Shop through the heart  ( April '19,2006, ET)

Three months ago, Motorola India decided to initiate a shop-in-shop programme, where the idea was to move away from simply selling mobile phones over the counter to providing customers an experience. What it entailed was setting up a corner within stores, where consumers could touch and feel the latest offerings from Motorola.

In came Quetzel, a retail design outfit based in Bangalore, which is working closely with Motorola in developing a prototype. In Mumbai, FMCG major HLL has initiated a programme to connect with conventional channels like the grocery stores across India. As a pilot project, HLL is assisting a local kirana store transform into a modern store with all the necessary trappings like signages, merchandise and planograms.

Working closely with HLL is Mumbai-based Retailscape. The initiative, once tested in Mumbai , will eventually be rolled out to 6,000-odd key retail outlets across India.

Providing customers ‘an experience’ at the retail level is clearly a priority for marketers. But what’s interesting is the manner in which they are roping in retail solution specialists — men and women armed with ideas on store design, visual merchandising, signages and layouts, specialists who are teaching marketers the tricks of providing a meaningful and differentiated experience.

Brands like Retailscape, Idiom, Quetzel and Maximus, to name a few, are forming a pool of growing expertise across the country, fulfilling the gap that exists in the retailing ecosystem. Lloyd Mathias, head of marketing at Motorola India, says that the new shop-in-shop programme synchs with the Motorola design philosophy of getting customers to feel the products.

“Merely selling across the counter is not enough, nor is putting in a dangler or poster. Today, it’s about visual ambience, where shoppers can come to our store, use the product and experience it,” he explains. That’s where Quetzel’s expertise comes in — designing signages and facades for the shop-in-shops.

Mathias is tightlipped about the look and feel of the shop-in-shop, saying that the prototype is still being worked upon. Likewise, Sandeep Tiwari, head of marketing at LG Electronics, says that at the regional level, the company has localised agencies working on aspects like in-shop demonstrations and signages.

“We are still at a conceptualisation stage, but the fact remains that brand experience is critical, and such specialists definitely bring in a lot of value to the table,” he says. Players like Mumbai-based Retailscape are providing expertise in areas as diverse as design, implementation, MIS and feedback services.

Having worked with companies like Food Bazaar, Godrej Aadhar and HLL, Manish Shukla, founder-director, Retailscape, says that most of the work in this segment is driven by large corporates who want specialists to help them upgrade their channel and trade partners to offer a higher level of shopping experience.

It’s not just the independent specialist outfits that are in the fray — even ad agencies have woken up to the opportunity. Kislay Vora, director – visual merchandising, Percept, is putting in place a team which will provide visual merchandising (VM) solutions.

VM, says Vora, has become an important inducement to drive shoppers towards the product. In fact, according to sources, many leading ad agencies are firming up plans to separate their design cells into independent outfits in order to service their clients better.

The trend of using retail specialist outfits is a corollary to the retail experience rapidly becoming an important driver of a brand’s success. “Today, FMCG companies are competing for shelf space, while retailers from the ground level upwards are realising the need for value addition to draw more consumers,” says Preeti Motwani, business head, Maximus, which boasts a clientele that includes HLL and Pantaloon.

Arvind Singhal, chairman, KSA Technopak, says that offering a retail experience is becoming as important to a Shoppers’ Stop or a Pantaloon as it is to FMCG, consumer durables and even telecom companies. “Today, customers are more empowered, and therefore, the retail channels have become the first moment of truth for any brand,” he explains.