BCBGeneration Consumer Report

Casey Huth

Consumer Behavior Final Project

BCBGeneration Tactics Analysis

Table of Contents

1.0 Executive Summary

2.0 Store Summary

2.1 Communicating Brand Message & Image

2.2 Image & Personality

2.3 Levels of Perception

2.4 Tactics & Technologies

3.0 Products & Store Layout

3.1 Consumer Decision Making

3.2 Consumer Expectations

3.3 Brand & Consumer Values

4.0 Consumer Market Analysis Summary

4.1 Relating Brand Identity to the Consumer

4.2 Consumer Values & Motivation

4.3 Consumer Self

5.0 Strategies and Implementation Summary

5.1 Consumer Personality

5.2 Brand Persuasion to Consumer Attitudes

5.3 Social Networking with Groups

5.4 Brand Community & Reference Groups

6.0 Management Summary

6.1 Consumer Buying & Disposing

Visual Merchandising

Visual merchandising is everything the customer sees, both exterior and interior, that creates a positive image of business and results in attention, interest, desire and action on the part of the customer.

Visual merchandising is a perception of sellers guiding them to arrange his merchandise look more attractive for a customer.

-The job on visual merchandising is make the store attractive for customers. -Eighty percent of our impressions are created by sight that is why one picture is worth thousand words.

-Each customer has a mental image of its store and merchandise.

-A store should have an inviting appearance that makes the customer feel comfortable and eager to buy.

Objectives of Visual Merchandising:

Objective of visual merchandise is a desire to attract customers to a place of business in order to sell the merchandise. It is offered to the customer through exterior and interior presentations.

The evolution from the customer perspective should start from exterior and work completely through the interior of the store.

-Apart from retail identity building visual merchandising is regarded as a powerful tool in shaping consumers final decision to buy in store.

-Visual merchandising focuses on various aspects of consumer, which include sensory pleasure, affective pleasure and cognitive pleasure.

Essential of Visual Merchandising Interior Floor Design And Display Space Design And Signage Fixtures And Hardware

Window Display

Advertising Materials Tools Use for Visual Merchandising Audio-Visual Displays Decoration And Props Mannequins Signage And Graphics

The presentation in visual merchandising falls into two categories mainly

1) Exterior Presentations

2) Interior Presentations

Exterior Presentations:

The quality of a store front is a major determinant for a customer, particularly a new customer, and should not be underestimated. The exterior appearance of one store, a block businesses or a cluster, silently announce what customers can expect inside. Good exterior visual merchandising attracts attention, creates interest and invites the customer into business. Exterior presentation can offer lavish, conservative, progressive or discount image.

Strong Signage

A sign is a silent salesperson, and part of a shopper first impression of a store.

In less than 10sec the sign must attract attention, tell what the business is and what it intends to sell.

Simple, brief, well designed, well lettered and easy to read signs will convey a feeling of welcome.

Design graphics appropriate for the nature of the business, and create a message that is clear and simple.

Focus on one or two key words to describe the business. A clean, clear message will have more impact.

A store sign is its “signature”. It is personal, original and continuously recognizable to the public.

It should create an image that is consistently carried throughout the existence of store.

Banners

A new and interesting appearance can be offered by changing the banners frequently. Consumers will think exciting changes are taking place in store an will be drawn in the stores.

Banners can be hung up from flagpoles, projected from the building or flat against the exterior. To provide continuity the same banner design, reduced in size and scale, can be hung from the marquee and displayed inside the store. However do not over use banners. Then they might be overlooked by the consumers.

Window Display

Special emphasis should be placed on a stores window displays because they are the information link to the potential customer. Window displays can be as important, if not more important than advertising. As many as four sales could be the result of a good window display.

Window display should attract attention, create interest and invite people into the store to purchase goods.

There is less than 11 seconds to accomplish this, as that is an average amount of the time an individual will spend looking at a window display.

