Comparative study of

consumer behavior of
Adidas and retail
marketing strategies

BY- MD SAZID

Subject- Major integrated CB & OCRSM

To- Dr. Vikas Kumar & Dr. Rishikesh Kumar
National Institute of Fashion Technology, Patna
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Acknowledgement

“Gratitude is not a thing of expression; it is more a matter of feeling.”

It is my pleasure to be the part of this assignment and you give me the chance to study about the
consumer buying behavior of a brand and then analysis of gap in consumer handling and basis of that
given strategies for retail marketing and sale also influenced my thinking, behavior and acts during the
course of study.
I express my sincere gratitude of dr. Vikas Kumar & dr. Rishikesh Kumar to providing me an
opportunity to deeply study about consumer buying behavior of a brand and then analysis of gap in
consumer handling and basis of that given strategies for retail marketing and sale.

Thank you

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Content

Introduction 4

Literature Review 5

About brand 15

Adidas Consumer buying behavior 15

Comparative study 18

Gap analysis 19

Conclusion 19

Suggestion 19

References 20

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 Study consumer buying behavior of a brand and
then analysis of a gap in consumer handling and
basis of that given strategies for retail marketing
and sales.

Introduction
Importance of retail marketing cannot be denied for today’s manufacturers. Retail stores play an
important role in high-level exposure of businesses and widespread distribution of products. In retail
stores, retailers get opportunities to interact with customers (the ultimate consumers of your
products). In retail sector retail marketing plays a vital and huge role to engage the customers and to
increase the sales of brands. The strategies, aims, target customers, marketing strategies are different
for each other with the same purpose. This report gives analysis of consumer buying behavior of
Adidas and retail marketing strategies. The report begins with the detailed summary about consumer
buying behavior which further moves to the bigger picture about existing retail marketing strategies.

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Literature review
Consumer buying behavior is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they
use to select, secure, use, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs
and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society.
Consumer use to choose, use (consume), and dispose of products and services, including consumers’
emotional, mental, and behavioral responses. Consumer behavior incorporates ideas from several
sciences including psychology, biology, chemistry, and economics

Why is consumer behavior important?

Studying consumer behavior is important because this way marketers can understand what
influences consumers’ buying decisions. By understanding how consumers decide on a product they
can fill in the gap in the market and identify the products that are needed and the products that are
obsolete.

What influences consumers to purchase products or services? The consumer buying process is a
complex matter as many internal and external factors have an impact on the buying decisions of
consumers. Studying consumer behavior also helps marketers decide how to present their products
in a way that generates maximum impact on consumers. Understanding consumer buying behavior is
the key secret to reaching and engaging your clients, and convert them to purchase from you.

The following points speak out the importance of understanding buyer behavior:

1. Customer Needs Satisfaction: Organization should offer a marketing mix that satisfy the marketing
needs. Every customer is looking for a satisfaction from a particular product or service which he is
buying in exchange of certain amount of money. So buyer is always expecting something more from
the supplier and hence supplier must opt for balance between ideal sale and practical aspect because
ultimately every extra service provided over and above the normal practice is resulting in increase in
cost of product.

Hence these factor of customer satisfaction must be cleverly handled in such a way that equally
satisfies both the parties of transaction, i.e. buyer and seller.

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2. Marketing Mix Development: Customers’ response to marketing mix keeps changing. Better
understanding of the factor that influence consumer helps organization development appropriate
marketing mixes.

Audio CD market was very huge in India before a decade, but now, it has almost vanished like a thin
air. Now many web sites have facility of listening latest songs as well as all types, genres of songs on
line free of cost, so no single buyer will buy expensive audio CD’s except for some exceptions.

But general trend is important which is now rapidly declining audio CDs and moving to a new world of
online music experience. Even latest TV shows and Movies are widely watched over the internet
either on you tube or some other live streaming web sites. Hence before developing marketing mix
thorough study must be made regarding latest updates in market.

