RETAILING AT LIFESTYLE STORE

SUBMITTED TO: Dr. Poonam Sharma

SUBMITTED BY: Devendran PGFA1114 Harshita Shukla PGFA118 Ramandeep Kaur PGFA1136 Richa Pandey PGFA1138 Shobhit Mittal PGFA1145 Preeti Sengupta PGFA1159

Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Landmark Group .............................................................................................................................. 3 Lifestyle Stores ................................................................................................................................. 3 Management Teams.....3 Group Philosophy....4 Product Policy..4 Lifestyle as Departmental Store .................................................................................................................. 5 Concepts at Lifestyle ........................................................................................................................ 6 Retail Location .............................................................................................................................................. 8 Target Market .................................................................................................................................. 9 Perceptual Mapping ........................................................................................................................ 9 Trade Area Analysis ....................................................................................................................... 10 Visual Merchandising .................................................................................................................... 10 Store Exteriors Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 12 Creating an appealing store atmosphere .................................................................................................. 13 Store Layout ............................................................................................................................................... 17 Methods for organizing merchandise ....................................................................................................... 19 Analysis ....................................................................................................................................................... 20 Recommendation ...................................................................................................................................... 21

INTRODUCTION

Landmark Group Lifestyle stores are a part of the Landmark Group, Dubai. The group began with a single childrens store in Bahrainin 1973. Since then it has expanded exponentially throughout the Gulf, Sub continent, Middle East and is still growing.An international, diversified retail conglomerate that encourages entrepreneurship to consistently deliver exceptional value, the Group operates over 900 stores encompassing a retail presence of over 13 million sq. ft. across Middle East, India, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen and Pakistan (franchise operation). The Group employs around 31,000 employees.

Lifestyle Stores Lifestyle began its operations in India in the year 1998.The first store was established in Chennai in the year 1999. The next stores were Hyderabad (2000), Bangalore (2001), Delhi, Gurgaon (2002), Ahemedabad, Mulund and pheonix malls, Lower Parel (2003), Malad (2004) and then the rest is the history. A great deal of research went in while deciding the name of the store and finally the management zeroed in on the word LIFESTYLE. In sociology, a LIFESTYLE is the way a person (or a group) lives. Having a specific "lifestyle" implies a conscious or unconscious choice between one set of behaviours and some other sets of behaviours.

The Management Team: CEO Mr. Micky Jagtiani (Landmark group, Dubai) E.D. (India) Mr. Kabir Lumba (Lifestyle International Pvt Ltd, India)

Vision: Growing customer by customer, concept by concept, country by country. The world will call it success. We call it a sound foundation, for bigger things to come.

Mission: To become the foremost retailer in the Middle East, by providing its customers with a large variety of high quality at exceptional value under one roof.

Group philosophy: Complete customer satisfaction To aspire to be the no:1 in each field of operation International standards Research and development Manpower development and training Total quality approach Cost control Speed and simplicity Transparency

Product policy: Creating an environment where every member of the organization strives towards excellence in retailing to offer complete customer satisfaction.

Lifestyle as Department Stores

The last half of the nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of the department store. This form of retailing was totally different from the general store. Instead of the hodge-podge arrangement of stock, the department store offered carefully selected merchandise in specific departments. As result, customers could make quick purchases of a variety of goods and services under one roof (one-stop shopping). The departmental store also differed from other formats of retailing due to its merchandise range. By and large, the department stores are credited with raising the level of retailing practices. Abandoning the old ways of bargains, the stores instituted a one-price system. Offering their customers quality merchandise, attractive surroundings and personal services, they captured the loyalty of a large part of the public. Lifestyle has emerged as a major player in international retailing including countries like India where Lifestyle has store in 12 major urban cities.

Concepts at Lifestyle:

Splash, Lifestyle, Baby shop, Shoe mart and home center function as separate stores abroad but in India lifestyle offers the customers all the concepts within one store to make shopping a complete experience. The following table shows the concepts and their codes. CONCEPTS BABY SHOP SPLASH HOMECENTER SHOEMART LIFESTYLE CONCEPT CODE 01 03 04 02 07

