Retail Theory and Practice: Consumption and Shopping Trends Understanding the Customer

This report explores retail theory and practices, focusing on Burberry and its application of retail theory in understanding customer behavior and influencing shopping trends. It discusses the 4 P's of retail marketing and the shift towards the 4 C's of retail marketing. The report concludes that Burberry uses retail theory to understand customer behavior and tailor its products and marketing campaigns accordingly.

Retail Theory and
practice:
Consumption and
shopping trends
understanding the
customer

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
This report revolves around retail theory and practices undertaken by Burberry.
Fundamental to the formulation of retail marketing strategy is a clear understanding of consumer
needs, motives and patronage decisions. Retail marketing strategy establishes an outline for
development of understanding associated with shopping trends and customer behavior. This
report revolves around Burberry, which is a British luxury fashion house with its headquarters
in London, England. It currently designs and distributes ready to wear including trench
coats, leather goods, footwear, fashion accessories, eyewear, fragrances, and cosmetics. This
report establishes a relationship between the chosen organization and application of retail theory
in understanding customer behavior and influencing the same.
MAIN BODY
Retail is considered to be a business that focuses on directing its marketing efforts towards the
satisfaction of the final customers based on organization of selling goods and services as a means
of distribution. Retail marketing is internal energy for the process using which retailer’s initiates
promotion and awareness as well as interest of their services and goods with a goal to generate
sales from their customers (Blut, et al 2018). Retail marketing is an accumulation of many
approaches and strategies which can be used by retailer in order to market their goods and
services. Bilberry uses a combination of various advertising as well as communication strategies
to grow awareness as well as considerations with their future customers. Finding the right
marketing mix can result in profitable growth as well as higher return on investments. The basic
approach that is used by bye by Burberry is the 4 P’s of retail marketing.
This approach is an accumulation of product price place and promotion strategies used by the
organization in order to acquire and retain customers. The use of 4Ps associated with the
organization is as follows:
Product: Burberry have two basic type of primary merchandise. The first one of which is durable
and hard goods including electronic appliances as well as sporting equipment, in addition to that
the organization also offers soft good like household items clothing cosmetics and paper
solutions. The organization carries a range of soft as well as hard items. The organization

balance is there products using the data that they have stored over the years in order to predict
the trends associated with disposal and consumption pattern of their customers. This helps the
organization in filtering them and making sure that all the necessary items are stockpiled n in
long term this helps your organization in customer acquisition as well as retention (Selvi, 2018).
Not only does this approach helps the organization in in keeping the necessary product in stock it
also establishes the outline for development of product in accordance to customer need and want
(Liu, et al 2019). The concept of retail marketing revolves around understanding the customers in
therefore by developing the understanding of their customers The chosen organization develop
their production services in such a manner that they are compatible with their customers’ needs
and wants.
Price: it is considered to be the key element of Burberry's retail strategy. The retail price
associated with the goods and services needs to cover the cost of additional overheads as well as
the goods and services itself. The organization uses an accumulation of four primary pricing
strategies which are as follow:
High/low pricing: the organization uses the strategy with some particular product and start with
the high price Indian later reduced price when the overall popularity of the item fades away this
strategy is used in case of fast fashion products as well as such products whose demand ar
predicted to be faded away in a considerable period of time.
Everyday low pricing: this pricing strategies used by the organization and have very thin margins
and therefore it attracts customer interested in lowest possible price. The organization uses this
pricing strategy in order to keep up with the competition like Walmart and target. This is one of
the most common retail marketing pricing strategy and it is because of this strategy that these
retailers offer products at such low prices. It attracts a lot of customer and enhances sales
because the product is available at lowest possible price.
Competitive pricing: this strategy is undertaken by the organization on the basis of what
competition is charging (Kautish and Rai 2019). In this strategy the prices fluctuate on the basis
of competitive price and this strategy is often used by your organization after getting exhausted
the higher pricing strategy.

Psychological pricing: this strategy is used by the organization and it set the price of the item
with odd numbers which then customers resume as being lower than they actually are. This
strategy creates an illusion in the mind of customers that the overall price is heated with the
product is less where as there is no such big difference. This pricing strategy revolves around
creating a psychological illusion that the price offered by the organization is low for example if a
product is structured at a price of 1.95 euros the customer will think that he is spending 1euro
rather than thinking is spending two Euros. This pricing strategy is also termed as charm pricing
or pricing ending.
Place: this is the place where retailer comes in contact with their customers and conducts
business. A place can be a non-physical space like an online organization or a catalogue
company and in addition to that it can also be a physical retail store location. Burberry offers
their customer the luxury of having a choice to choose between their physical stores to their
online stones. The organization provides an accumulation of different services including home
delivery schedule delivery as well as retail physical shopping (Verma et al 2021). This is one of
the most important factors in this approach and it determines that the product and services that
are being offered by the organization are accessible to the customers. The organization tries to
structure their products and services in such a manner that it is in accordance with the
accessibility and affordability criteria of their associated customers. Prices are constructed
considering the affordability criteria of customers and please determination of their offline stores
is being done on the basis of data collected by the organization, location of their stores is
determined considering the accessibility of target customers.
In recent years the organization have updated their marketing strategies why structure and then
on the basis of customers. The marketing strategy have beginning to shift toward a more
customer oriented approach therefore the 4 P’s of retail marketing has been revised as the 4 c’s
of retail marketing. This approach of 4 c’s of retail marketing agency accumulation of customer
cost communication and convenience each one of the factor is a revised version of previous
dynamic for example customer is a revised version of product, cost is the revised version of
price, the focus is being shipped from place to convenience and from promotion to
communication. The organization uses this approach as follows:

