy-to-reach location is highly mandatory for retail stores. An ideal store location should be an area that is accessible to its customers. Sometimes, store outlets are built according to their customer feasibility, but it’s pretty much fine if the distance is far from their location. 

 

This feature is applicable for those retail stores that have established their market image and services—for example, a mall or a franchise. Factors affecting store sites include traffic patterns, customer accessibility, cost and population, competitor’s location, etc.

 

This is a matter many retailers forget to add to the list of their company’s strategic business plans.

Sales/Store Personnel

Your behavior and in-person services also attract customers. Your store image is the mental picture that your visitors envision when they remember you. Therefore, you and your sales personnel must be on their best behavior when customers visit your store.

 

It is also affected by the good advertisements, layouts, quality, availability of services. 

Price Decision

The price decision factor of retails is also unavoidable in business strategy planning for every retailer. It involves elements like competitor’s price analysis, product assortment, customer relevance. The main focus is to increase market share and higher prices. 

 

But as we all know, it doesn’t really work well when put together. That’s because charging more comes with a low market share and vice versa. For this, one way is to sell products at discounts but sell at volume. 

 

That initially and keeps both the parties on par.

Promotion Decisions

Usage of the right promotional services is yet again another important factor that can’t be missed. What we mean by promotional services are the different marketing techniques to create your brand image. 

 

It includes several effective and potential strategies such as running ad campaigns on TV and social media – one of the many important and effective ones, newspapers, radio, email marketing, magazines, etc.

 

Other than these digital promotions, personal tools are also actionable. It includes organizing live events involving speeches and attracting customers with several on-street activities. On-street activities include new product launch promotional events, involving contests, inviting famous celebrities, and many more.

Rounding Up

Marketers must consider many factors when developing strategic business plans and implementing the latest and innovative business ideas to the market. Well, of course, the important and effective ones have already been discussed above. 

 

Despite this, several agencies and organizations have initiated practical management training courses to ideate marketers about marketing trends and business-level strategies. They aim to provide retailers with effective and applicable solutions and implement enhanced retailing decisions.

 

One such example is Expert Mind Solutions, a consultancy firm aiding businesses (small-scale/enterprises), leaders, aspirants, and professionals with HRDF claimable training and consultancies, respectively.