3. New Market Opportunities: Unsatisfied needs motivate customer to buy. By understanding buyer
behavior, marketing can locate new market opportunities. Now, anyone having an internet
connection can purchase any product from rupees 5 to rupees 5 lack in less than 5 minutes. So failure
of local dealer in providing required service often motivate customer to look for different avenues
which are very easily available.

Customer now analyze specifications, quality, and cost of product before purchasing a product. If he
is unsatisfied with one seller then thousands of other seller selling same product are ready at his
doorstep to fulfill his buying needs.

4. Target Market Selection:

Behavior is an importance variable for market segmentation. By understanding buyer behavior

organization can effectively segment the market.

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5. Efficient Resource Use: By understanding buyer behavior organization can make efficient use of
marketing resource. They can focus their marketing efforts in meaningful way so as to perform
various marketing duties from overall management process with greater efficiency. If seller exactly
knows the customer requirements his resources will be saved in greater extent than without knowing
customer behavior and his tendency of purchasing.

Resource allocation and saving is a different topic of study but is relevant in this area where buyer
behavior decides most of the sale. With the understanding of his buying pattern, resources can be
effectively utilized. It will be a self-destructive initiative for a business organization to neglect buyer
behavior in deciding marketing mix for its product. Importance of buying behavior is thus beyond
negligence.

Types of Consumer Behavior

Consumer Buying Behavior – factors influencing: Personal, Social, Culture and Psychological factors
1. Personal Factors: The behavior of consumers is also influenced by personal characteristics such as:

 The buyer’s age,

 Occupation,

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  Economic situation,

 Lifestyle,

 Personality, and

 Self-concept

2. Social Factors: Man is a social animal. His behavior is greatly influenced by peers, relatives,
neighbors, and friends. Often a product fails or succeeds in the marketplace due to the influence
exercised by these people. These groups exercise a strong influence on the lifestyles and buying
patterns of the members. The importance of group influence varies across products and brands. It
tends to be strongest when the product is visible to others whom the buyer respects
3. Cultural Factors: These factors include social heritage of the society. Every consumer’s beliefs,
morals, laws, customs traditions, habits etc., form part of the cultural factors. MNCs must,
understand the cultural factor before setting up base in any country. For example, Mc Donnels
cannot afford to sell beef burger in India
4. Psychological Factors: A person’s buying choices are further influenced by four major psychological
factors:

 Motivation,

 Perception,

 Learning, and

 Beliefs and attitudes.

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Consumer Purchase Process

What is retail marketing

Retail is the sale of goods and services from businesses to an end user (called a customer). Retail
marketing is the process by which retailers promote awareness and interest of their goods and
services in an effort to generate sales from their consumers. There are many different approaches
and strategies retailers can use to market their goods and services.
In simple words, everything from the interior and exterior of the retail store, to in-store
advertisements, product placements, offers and promotions, and the behaviour of store
representatives comes under retail marketing.

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 While this process may seem simple at first, it requires more work and effort than most people would
initially think. Even though the businesses and the customers are involved in the process, the retail
store works as the intermediary for customers and businesses.
The retailer works between the customer and businesses because they all rely on each other to get
what they want.
 The retailer makes it easy for the customer to get their products.

 The retailer sells the products so that the manufacturers don’t have to worry about setting up
a store.
 The retailer generates revenue from sales.

How Retail Marketing Works

Since retail marketing brings products to the customers, they have to work with both sides to
succeed. This requires a lot of effort from the retailer since they need to get the product, advertise it,
and sell it to customers. It happens through the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion.

The Benefits of Retail Marketing

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 Retail marketing, whether online or offline, allows a business to enjoy many benefits. This goes
beyond making money, since a business always seeks to increase revenue. Besides making a profit,
these benefits occur because of retail marketing.

 Building up a network with other0 businesses.

 Gaining customer loyalty.

 Collecting customer data.

