A PROJECT ON RETAIL MANAGEMENT

“TO WHAT EXTENT SYMBOL, LOGO OF A

PARTICULAR BRAND AFFECTS THE CUSTOMER
TO VISIT RETAIL STORE”.
 INTRODUCTION –

We have given the topic related to the impact of Logos and symbols of a particular brand
on the customer’s mind and to what extent all these logos and symbols attracts a
customer to visit a retail store. But before discussing all these things we should know
what a brand is and what are its functions?

‘A brand is a distinguishing name and/or symbol (such as a logo, trademark or

Package design) intended to identify the goods or services of either one seller or a
Group of sellers, and to differentiate those goods or services from those of
Competitors. A brand thus signals to the customer the source of the product, and
Protects both the customer and the producer from competitors who would attempt to
Provide products that appear to be identical’.

A brand is according to the definition a wider concept than a product or a service

Since the brand is linked to the source of the product, which means the company itself.
A brand is a symbol which creates signals that distinguishes the brand elements in
Order to differentiate the company and its products from its competitors. The brand
Also aims to put this differentiation into people’s minds in order to create brand
awareness.
In the same sense we can say that a brand differentiate the product from the commodity
of same category. And if a product has a good brand image than obviously it is going to
have good quality and high price.
A brand does have a communication to its target market, this communication and
expression leads to a higher brand loyalty. So we should also know that how a brand
communicates and express views about its product?
A brand communicates through various medium to its target market and few of these are
like – Television, Print Media- Magazine, New paper, Radio etc..
Through these channels a brand communicates to its customers and express its view on
the product to aware the people about the product in the best way it can. The channel is
selected after considering the target market and type of the product. Once the
advertisement of a brand has completed its communication than it’s the time to get the
feedback of the same like – How the customer have perceived the brand.

PERCEPTION OF BRANDS- Ultimately, however, it is not the overall expression

And the communication but the perception of the consumer that determines the
triumph of a brand. Only if the brand is consumed the way it is designed by the
marketers, it is able to meet the objectives for which it was conceived. Brands are
still anchors in the rough sea of consumption. First of all, a brand has to be credible
and trustworthy, i.e. the perceived communication and experienced consumption
must correlate. The brand has to create trust in order to reduce the choices between
innumerable product options. It is supposed to minimize the risk of mis-purchase,
and it is to diminish impediments to making purchases, particularly on the Internet.
Furthermore, its task is to convey the quality of the branded good or service, to
foster recognition and repurchase and to offer orientation in the jungle of
commodities. It has to differentiate from the competitors. The ultimate goal of this
perceived brand awareness is to increase the probability of repurchase by means of
brand loyalty.
If a brand communicated well and perceived well by its customer than it is obviously
going to have brand loyalty of its customer.
BRAND IDENTITY- In a historical context, branding used to be both product- and
quality-oriented. In the course of the development of the markets and due to the
modern affluent society this objective of the brand has decreased in significance.
Today, brands fulfill rather non-functional and intangible tasks. In order to be
distinctive and memorable, brands are equipped with a particular identity5, which
on one hand consists of a brand name, a visualization of the brand name (e.g. a
logo), a subline and a slogan, and on the other hand of a story that the brand tells.
Based upon research of the brand’s periphery, i.e. consumer, competitors and the
brand itself, the brand identity is conceived in an utterly analytical and highly
strategic process, and consequently it is implemented by means of a brand-building
concept. Therefore, many marketing experts believe that traditional and conventional
branding is not effective anymore.
In a period of understanding it was attempted to modernize the phenomenon brand
by revolutionary theories. After the efficiency of the twins positioning and
penetration started to dwindle, Gerd Gerken proclaimed the birth of the fractal
brand in the mid-90ies. This concept borrowed from mathematics and conceived by
postmodernism was implanted into the marketing discourse with less success than
expected. It was to provide answers for the increasing complexity of markets and
the unpredictable behavior of consumers. Assuming that markets used to be logical
and predictable, and yet today they are subject to chaos and fractal dynamics, the
fractal brand turned positioning into encoding. Encoding is aimed at creating a
brand that is in constant motion and that - liberated from texture and value - is no
longer to be planned strategically. Yet, this planning, predicting and character
deficit had to be compensated by a unique emotional charging process through
attaching magic to the brand. First encoding attempts, however, e.g. with the
cigarette brand “West”, proved to be less glorious than expected. Giving way to the
emergence of the Internet, new terms were coined. Interactive branding, for
instance, sounds promising, yet what it precisely means is that people are able to
interact primarily with the company (and with brands only in a limited way) by the
means of a company (or brand) website, e.g. for sharing information, for selling, for
collecting complaints or consumer demands. Other approaches to the new
challenges in branding, e.g. to elevate the brand to a myth9, or to recharge it
emotionally with stories, tales or experience10, did also not contribute to any
implementable findings for branding.
LIVING BRANDS- As a subsystem in a system of added value, brands can only be
developed and refined in a joint development process. “The founding fathers of
brands can only give an impetus.“17 So enterprises can actually carry out the
primary positioning as value proposition that gives the first impetus in order to
guarantee a continuous development of a permeable and vital brand. System immanent
communication, which forms the basis for (communication) relations and
thus helps keep the brand alive, actively nurtures and promotes the brand. It
definitely makes sense to implant the brand in many different communication
channels. However, attention must be paid to the fact that the multi-channel brand
has to have the same brand identity in all channels involved and that it has to appear
homogeneously, because in an age of information overload the consumers could be
confused by various brand identities. The communication channels involved may be
conventional advertising media such as TV, radio, print media or posters, or modern
one-to-one marketing tools such as websites, SMS, e-mails etc. The Internet,
however, with its functions such as communities, chats and forums etc., still offers
many more possibilities: interactivity, dynamics and vitality (in the sense of alive)
as well as multiple networks. These ingredients shape the potential of the Internet
and the potential of dynamic branding processes such as those of the Living Brands.
The tools mentioned above enable a participation of the system members, which
helps create a brand identity supported by all parties involved and enhanced and
developed by continuing communication. Involving customers into the process of
shaping the brand identity stands for commitment and enthusiasm as well as the
creation of “customized brands” that are closely linked to the dynamic needs of the
consumers. Such relations are always kept alive whenever the parties involved
expect development opportunities from their interaction. But this does not just
require the customers’ participation in brand building but also a stringent and
coherent participation of the enterprise itself. Creating a coherent brand experience
requires aligning every touch point in the organization with the brand. Establishing
a dialogue, listening carefully to the consumers, comprehending what they say, and
responding to them could be the new approach to a brand-consumer-relationship.
This brand experience cannot only be restricted to different ways of communicating
directly, but also to communication in the widest sense, together with interaction
that influences consumer experience. If e.g. the brand stands for the promise to
benefit the customer by offering the most competent service available, the
conditions necessary for keeping this promise need to be created properly. This
involves for example a timely installation of toll-free hotlines, a sufficient number
of assistants providing services to the customers, well-trained staff, a smoothly
working call center, customer information points at the premises etc. The promise
to benefit the customer as well as the credibility associated with this promise have
to be guaranteed right from the beginning.