Consumer (versus Product): Instead of focusing on the product the retailer wants to sell, a smart
retailer studies the wants and needs of its consumers before going to market. The more clearly a
retailer understand the wants and needs of its customer base, the greater chance it will have of
attracting customers and increasing sales. The organization uses this approach and develops their
product in accordance to customer needs and wants. Burberry focuses on customer trends and
patterns of consumption as well as disposal of products (Madeira 2019). The data collected in
this approach is used not only to make modifications in existing products but to introduce new
products and according to these requirements as well.
Cost (versus Price): In retail a cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce
something. Factors that influence cost include the customer’s cost to change to a new product
and the customer’s cost for not selecting a competitor’s product. Burberry focuses on their cost
instead of focusing on their price. Price determination is on according to competitor’s rivalry as
well as other forces of market that flows freely (Zhan el al 2018). The final price of product is
also based on demand and supply equilibrium and therefore in order to gain control over the
profit margins choose an organization uses their cost and minimizes without compromising the
overall quality of the product, this way the organization is able to have control on profit margins
even if the other factors associated with the price determination are dynamic.
Convenience (versus Place): The Internet has made Place less of a factor in consumer
purchasing decisions. Convenience addresses the ease of completing a transaction including the
ease of finding information about a product, finding the right product, and purchasing a product.
Burberry prioritizes convenience over place, this means that instead of choosing a geographical
location the organization consider customer convenience and structure their operations
accordingly. On the basis of data that they have collected on their customers their location and
placement of retail stores differs. Even if there is no need to have a physical retail store the
organization carries on their operations by having an online store. This decision depends upon
customer convenience as well as the data that the organization has collected on their customers
over the course of time.
Communication (versus Promotion): Communications including a range of efforts including
advertising, public relations, grassroots efforts, social media, and any other form of
communication between the company and the consumer. Burberry focuses on communication

instead of promotion. The organization is on developing or two way communication with their
customers using an accumulation of different sources like social media. Using digital landscape
the organization is able to collect data as well as reviews are associated with their product and
their competitor product. In today's world where everything is time using mobile phones the
organization is able to develop an understanding of customer behavior is really strange using the
data that is available to them online. The organization can also use digital landscape as a method
of reputation management over digital landscape. Burberry uses social media platform to interact
with their customers induces the principle of empathy if the customer have posted a negative
review about the organization the apologize and make sure that the customer won’t be put in the
same situation ever again and vice versa if the customer have posted a positive review about the
organization assure the customer that their experience will only get better with the further
interactions.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of aforementioned dynamics it can be concluded that Burberry uses retail
theory in order to develop an understanding of customer behavior. On the basis of analysis of
data and facts accumulated, the organization uses a combination of many approaches to influence
customer’s journey of decision making process. Using these methodologies, the organization
understand the trends associated with customer consumption and disposal patterns and use it to
construct products as well as marketing campaigns in a manner that it helps them in acquisition
as well as retention of customers.

REFERENCES
Blut, M., Teller, C. and Floh, A., 2018. Testing retail marketing-mix effects on
patronage: A meta-analysis. Journal of Retailing, 94(2), pp.113-135.
Liu, D., Alahmadi, A., Ni, J., Lin, X. and Shen, X., 2019. Anonymous reputation system
for IIoT-enabled retail marketing atop PoS blockchain. IEEE Transactions on Industrial
Informatics, 15(6), pp.3527-3537.
Kautish, P. and Rai, S.K., 2019. Fashion portals and Indian consumers: an exploratory
study on online apparel retail marketing. International Journal of Electronic Marketing and
Retailing, 10(3), pp.309-331.
Madeira, A.B., 2019. Green marketing mix: A case study of Brazilian retail
enterprises. Environmental Quality Management, 28(3), pp.111-116.
Zhang, A., Liang, C. and Yin, J., 2018, February. How can dmall do better? discussion on
new retail marketing mode based on 4Cs theory. In Proceedings of the 2018 International
Conference on E-Business and Applications (pp. 46-50).
Selvi, T.K., 2018. Retail marketing in rural India-factors in favour and
strategies. International Journal of Engineering and Management Research (IJEMR), 8(6), pp.4-
11.
Verma, R., Gupta, D. and Bakshi, M., 2021. Role Of Visual Merchandising In Retail
Marketing-With Special Reference To Indian Retailers. European Journal of Molecular &
Clinical Medicine, 7(7), pp.2296-2302.