 Build and Maintain Awareness:

Marketing helps your company generate brand awareness when you first open. Brand may have
the best products and services around, but without marketing, targeted audience doesn't realize
that. Word of mouth helps, but this evolves slowly if you don't introduce your company to a
consumer population in the beginning.

 Targeted Promotions:
Leveraging customer relationship database tools, retailers can more efficiently target specific
customers with personalized promotions. CRM software allows to collect and store customer data
and have a history of customer transactions. Direct mail and email marketing campaigns are used
to create an interactive relationship with primary customers. They allow to send distinct
promotions to customers who haven't bought from you for a while, who have purchased specific
types of commodities in the past or who fit the market for a particular product promotion. This
gives a significant return on investment in marketing.

 Generate Loyalty:
In the long run, the goal for most retailers is customer loyalty. This emotional attachment can bring
customers to buy from even if it inconveniences them, and they are very resistant to promotional
efforts by competitors. Consistently reinforcing your brand messages in marketing and backing
them up with product and service quality help generate this loyalty.

Retail marketing strategies

1. Utilize Influencer Marketing to Create Unique and Personalized Content

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2. Use Social Media Wisely
If you’re running a business today, chances are you have a social media account for it. You may have
a Facebook account or Instagram or Twitter account (or maybe all three). But it can be hard to see
the value of being active on social media if you don’t have an overarching retail marketing strategy.

As the graph below shows, consumers who interact with your social media accounts are more likely
to visit your store, visit your website, buy from you, and more

81% of millennials expect their favorite brands to unequivocally declare their support for social
causes and build sustainable products. This is not to say that all advertising must be polarizing for it to
have an effect. Adidas partnered up with Parlay to create a line of shoes and apparel that does not
use virgin plastic and every sale counts towards cleaning up the oceans. Americans, especially
millennials, only support brands that are eco-friendly according to some recent data.

3. Experiential shopping will become a priority as a retail marketing strategy- Customers want
shopping to be a memorable experience. And for that to happen, the emphasis must shift from the

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sales to the store itself. The takeaway here isn’t that retailers must open another store exclusively for
offering such experiences but to incorporate technology that allows for such experience.

4. Motivate your employees with better wages and compensation packages- Employees are retail
business’ brand ambassadors, and you need to give them incentives in order to get the best results.
When you compensate your employees properly, you can create an exceptional impression on your
customers with memorable experiences.

If you’re able to hire and maintain customer-oriented, long-term and committed employees, you’re
likely to increase your customer retention rate, reduce employee turnover and increase profitability.
Also, if you motivate your sales team with compensation packages, they are incentivized to work
harder to increase sales.
5. Provide adequate employee training- Substantive employee training can make the difference
between competitors. The experts from EssayOnTime recommend arranging regular training sessions
and conferences to retain employees and keep up with industry trends. If you neglect to train your
employees, your company will be left behind in your niche. A retail business that neglects the training
of employees will eventually struggle to stay in business. A good practice that will ensure have great
employees with good customer relationship management.

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6.  Make Every Customer Interacti on Count - Whether they shop online or in store, customers
expect memorable omni-channel experiences. CRM software solutions enable retailers to create
highly effective and targeted marketing campaigns that take into account what truly resonates with
their customers. Did customers respond to your latest sneaker marketing campaign or did they prefer
the previous one? Clienteling can also help store associates leave a positive lasting impression on
customers by constantly nourishing and building the relationship they’ve created.

