FASHION ARTICLE Text: Jessica Säilä Nordic ID & Carl Michener / ID BBN Images: Shutterstock & Hanna Östman / Nordic ID Drawings: Hanna Östman
Fashion BENEFITS FROM NORDIC ID’S EXPERIENCE
At their core, all retail processes are the same: people shop, compare, and purchase. But that’s where the similarities end. You don’t present a coupon to get three Volvos for the price of two, nor do you look for a certain shape and shade of apple in a size 44. When people speak of ‘retail’, they lump together dozens of types of businesses with very different ways of doing things. Customer behaviour also changes, depending on location. When grocery shoppers find that a product is out of stock, they move on. In fashion retail, customers will seek out a salesperson to confirm that the product isn’t in fact available. The converse is also true. When is the last time that someone asked you if you needed help finding anything in a grocery store? Yet that is the norm in fashion retail.
“FFMCG retailers’ competition strategies are quite well defined and limited to select from. In apparel it is different, underlying psychological factors influence businesses far more than in FMCG and there are almost as many different approaches to the markets as there are players on it. That makes the market so intriguing”
6 • Nordic IDea
FASHION RESEMBLES AUTOMOTIVE Retail typically refers to fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), a broad subcategory that encompasses groceries, electronics, convenience, less expensive household goods and more. Unlike highend fashion retail, FMCGs do not require in-depth product knowledge, nor are salespeople expected to know what product to suggest if the item a customer is looking for is out of stock. Keeping all products on the shelves at all times is important to guarantee the steady, razor-thin profit margin that most FMCG retailers count on, but the time it takes to design a product and stock it on the shelf is not. The issues that luxury clothing retailers experience are more like those of the automotive industry than those of FMCG industries such as grocery. Product knowledge in both instances is king, as is time to market: the speed with which new products go from design to production and sale. Counterfeiting is also an issue. Just as you can buy a fake Louis Vuitton handbag in certain parts of the world, you can also buy grey market parts for your Toyota just about anywhere. High staff turnover, a fact of life in FMCG businesses, is something that retailers struggle with. Product knowledge is low and consequently the advice that salespeople can