Goal

The textile fabrics brand wanted to move away from the age-old & traditional way of displaying and selling fabric thaans (rolls) to become contemporary in giving a retail experience in the era of modern retail and be relevant to the market of changing consumer expectations.

Solution

We engaged with the agencies from USA, Germany, Italy and India to evaluate their work in the relevant industry segment and execution capability in India. After due evaluation by paying visits to the markets where their work was visible through functioning retail stores, the USA-based agency was selected with an Indian partner.
We participated in the study tour abroad that the appointed agency took with the client’s top management in retail. The purpose was to see how fabric retailers in the international market had transformed with modern retail and to examine their service pivots. Much was learnt in the tour regarding the first impression at the store entry, significance of windows to make a statement, the sensory experience inside the store, the over dramatic elements to drive a point home, the layout of the merchandise that nurtures consumer’s engagement and service delivery combined with sales.

Once back in India, the brand’s marketing team gave insights about their consumers through market research project findings. Additionally, in retail shops, we ran a survey to collect 1000 responses from real buyers of the brand, to re-validate their demographics. The insights were conveyed to the creative design agency who in turn made its own observations on buying behaviour by stationing themselves at brand’s retail stores and also its competitors.
The design agency identified that modern shoppers like a more democratic way of shopping. She wants to look, touch, and feel the product by herself without a salesman’s active help. She wants to look around at her own pace and would invite assistance only when needed.

We gave the agency inputs on the nuts and bolts of the business: viz, multiple format sizes, merchandise stock requirement in each split by categories/sub-categories, weight of fabric rolls, merchandise highlights, product strength that needed conveying, target spend on interiors by franchisees, space required for tailoring – its volumes, storage, and so on.

Outcome

A beautifully designed textile fabric showroom was executed that did away with the sales counters with salesmen standing behind them, pulling fabric rolls from a slanting row of vertical stacks to show to the shopper.
Instead, it was transformed into an appealing space that exuded class, warmth, and coziness, and allowed the shopper to go around the merchandise to see-touch-feel it himself without any need of the salesman. It offered a contemporary retail experience that pleasantly surprised the consumer who was used to old traditionally laid textile shops. And, it delivered high on building the intended brand perception in the consumer’s mind.