6. Drive Sales by Creati ng a Convenient Shopping Experience- The easier you make the
shopping experience in your brick-and-mortar store, the likelier customers will be to return. Similarly,
when they browse your site, customers expect pages to load quickly and checkout to proceed
smoothly. A customer who learns that his merchandise requires three weeks delivery will likely
abandon his cart without thinking twice. Footwear customers are particularly demanding: when
purchasing online, they expect free shipping along with short delivery times. Shoe retailers have
responded with average free shipping thresholds and delivery times that are the lowest in the retail
world (Chain Store Age).
7. Manage Footwear Inventory Eff ecti vely- Make sure that you carry just the right amount of
shoe inventory you need on hand, in the right size and color, anytime and anywhere. Integrated
inventory management systems enable retailers to take their strategy up a notch and verify that they
have an adequate supply of shoes currently favored by the market. Analytics solutions can also help
indicate which styles are selling best. Using mobile solutions, store associates can also assist
customers anywhere, without ever needing to go to the back store.

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About Brand

Adidas is a multinational corporation sports brand, founded and headquartered

in Herzogenaurach, Germany, that designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the
largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the world, after Nike. The
adidas brand has a long history and deep-rooted connection with sport. Everything we do is rooted in
sport. This is what ‘The Badge of Sport’ stands for as a brand mark. The adidas brand’s mission is to
be the best sports brand in the world, by designing, building and selling the best sports products in
the world, with the best service and experience.

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Adidas Core exists to enable anyone to harness the power of sport in their game, in their lives and in
their world – anyone, anywhere, always. We are calling it accessible sportswear for all since it is
deeply rooted in the adidas core belief that through sport we have the power to change lives. It is
about telling a story based on inclusiveness, ambition, innovation, quality and style.

Consumer buying behavior of Adidas

Consumer behavior is a study of how people buy, what they buy, when they buy and why they buy. It
is a subcategory of marketing that blends elements from psychology, sociology, socio psychology,
anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both
individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics,
psychographics, and behavioral variables in an attempt to understand people needs. Creating Strong
Brand Culture. Branding is vital for organizations that wish to make a notable impact, as well as grow
and maintain a large market share in today’s competitive business environment.
A reputable brand is one of the key players for a customer to decide on the purchase. Without
doubt, Adidas has an encouraging brand image and merchandise and services that are well-designed
and applicable in order to draw the attention from new customers. Having obtained new customers,
Adidas have to convey on their trademark promises and provide an affirmative brand experience to
retain them. Adidas has indeed identified the company as a brand leader in sports apparel, in
particularly running shoes.
Adidas slogan of „Impossible is Nothing‟ has been a huge promotion campaign that appeals to
customers form the market. It is the essential note of a worldwide brand name movement that
Adidas launches to lift the position Adidas shares with athletes around the world. The international
trademark of the campaign sets the desire to provide the impossible possible, to push consumers
further, to exceed limits and to smash new position. .Hence, the emphasize boot has definitely
changed the youth‟s buying behavior towards branded sports shoes, different consumers have got
different decision making process. The buyer‟s ultimate goal is to buy the product of qualitative,
quantitative with low/best affordable price.
The excellent commercial movement used by the Adidas as argued in this report presents the
essential use of consumer behavior in marketing. In this situation, the happening as well as the goods
of the Adidas brand name was successfully communicated to the potential customers.