Brief Introduction Of The Concepts: BABY SHOP code 01 This concept caters to the needs of the growing years. It has apparels, toys, nursery products, school and stationary products and accessories for children. Most of the products for infants and nursery are imported. This concept is the first baby of Lifestyle. It is the favorite concept of children as it offers them the newest and a very large collection of apparels, toys, school stationary. SHOE MART code 02 This concept caters to the footwear needs of men, ladies and children. It provides the customers with all the new styles in footwear. It also offers many foot care products, hosiery, luggage and ladies hand bags. The brands offered here are the

most trusted and liked by the customers of Lifestyle. It offers formal, casual, sports and ethnic shoes. It offers a wide range in all the categories. SPLASH code 03 This concept offers apparels and accessories for men and women. It offers the most new styles of the season, carefully selected by the buying team. The brands found here are a big name by themselves and the in house brands offer the best quality and the most stylish and trendy collections. Anything that is seen on the Indian fashion scene internationally can be found here. Formals, casuals, denims, ethnic, accessories and innerwear can be found here. HOME CENTER code 04 This concept caters to all the merchandise required to make a house A home. A varied collection of soft furnishings, glassware, kitchen utensils, furniture, plastics and bath, garden and gift products, is offered. Most of the products here are imported, thus giving different options to customers from what the competitors give. This pulls the customers back to the concept over and again. LIFESTYLE code 07 This concept offers all the lifestyle defining products. It has fine jewellery, watches, health and beauty products, cosmetics, perfumes and fashion accessories. It has the most vibrant and trendy collection of watches and fashion accessories which are a favorite of all the customers at Lifestyle. All the new launches of the cosmetics brands can be found here.

Retail Location: Location plays a very important role in deciding the success or failure of any retail outlet. For the purpose of our study we took 2 locations of Lifestyle store to understand the strategic importance of location, compare the two and find out some meaningful conclusions. Locations that we chose are: 1) Mahagun Metro Mall, Vaishali. 2) Great India Place, Sec 18.

The main things that we observed were: At Mahagun Metro Mall Lifestyle is just near the entrance door and thus attracting very good visibility. Similarly, in GIP also they are strategically located. When questioned about it, Store Manager replied that we take a lot of care in deciding our location in both the terms i.e where we should open the store eg. In which mall and then the store location in the mall. Lifestyle stores are located near their competitors. In Mahagun they are near Max and in GIP they are near Globus. Target consumers, visibility and competitors are the prime concern while deciding the location. They dont believe in the policy of deep penetration. They want to maintain their exclusivity and therefore they do not prefer opening their stores in all the nook and corner.

Target Market The company is looking to the newly emerging young and well-to-do segment. Age segment - 15-35 years. Members of this demographic are extremely fashion savvy, have a growing disposable income as well as a ravenous appetite for the latest trends.

Perceptual Mapping

Trade Area Analysis Area Primary Secondary Mahagun Metro Mall Vaishali, Kaushambi Indirapuram adjacent areas Sec 18 16, 15, Golf GIP

and Sec

course, Garden

Botanical

Tertiary

East Delhi

Other parts of Noida, Ghaziabaad

Visual Merchandise, Store Layout and Design

Visual merchandising: It is the nonphysical presentation of merchandise or ideas. Visual merchandising is a practice that supports retailers in presenting their retail space in the best possible way to maximize sales. It helps a lot to educate the customers, creates desire and finally augments the selling process. It helps in drawing the attention of the customer to enable them to take purchase decision within shortest possible time, and thus augmenting the selling process.Lifestyle follows a standard display method in all the stores, the following are the visual merchandising techniques used at lifestyle. Regular displays are done on the gondolas. It is sub group wise, size wise, style wise and color wise. Exclusive displays are done according to the brands (sometimes suitable accessories are also displayed along with the shoes) The new arrivals are displayed on the top shelves to catch the customers attention. The specialty about the new arrivals, their special feature are be highlighted.

 Duplication is avoided and the display on one shelf therefore different from the other shelf so that the customers attention is drawn towards it Season is considered while merchandising the exclusive wall/ windows or gondolas. Group mannequins at entrance are for mens and womens gives a flow of ideas about the concept and their merchandise mix. It helps in establishing a creative medium to present merchandise in 3D environment, thereby enabling long lasting impact and recall value. Mannequins are dressed in fresh arrivals or in that which is not moving fast. Fixtures are allotted to the brands according to the quantity of merchandise. Bestselling group are placed at the end, so that the customers see all the products while passing through, to reach the section. The arrangement on racks is done size wise, the top most is the smallest size and the last is the largest size.

Store Layout: Store layout is the way in which merchandise is kept and displayed in the store. It encompasses a lot of areas as how the floor space should be utilized, merchandise should be easily available or the customer should browse the entire store, where will be cash counter, trail rooms etc. But, it should be in sync with the positioning that the retail store wants to have.

