STARTING A NEW RETAIL BRAND KEEP THESE THINGS IN MIND
FEW BASIC THING TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE PLANNING TO CREATE A BRAND
STARTING A NEW RETAIL STORE OR A BRAND. KEEP THESE BASIC THINGS IN MIND.
Hey are you starting a new retail store or a brand. Then keep these basic things in mind while selecting a location to position your brand.
Brands are never created in future, it has to be started from day one with no comparison in mind. If you want to create something new then you should stop old thing and stop peeping into other competitive businesses or keep browsing online for ideas.
The ideas are nowhere, those are in your mind itself and floating around you. Do you know one thing that human mind generates sixty thousand thoughts every day. If you don’t stick to one thought and keep crafting that then you will be lost in creating ideas or working on them only and cannot monetize them by bringing into a physical existence.
Being creative means being productive. If your ideas are not capitalized then those are shit. Everyone gets ideas every day.
Well that’s the creative part we will discuss later.
STARTING A NEW RETAIL STORE OR A BRAND – CREATE A BRAND – why just create an another business in an already over flooded market.
When you are starting up any business, from day one you can create that as a brand and expand to heights through infinite intelligence . The technology has grown so much that you just don’t need to be a veteran across all specialized areas. you just need to follow your passion though your specialized knowledge.
LOCATION IS MOST IMPORTANT – When you are going to freeze a location for your business, try as much as possible for a naked shell space. There are advantages with a pre fitted space and many times those itself can be your biggest disadvantages when creating a brand.
Why because you don’t just need a space to immediately start and run a business. starting a new business then forget your return for first three years. you need a space to play with your idea and that should be flexible accordingly.
I have seen in my past experience many people feels happy that they got a space with pre fitted glass and glass door etc a facade with a neat cladding and sometimes you get some leftovers by earlier businesses if someone were there in that space already. They always want to liquidate and get some cost as they aren’t successful in that space. That’s a different mindset, I very often come across these kind of situations every time and I clearly avoid for my business or my clients business.
Recently I came across many clients, they were so happy most of the times saying – we got these things left here can we utilize them for some cost cutting, we got these things for a very best price and I hope we can utilize them so that we can reduce cost. The business has just started or not the immediate thing comes to many is ” how to reduce the cost” The time one spends in reducing cost can utilize same time in increasing more earnings. If you try to reduce your cost directly, your indirect cost will increase and this am saying practically with past experiences.
One of my client has taken one space and there was a store already and he paid big bucks to take that space with a scrap as he felt that he can immediately open a store and start making business. When I visited the site I found those useless. I explained him that those are just awaste. If those were useful then why should the earlier business guys left that. Those are useless or they failed with those so it’s worthless to them. Yeah there are sometimes many comes like a freebies or at a best cost we can recreate them by minor altering and not complete change.
He had paid because he liked the location. When I explained about “How to create a retail brand” he digested and replied immediately that was a big mistake done by him. I started working on Retail Identity and clearly told him that we need to demolish the whole facade and make it nude shell space. Many would be thought that Designers make money here, No they make business for a client. When you consult a right Retail Designer they seems expensive but in overall deliverable and the wastage one does is nothing comparative to what you invest in as said by Retail Consultant.
We have completely broken that facade, scrapped complete interiors and exteriors and redoing or altering the same all the workers got fed up and the cost and time comparatively increased than saving.
I could have just done some interiors but that doesn’t justify.
CONSULT RETAIL DESIGNERS – Don’t just consult some interior designers, consult somone who have industry experience in retail. There is a large variance in design out put and the deliverables between an Architect / Interior Designer and a Retail Design Consultant. Unless they are not specialized in retail design they cannot deliver you the desire results. In terms of design you may like so much, but what you do with the Design that doesn’t work. The very meaning of Design is – “Design should work”.
You don’t just need a store design, you need a store by creating selling environments, communication, product enhancement, brand and customer experience by stretching the brand image at retail with a tangible and intangible touch points at every level.