Be careful not to crowd too much merchandise into a window, as customers will find it difficult to understand the message and what items are being promoted .It is important to change the displays frequently in small towns where customers pass by several times a week.

New displays indicate new up-to-date merchandise is available.

Landscaping

Landscaping should lead the customer’s eye to the focal point using color and texture to provide contrast and harmony. The focal point is the business sign and/or the building itself. Landscaping can also screen undesirable sights such as garbage receptacles, power transformers and refrigeration equipment.

The essence of good landscaping is simplicity, simple landscape designs that are easy to maintain.

Interior Presentations

Selling space is the most important part of a store and therefore efforts to utilize each square foot will help to maximize sales. The purpose of the interior display is to develop desire for the merchandise, show what is available, and encourage both impulse and planned buying.

Three goals of store are:

Motivate the customer to spend money Protect the image of the store Keep expenses to minimum

As an illustration, researchers found that 64.8% of all the purchase decision were made inside a supermarket. Most people indicated they purchased the item because they saw it displayed. 67% of liquor purchased from the liquor shop are impulse items. Combining advertising and display into an integrated promotional campaign will usually be more effective.

Color and Lighting

Color contributes significantly to people’s impression of a display as well as stores overall appearance. Color in a display can catch eye and make people pause and look.

The color combination of ceiling, walls, floor covering and the overall décor can affect the atmosphere of a store.

Changing the color scheme can change people’s attitudes and perceptions of a store and can increase or decrease the business.

Color can change the shape and interest to dull room, and can direct attention toward a specific object or away from problem areas. Warm colors (red, yellow, orange etc.) are stimulating and cheery. They

make room feel warm and intimate. They make room look smaller and object inside larger.

Lighting

Lighting is essential in calling attention to merchandise in a display. A shopper’s eye is drawn automatically to the brightest item or area. Lighting treatment may be used to draw attention to the part of display area or to coordinate the parts of total display area. Lighting can also be used to direct the path of the customers and to make them see various displays along the way.

Primary lighting Store illumination Atmosphere lighting Primary Lighting:

Atmosphere Lighting

Atmosphere lighting is used to play light against shadow to create a distinctive effect on specific displays. Generally this category includes the use of color filters, pinpoint spotlights and black lighting to create dramatic effects.

Fluorescent lights are used for primary lighting, as they cannot be focused directly on an object. Incandescent lamps have sharply defined beams that are easily directed to highlight the merchandise on display.

Spotlights are great for merchandise displays. The angle at which spotlight is directed is very important. Any angle sharper than 45 degree is likely to momentarily blind a shopper.

Color filters that change the color of the spotlight are available for spotlights.

Props and Fixtures

A prop is something used with a product in a display that clarifies the function of the merchandise being sold or the story being told. Props are integral part of a display.

They are used in virtual merchandising to tell a story about the product A display prop may be something that is not for sale, such as floor coverings, wall treatments, backgrounds, mannequins, shelves and steps. When using saleable merchandise as prop, be sure it is appropriate for the theme of the display and is sufficient quantity to meet an increase in demand arising from the display.

Merchandise and Fixture Display Recommendations

Goods can be effectively displayed on a variety of fixtures such as gondolas, tables, cubes, and mannequins, waterfalls and other racks, display cases. A fixture should not only complement the merchandise but also create an atmosphere in the store. It should act as silent sales person.

One of the most common fixtures in store are gondolas; movable shelving approachable from all sides used in self-service retail stores to display merchandise. They can be lined up in stores as grocery or hardware stores.

Errors Commonly Occurring in Display:

Too much merchandise Too little merchandise Lack of underlying theme Too many props Poorly selected props Display changed to seldom Limited or no display budget Lack of attention to detail

So by the combination of mannequin, lighting and props in a window display and a store highlight can further intensify the decision process where the former affects the affective pleasure of consumers and help them determine the suitability of a store’s retail identity to personal preference, the latter intensifies the sensational feeling of consumers and encourage the tendency to try on or purchase which directly relates to the pre-purchase stage. Thus it can be concluded that visual merchandising play one of the important role in customers’ decision making process.