Lifestyle uses free form or boutique layout where fixtures and aisles are arranged in asymmetric pattern. They have divided the floors for different section like Ground floor is for Home Center and accessories; First floor is for Women Wear, Second for Men Wear and kids toys etc. Vertical merchandising is used in the men section where the merchandise is placed vertically using walls and high gondolas.

Consistency and Flexibility:The interiors of the store, layout, and visual displays are consistent with the brand image that lifestyle has. The message sent through all the touch points whether it is website or brick and mortar is consistent and same i.e. Lifestyle is a sophisticated, elegant up market retail store. Since layout is free form, it is highly flexible. Depending upon the theme, requirements etc., store interiors and design can be changed.

Store Exteriors
Marquee- Posters of store are put on all the four sides of the store. Focus lights are put all over the four sides of the store that makes the store brightly shining at night. Large Lifestyle banners are put which are visible from very far distance also. Various brand advertisements can be seen on the walls and on ground.

Entrance- Promotional schemes and various discount offer advertisements are there at the entrance. Store layout is described at the entrance for the convenience of customers. Bag or any other good cant be brought inside the store and hence bag preserving counters are put up near the entrance to keep public baggage.

Window display- Instead of walls, glasses or window pains are used in the exteriors to display the merchandise. Various brands like Pepe London, Provogue etc. have displayed their merchandise from their latest fashion range to attract more and more customers. Various eatables like ice creams, popcorns, juices etc. are available outside the store to refresh people.

Creating an appealing store atmosphere:

To provide a rewarding shopping experience, retailers go beyond presenting appealing merchandise. Employees also play a major role in creating an appealing store environment. Employees known as fishmongers, throw fish over the counter to coworkers for wrapping. The fishmongers also invite customers to get in on the action and try to catch fish (customers). In order to convert the dull store into a lively store where customers enjoy the shopping experience the retailers use lightning, colors, music, and scent to stimulate customers perceptual and emotional responses and ultimately affect their purchase behavior. Atmospherics refers to the design of an environment by stimulation of the five senses. Retailers have discovered the subtle benefits of developing atmospherics

that complement other aspects of the store design and the merchandise. Hence its important for the atmospheric element to work together for example the right lightning with right kind of music and scent.

Lightning: the store has good lightning and involves more than simply illuminating space. Lightning highlights the merchandise, sculpt space and captures a mood of feeling that enhances the Lifestyle Store. The lightning helps to create a sense of excitement in the store. At the same time it provides an accurate color rendition of the merchandise. The life style store uses a white color in its ceiling for their stores hence this color helps to reflect light making the merchandise more visible hence help in popping the merchandise- focusing spotlights on special features areas and items. Using lighting to focus on strategic pockets of merchandise trains shoppers eyes on the merchandise and draws customers strategically through the store. shadows, highlighting the merchandise. The store employed incandescent lightning sources to promote a warm and cozy ambience. The creative use of color enhances the stores image and help create a mood. Warm color (red, gold, yellow) produce emotional, vibrant, hot, and active responses. Music: Like color and lightning, music can either add to or detract from retailers total atmospheric package. Unlike other atmospheric elements, music can be easily changed. The store plays jazzy music in the morning and adult contemporary in the afternoon. Hence music controls the pace of store traffic, create an image and attract or direct the consumers attention. Basically English as well as Hindi songs are put inside the store but normally English songs are put up which are famous and are latest. The volume is kept low so that people can talk among themselves The store uses lot of contrast and

and can easily interact with store personnels. Continuous announcement of schemes are done in between this music playing to draw the attention of customers and lure them for impulse buying

Smell: A fragrant is put in the air conditioning duct so as to spread good smell inside the store and remove any bad odour present in air. It gives a pleasant experience to customer and is refreshing Security: Security of the store is pretty good. Cc TVs are put all over the store to keep check on notorious customers. Infrared detectors are put at the entrance and exit which alerts guards if person is trying to steal the things. Each and every floor has a security manager and 3 security guards are appointed for each floor. Security guards specially take care outside the trial rooms so as to stop people from hiding things inside their clothes.

Mirrors: They are put all over the store so that people can see how the clothes, watches, jewelry etc. looks on them. These mirrors are also cleaned at regular intervals. They are also put inside the trial rooms for customers convenience.

Escalators: they are put one at each floor for going down and going up at a normal speed that makes shopping convenient without making the people getting tired. All the 2 floors are connected through escalators in Mahagun mall.

