6Ps OF RETAIL MARKETING

I attended my first off campus interview with an experience of 1 year. I was asked this question by the interviewer. I was baffled by the question WHAT ARE THE 6Ps of RETAIL !!
But the interviewer did not give a sarcastic laugh , like most interviewers do when the interviewee cuts a blank face. He instead explained me the 6Ps in brief and I thank him for that till date because I never had to learn it more than once in detail to remember it. I hope the below section will help you to understand what I have understood and learnt so far about the 6Ps of Retail

THE 6Ps of RETAIL MARKETING :

1. Product
2. Placement
3. Price
4. Promotion
5. People
6. Pixel

Each of these 6 Ps have equal importance in running a successful business and contributes to higher turnover when kept in check and analysed for improvisations on regular basis. Now lets discuss the same in detail :

1. PRODUCT :

A product is anything in a tangible or intangible form sold by an organisation to a client for profits. It is the assortment of product sold by an organisation that defines the purpose of the organisation and its existence in the market. Simple examples for intangible Products can be Insurance policies, BPO services and for tangible products will be Fruits, grocery items, clothing, etc.
All retailers will categorise the products based on Manufacturing, Procurement, sales and seasonality


CLASSIFICATION BASED ON MANUFACTURING (applicable for "in-house products")

1. Core or Flagship products
2. Basics

CLASSIFICATION BASED ON PROCUREMENT

1. Consignment
2. Concession
3. Regular
4. Deposit
5. Non-Trading
 
CLASSIFICATION BASED ON SALES

1. Top Selling
2. A Class , B Class and C Class products based on average sales in descending
3. Clearance goods

CLASSIFICATION BASED ON SEASONALITY

1. New Launch
2. Continued Products

We will discuss the above in detail when we discuss Product classification in upcoming chapters


2. PLACEMENT :

Placement can be subdivided into two types in case of a brick and mortar store :
- Visual Merchandising
- Store location

Visual Merchandising is the art of placement of your products at the right place in the shop floor, which will in turn act as silent salesmen to your customers improving both your sales and your customers' shopping experience. Visual Merchandising covers effective signage placement, cross merchandising, floor plan, gondola placements, aisle spacing, television placement, window displays, etc. We will discuss visual merchandising in detail in the future chapter on the same.

Store Location plays a vital role in attracting walk-ins i.e. number of customers visiting the store. A store placed in a mall's ground floor, a store well connected by public transport, a store with good parking space will attract more customers than a store failing in these criteria. Type of customers and customer needs in the store's catchment area should be studied before finalising the location. A very simple example can be, we cannot open a jewellery store in a high security risk area even if the area is well connected by public transport which will in turn cascade to higher walk-ins.


3. PRICING STRATEGY :

Pricing strategy is the art of pricing your products, yes its not just a job of fixing margins. It involved very niche expertise of understanding the customers, catchment and the product life cycle. For example a merchandiser while maintaining the price of a product would consider the below points:
- introductory products
- standard product or a regular buy product
- flagship products
- non selling products
- out of fashion
- clearance
- off sale season
- competitor's pricing
- budgeted margin percentage for the product category
Based on the above a merchandiser will decide whether he has to go with a promotion strategy or mark-up strategy or mark-down strategy or clearance pricing strategy.


4. PROMOTION : 

Promotion involves the various steps or measures you take to ensure your message reaches your customer. The message can be brand image , merchandise, loyalty program or your presence in the market. Promotion can be divided into two simple types :
- Above the line Promotion
- In-store Promotion
The first being promotions done outside the store premises like hoardings, flyers, etc and latter being in-store signage, window displays, visual merchandising, freebies, etc.
The purpose of every promotion will be to increase the following :
- Sales
- Customer Walk-in
- Customer Conversion
- Average Bill Value
- Brand Image

5. PEOPLE : 

People are the face of any organisation or retail brand. It is its people who define the success of an organisation. With retail still being people oriented industry unlike manufacturing, having well groomed and trained people will help your organisation achieve its goals and mission.
Therefore recruitment and training of employees is of high priority and importance in a retail environment. Skilled sales staff can enhance your sales and customer loyalty multiple folds. Ensuring high morale in team members and management staff will ensure very high return on investment for the higher management. Human resource department plays a very vital part in people management.


6. PIXEL : 

Pixel covers the technological front which are used for promoting our products.
We are in the age of Internet and people spend a lot of time online to connect and communicate with one another. This window provides us a huge opportunity to communicate and promote our products and brand image. Online marketing has a faster reach and with Facebook, Blogging gaining huge popularity they can be utilised as good marketing instruments to reach out to our customers.
Other ways of marketing can be done through bulk messaging to loyalty customers, emails and on our official website and pages.