It means getting range segmentation, store layouts and use of space, merchandising principles and techniques, window and instore displays right.

And, it includes developing effective POS & POP solutions, seasonal events and promotions to stimulate shopping behavior.

Creates a targeted way for the brand and its consumers - allowing expensive staff resources to be deployed on other complimenting strategies, such as providing better consumer engagement through customer services.

Makes Consumers Buy More

Successful brand delivery is all about understanding and satisfying customer needs. So the more that a company understands its consumers, brand and competitors, the better it can deliver better solutions in store to improve the customer experience.

1. Requires real expertise in store design, space planning and presentation expertise and a real commitment to adopting a consumer led approach.

2. Whether this is achieved by increasing the size of spend, type and number of items that people buy, the frequency of purchases, the brands and lines that shoppers select and even down to the stores they choose to shop in.

3. Grouping different, yet related product items together to create higher value is also a commonly used technique, as are all-inclusive solutions such as outfit combinations in fashion stores, meal suggestions in supermarkets and project areas in DIY stores to inform, influence and inspire customer purchases.

How does it affect retail teams?

It allows the whole company to move forward with the same selling strategies, components and practice to maximise opportunities – delivering a consistent application of company policy instore, which improves the customer experience and maximises sales opportunities.

Retail Teams benefit from greater clarity of direction, and from better information and training to help them perform role related tasks with an effective integrated approach.

This multiplies success throughout the business and is good for motivation and personal development aspects too.

Marketing & Selling to Gen Y

The majority of Gen Y workers, 63% have a Bachelor's degree, but the most common jobs they hold are in the retail industry and don't require one.

They're more than five times likely than workers overall to be merchandise displayers (median pay of $23,400), 4.6 times more likely to be clothing sales representative ($28,400), and four times likelier to be cell phone reps ($27,800), the report found.

- Most Gen Y workers are forgoing the biggest companies in favor of smaller companies. The highest concentration of Gen Y workers (47%) are at small companies with fewer than 100 employees, followed by midsize companies that have no more than 1,500 employees (30%). Just 23% of Gen Y-ers work at large firms with more than 1,500 employees.

- Out of the 20 largest metro areas in the U.S., Seattle is the best city for Gen Y, primarily because of its concentration of tech companies and strong wage growth.

- With Mark Zuckerberg as their role model, it's no wonder their most touted talents revolve around social media and technology. According to the report, Gen Y's most common job skills are Tableau software (data analysis software), blogging, social media optimization and writing press releases.

- The best companies for Gen Y are in the technology industry. The top five — ranked by pay, job stress and satisfaction for Gen Y workers — include Qualcomm, Google, Medtronic, Intel and Microsoft.

Reaching Generation Y’s Through Social Media Marketing

o To be effective in our advertising and our branding, we’re going to have to look deeper and learn more about the various generations that are appearing on the human landscape if we are ever going to become effective communicators.

62% of Gen Y’s have visited a brand or fan page on a social network, but only 48% have joined.

84% noticed ads on social networks, 74 percent say they click infrequently/never (36% saying they don’t click on ads at all).

Only 19% say they find ads on social networks relevant.

51% say they’d prefer a separate social network to manage their brand interactions.

Getting news or product updates (67%) Having access to promotions (64%) Viewing or downloading music or videos (41%) Submitting opinions (36%) Connecting with other consumers (33%)

1. Provide exclusive information about your products and services that can only be made available on these networks.

2. Set up a fan base, or your own social group where people can hang out online; a place where they can learn more and receive great offers.

3. Make it relevant, make it valuable and go with the flow of social media interaction.

4. Don’t be invasive – be subtly persuasive as you engage your potential customers.