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Brand allows consumers to filter out the countless generic items and gives them a reason to buy the
product. Brand is essentially the sum of all experiences related to the product, service, and
companies that make and deliver the product. Branding is a very powerful component in business as
it can make or break business interests, it can destroy corporate image or it can build public trust and
credibility. It all depends on how it creates an impact on the consumer‟s perception.
Brand perceptions are shaped by functional experiences (i.e. design, comfort, quality, price,
reliability, ease of use) as well as emotional experiences (i.e. social status, make me feel better,
improve my performance, make my life/job more gratifying or easier) the customer associates with
the product and company. Once a customer likes your brand he/she will definitely come back for
repeated services or products. The qualities of the product or services are ensured through the
customers minds from the brand image. Brand recognition is acquired when a brand is widely known
in the market place. The ability of creating and retaining a brand is called brand management. With
the demand in the market for sports goods, various prominent brands are trying their best to satisfy
the customers with the help of innovative techniques which causes impact on the perception of the
consumers‟ to change their brands. This changes the buying behavior of the consumers which is a
process they use to make purchase decisions as well as the use and disposal of the purchased goods
and service. Adidas has become a world leading producer of sportswear by positioning themselves as
high quality, popular and faster. It knows that each customer has different wants, needs and tastes.
Customers often want to be the fashion leads. To achieve this, they focus on purchasing certain and
specific styles and are willing to pay a premium for it. Most are also shoppers who desire value for
money and bargain for best value. The Adidas as an organization faces a dilemma to target the both
markets simultaneously with a single product. There are cases where a high priced product may not
be so valued by a bargaining customer. The decision making process is influenced by many factors in
a consumer’s life being both internal and external influences and factors. Adidas has established itself
as a global brand in such a way that it is prominent in the mind of many consumers when they are at
they are seeking to buy sportswear.
Study done by Professors, of Institute of Management, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), India.
revealed that as exchange policy, experiential zones, sweepstakes or contests had a greater influence
on people in terms buying decisions in an organized sport wear retail. Hence in a growing industry

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such as sport wear brands should focus on these components while strategizing to achieve market
leadership.
Brand users are well aware of the sports apparel brands and tend to give importance for the high
quality products in-spite of their high price and stay loyal towards the brand which meets their
special requirements. The non-frequent consumers do not have much knowledge about the sports
apparel brands but may be the future sports apparel consumers.
The decision tree was able to identify that the purchase intention of the people is majorly dependent
on the attractive and fashionable attribute and Trend followers attribute. So, the people who
purchase sports apparel mostly consider to be attractive and fashionable and these are the same
people who follow trend.

Comparative study

Retail marketing strategies Consumer buying behavior of Adidas

Social media biggest hit with 81% of Studies characteristics of individual

millennials expect visit your store, visit your consumers such as demographics,
website, buy from you, and more psychographics, and behavioral variable to
understand people needs.

store offering experiences but to incorporate promotion campaign has definitely changed
technology. the youth‟s buying behavior towards
branded sports shoes

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Employees are retail business’ brand Experimental innovation, Quality, design and
ambassadors store experience make customers willing to
pay for premium products also.

Convenient Shopping Experience exchange policy, experiential zones,

sweepstakes or contests had a greater
influence on people in terms buying decisions

Integrated inventory management systems To meet their needs customers, tend to give
importance for the high quality products in-
spite of their high price and stay loyal
towards brand.

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Gap analysis
The retailers or marketers need to build different marketing strategies focused on different consumer
groups based on their attitude towards sports apparel. The frequent users do not have to be more
pestered with any promotional strategies as they are well aware of what they want and are more
brand loyal and difficult to switch brands. Non-frequent consumers are need to be focused on as they
easily switch brands which meet their basic requirements.

Conclusion
Adidas try to interact with their customers and create premium, connected and personalized
experiences. In other words, they create enthusiasm and excitement about sports on a personal level.
The brand takes every touchpoint like mobile, social and retail that consumers can interact to provide
a consistent experience. By taking insights from digital analysis and Big Data, Adidas tries to be
everywhere its consumers are. Adidas promises to deliver multichannel, unified and also unique
experiences. Also the retail marketing strategies suggest some unique and indebt data about retail
marketing which is undoubtable followed by Adidas may be the suggested data is not followed by
Adidas accurately but yes, they try to catch and create the best experience in retail to their customers
which makes them the most known footwear and sports brand. Also the study suggests that the non-
frequent customers are unaware about the brand promotional events which makes them conscious
and anxious later. For example- the offer is running (buy 1 get 30% off) for one day and non-frequent
customer purchased the same article on full price next day.

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Suggestions
Stores should use appropriate promotional tools to attract customers, such as sports tournament,
Apartments events, commercial events, in-store event to increase the store walk-ins and many
experiential zones as the users prefer using and experiencing the product before buying.

References
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