Buy One Get ... MULTIPLE ... ehhh !!!! Part 2

I am tuned in Again J.

Thanks for coming back.

Let’s see why ‘Buy 1 Get 3’ would have made me buy –

For this we will have to …. Ummm (okay, read carefully as it is serious. No kidding.) … read following italicized text like a consultant. Lemme help you .. you just have to read it with a false accent … I knw it may sound a bit pretentious but trust me it will be fun J

Give it a try -

Price perception – As a customer, from my knowledge (which I have built by going to stores, seeing ads in newspaper and anywhere else and by talking to my friends about their buying) I know that branded shirts (jargon for this is – strategic group) generally can be bought in the price range of 699 to 1500.

Quality Perception – As branded shirts are costly I have created some quality standards for them.

(he he he .. ur still accenting? :P Go on. Go on. Don’t stop)

Value Perception – This would be Price times the Perceived Quality (and dude, there is nothing absolute here. This is all relative)

So how can we increase the Value Perception?

Increase Quality perception or Decrease Price.

When I am offering a shirt for Rs. 500 for which Price Perception is Rs. 699 – Rs. 1500. I will create a Value perception in the minds of customers.

Enjoyed? J

DUDE! ANY MORE GYAAN?

What more I would tell stores would be

1. Identify touch points. Activate them. Remember that every touch point is an opportunity and a challenge for you. (Do you rememder how they failed to identify and activate the touch point where I was first exposed to the price tag of the shirt?)
2. I can’t understand why stores have forgotten ‘FREE’ which has highest semantic description and which attracts shoppers like nothing else?

(Refer to the image above. I hv yet to figure out how I paste it in the middle of the post. Sry for inconvenience)

Which one is more attractive?

LET’S NOT FORGET OUR OLD FRIEND

Now, because that’s the talk of the town, even I can’t resist talking about it.

These days, everyone seems overwhelmed and short sighted by recession. Every store and brand is giving big discounts to attract customers. It is a good strategy because in recession buying behaviour changes and a good segment of customers seek value for their money.

What is probably missing in this strategy is a strategy for Post-Recession Era. What when it all gets over?

This is more critical to brands which are comparatively new.

If you are not creating a value proposition other than low price then in post recession era when discounts would no longer be a good strategy, would customers still buy you?

Thanks for visiting.

K.R.O.

(keep reading on!)

Buy One Get ... MULTIPLE ... ehhh !!!!

‘Them say that to be a good marketer first be a good customer.’

I heard them.

Last Saturday, I woke up as a customer.
As I was playing a customer, after breakfast I felt like buying something. I put on my walking shoes and reached Tirumalgiri Road (yeah, that’s in Hyderabad).

@ 10 A.M

Walking down the road towards Patny Center, one can find this medium size complex with a good number of small garments shops giving away stuff on humongous discounts. I had visited them once and found out that they had big labels in pretty old stock, so old that some denims even looked like ‘Pre-Owned’. I don’t see myself wearing a pre-owned denim , even if I get it at knock-off prices, so I neglected those shops and continued my journey. I went farther ahead and found ‘Koutons’, selling ‘Buy 1 get 5’ …. “what the hell!” I said to myself and went inside. See, I know something has gone terribly wrong with them. From being a premium brand they could somehow managed to become a street side brand which can only sell by giving big discounts. The image of the brand has got screwed up big time. Now because being a discount store has become their strategy, and because being a good customer I have already figured that out, I would not notice any discount given by them. But this offer was really big. ‘Buy 1 get 5’ … are you crazy?

INSIDE THE STORE

Anyways, I was already inside the store, checking their stock. I wanted to buy some formal shirts. I checked the price tag (a touch point with the brand) and divided it by 5. Why? Because for that one shirt I was getting 4 other shirts for free. And because I was playing a good customer, I decided that I would not get blinded by the offer. I would calculate the value I would actually get. One shirt was for Rs. 2.5K (what the hell!?! 2.5K??? boss they have definitely over priced them—a strong feeling of they-are-robbing-us was created).


THE CALCULATION

Divide 2.5K by 5; per shirt I would be paying 500 Rs. The crappy shirt material along with these-guys-are-thieves perception forced me not to buy anything from the store. Yes, ANYTHING. I did not even think of checking other things like denim or trousers. And I was out of the store with a bad feeling.

THE AFTERGLOW

I like afterglows ( ;) ) , pls read it the way I want you too.. So that u ‘feel’ it… give stress on feel please. Yes, that’s what you have to do … give stress on the words written in single quotes (e.g. ‘feel’) and the ones written in double quotes have to stressed and read “reaalll” slow …. Yes! You got it!! Ok, so let’s get started -

You know what? marketers should know that ‘everytime’ (gv stress here) I walk out of a store like this, I accumulate a ‘bad’ (nd here) experience about a brand in specific and about an offer in general. So next time, If you are thinking about giving me an offer like that, just keep in mind that I would already have some perception (good or bad) about the offer, and you would have to do something which

1. “Neutralizes” (read it sloooww) the effect of my perception (if bad) and
2. “Utilizes” (this one too) its effect (if it is good)

So what could Koutons have done to make me buy stuff?

1. “Reduce” their prices. Take a small hit on their margins and ‘ACTUALLY’ give me a value.
2. If they can’t do 1 then they should make an offer which makes me think that they are giving me some value. For ex-

Pricing a shirt at Rs. 2.5 K and expecting customer to digest it without having a ‘bad’ perception is just plain ‘stupid’.

Price it at 1500 and offer me ‘Buy 1 get 3’ deal. You will still enjoy the same margins and customer will also see a value in it. Why?

Get to know ‘Why?’ and what other things they could have done to get me in my next blog …..

Thanks for visiting.

K.R.O.
(Keep Reading On)