Signage & graphics This helps customers to locate specific products and departments, provide product information and suggest items or special purchases. Signage is used to identify the location of merchandise categories within a store and types of products offered in

the category. In the lifestyle store the signs hung typically from the ceiling to enhance their visibility. At the time of end of season sale, the store uses smaller signs to identify sale items and provide more information about specific products. Finally the store uses the image such as picture of people and places to create moods that encourages customer to buy products. The store uses following types of signs: Category signage: used within a particular department or section of the store, category signs are usually smaller than directional signs. Their purpose is to identify types of products offered and that are located near the goods to which they refer. Promotional signage: This signage describes special offers and displayed in the windows to entice the customers into the store. For example the store displays large posters in their windows of models wearing the items on special offer.

Directional Signs: directs the customer towards the cash counters, customer service areas, exchange counter, washrooms, or the location of the lift and staircases and trial rooms Instructional Signs: store is under electronic surveillance, instructions about the malfunctioning of a lift and exchange policies.

 Store Directory: informs the customer about the location of the various sections in the store.

Courtesy Signs: ex: Thank You for Shopping in Mahagun Mall, Visit Again.

Use of empty space by Lifestyle: The empty space is used to give a psychological impact in terms of wide aisles because the store is considered to be a premium store. The wide area gives the store an organized look. The isles are not necessarily in a specific pattern but are arranged in a free flowing manner.

Use of wall space Wall space is used in a very creative manner.

Store layout It is meant to aid movement and flow of customers, so that they move through the entire store, areas within the store need to be demarcated as prime selling areas, impulse merchandise areas, destination area and seasonal or special merchandise areas, by balancing the destination areas and the impulse buying areas, the flow of the traffic through store can be directed which at times, make an unplanned purchase Lifestyle follows a free form store layout. No particular format is followed anything is placed anywhere but strategically. Lifestyle fall under following categories- Departmental stores, Malls, E-retailers Here when it comes to arranging the clothes, same type of clothes are put up together in different sizes so that same clothes are available for every size at one point only.

Store layout

Planograms It helps customer feels familiar and comfortable at each location, which in return helps to build brand loyalty and customer trust. It is a good medium of communication on how displays are to be done. Therefore at lifestyle stores planograms are used to take display related decisions.

Methods for organizing Merchandise (Techniques for space productivity) Lifestyle has applied the concept of category management in its day-to-day merchandising function as against the traditional brand management

merchandising practice followed by most retailers. Category managers look at sales and margins of each brand in a category. The whole idea of category management is to create products across length and breadth of a category at different price points, fabrics, design, shape, seasons, colour and size. Shelving flexible, easy to maintain Hanging Pegging small rods inserted into gondolas or wall systems can be labor intensive to display/maintain but gives neat/orderly appearance Folding for soft lines can be folded and stacked on shelves or tables creates high fashion image Stacking for large hardliners can be stacked on shelves, base decks of gondolas or flats easy to maintain and gives image of high volume and low price Dumping large quantities of small merchandise can be dumped into baskets or bins highly effective for soft lines (socks, wash cloths) or hardliners (batteries, candy, grocery products) creates high volume, low cost image

Analysis All the two floors are carefully structured. Ist floor and IInd floor caters exclusively to Women and Men respectively. Thus giving them privacy and more freedom to look into their products. Womens need more space and look for comfort. They are less likely to buy if the place is congested and makes them feel uncomfortable. At Lifestyle sofas have been placed in the women section so as to make the females more comfortable. Lifestyle has been able to create a brand image and is consistently maintaining its brand identity by new additions in products and catering to the market need. Lifestyle caters to not only the clothing needs and desires of its customers. They have bed sheets, kitchenware, jewelry, perfumes, baby products, household items, etc. This way a customer who enters Lifestyle just to buy one or two items usually ends up buying a lot more. The in-store experience in Lifestyle is very delightful. Their fully skilled and trained staff caters to the needs of the public in the right way. They dont pounce upon the customer as soon as he enters the store. They wait till the time a customer starts selecting and then they come and help. This way the customer gets acclimatize with the store and the environment.

Recommendations To increase more footfalls more promotional activities must be carried out. For this Lifestyle can either offer more discounts or increase their advertisements. Increase in the number of footfalls will lead to increase in sales. Allowing more space between the entrance of a store and a product gives it more time in the shoppers eye as he or she approaches it. It builds a little visual anticipation.