And the very important thing is creating the difference with a new Retail Identity. So we went on redoing the complete space. I have shared in my facebook, linkedin, twitter and google+ handles too. You can check there or follow for our upcoming live videos.
Another client has bought a space and when tried to differentiate we were to be compromised with the look and feel of the overall brand image which was not convincing me at all and clearly told to take a time and decide “whether you just want to open a store or want to create brand” The answer came after couple of days is “we want to create a brand” The spends differentiate only with knowledge we have in mind. If we connect to master minds with specialized knowledge then one can achieve anything.
CREATE AN RETAIL IDENTITY – You need to create an identity right from first day of creating your brand. your brand should be different from existing markets in your category. You don’t need to do different things for things and just need to do things differently. You just don’t need to compete with someone. Forget about competition, there is no such thing earlier or won’t occur atleast in my mind as I mastered myself not to get influenced by anything. Those are just market creations.
I can keep giving many examples but you just be lost in inspirations instead brining your ideas into reality and monetize.
Creating a Retail Identity is most important as need to stood apart in the market in your niche. You should have your own language while communicating with your end users. Let it be Apparel Store, Footwear, Salon or Spa, Restaurant, Travel Business, Online business or any business you should have your own identity in the market.
The main objective should be how to quickly achieve your ROI by further reducing your marketing budgets.
IDENTIFY A NICHE – You identify one niche and don’t ever try to fulfill all the needs that you get in mind. Everyone is not your customers. You cannot cater to all kinds of customers in retail. You have to create a niche market for yourself. There is so much gap in every business. you need to zero in that and start working towards the pain points and how can you address them with a laser target marketing and laser target your customers.
CREATE YOUR CUSTOMER PROFILE – You should know your customer thoroughly before targeting them. if you don’t know your customer base then you are lost in the market and you will run your business in the dark. That’s where many businesses fail. This is just not one areas of failure, there are many areas a business fails without a holistic approach.
DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF – you should differentiate yourself in the market space as well as in product offering and service too. Don’t just try to be an another Mc Donald or KFC or Zara or H&M or a Mainland China or a Bata or just any another. They have all differentiated from the market and created their own niche and retail identity and customer profile. They just be next to next in many market spaces. They are being a competitor to others that’s the other side of the story. The fact is that they have their own set of strategies to end user offering with a clear holistic approach. Many who goes to Mc Donald don’t like KFC much and vise versa. If you are loyal customer of any business, think over it why are you so loyal. Don’t just judging their business. Just think over why are you so loyal.
CREATE A LOYAL CUSTOMER BASE – There are many advantages and benefits when you create a loyal customer base. your customer are the gold of your business. you should know them thoroughly. D o you know this most shocking and very interesting thing. “Before a women knows that she is going to be a pregnant Tesco knows much before” They go in such depth knowing their customers so well and marketing them by creating a loyal customer base. Walk-ins or Visitors = Customers = Sales = Conversions = profits = growth or expansion.
CONVERT YOUR CUSTOMER INTO A BRAND AMBASSIDORS – Do you know this word of mouth marketing is most expensive marketing among all types of marketing. It seems no money is spent, but to reach to that level you need to invest a lot of time and care and of course money too indirectly which you can realize in later stages. No lunch comes for free. You being a brand or an advertiser marketing a brand and the same being marketed by your customers has a large variance in conversion.
CREATE A BUSINESS MODEL – if you want to expand your business, you cannot expand it without a right business model. why many business those are experts in their niche and are doing so well in same location for years cannot grow to next level. The growth is unlimited. Whatever business you do the utlimate business should be human well being. you goal should be reaching those millions of customers globally by scaling up with a right business model. I don’t talk about a sustainable business model as there isn’t such but you can try to minimize the risks or try avoiding repeated mistakes with your learning and always be open to master minds. Don’t run a traditional business. When you learn to run that business space by systemizing without your much presence then you can multiply it or else there won’t be chance. You expand it through investors or franchisee model. Once your business is growing then you can focus on the product or service through Research and Development. Without R&D growth is next to impossible.
There are many aspects I would like to cover, but would like to end up here by creating different related articles useful for your business frequently.
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