So we should try to know that can a brand attract a customer to visit a retail store and if
yes than to what extent. This is what we have tried to know in our project.
 OBJECTIVE

In this project we have two types of objective

(1) Primary objective
(2)Secondary objective

Primary objective-

To know that how logos, symbols of a particular brand impact on customer’s mind
and how it attract the customers to visit a retail store.

In this context we have to say that it can really helps to customer in good product
selection and good brands give satisfaction, confidence. These things really help to retain
customer and helps a good long term relationship.

Secondary objective-

We also want to know that how these things affect on the market competition.
 HYPOTHESIS :

In the hypothesis part, we assumed that a customer prefers to buy things

as per the logo, symbol of that brand. There are more factors also there by which a
customer used to buy a particular brand that are like, passion, it means this defines the
strong emotional connection the customer feels with the brand, so much so that there is a
sense of ir-replaceability about it -- the customer can't imagine life without the brand or
product. Reliability or value, it is also one of the point by which customer prefer to buy a
brand.pride should be their in a brand on which a customer like badge products (such as
rolex, jaguar and montblanc) evoke that sense of pride. in India especially, customers
take pride in owning multinational brands

As the topic is given to us, we assumed some points which are as follows:

1 We assumed that logo, symbol of a brand will help to the customer to choose to buy
the brand from particular retail store.

2. We also assumed that pride of association in which customers believe they are valued
and respected for the business they provide, reflected in the form of courtesy, special
treatment and more importantly, respect.

3 Starbucks is a perfect example: loyalists of the coffee chain will tell you that they can't
imagine life without its coffee. They will walk five blocks to get their daily dose of
caffeine from a starbucks outlet rather than settle for a cup from the nearby café. There's
a sense of pride as well as passion about such brands.

4. When a customer trusts a company, he doesn't expect things to always be perfect. He

accepts that sometimes there will be problems; but he expects the company to adopt a
problem-solving approach, rather than play a blame game. the question is: what are the
standards with which the company operates and how fair are they from a customers'
perspective?
 METHEDOLOGY

To accomplish this project we have visited a few of the Retail stores in Delhi like –
Ebony, Shoppers stop, Big-jois etc.

During our visit we have seen that some of the stores are specialty stores but few of them
are not. Like Ebony we have seen that in this retail store they keep shirts, trousers of
different brands like Arrow, Van-Heusen, Monticello, Givo, Reymonds, parks etc.

So we have talked to the people visiting the retail store and asked them about their reason
to visit the store. And we tried to know that have they got influenced by the logos and
symbols of the brands present in the store or what.

We have also tried to know the perception of the store keepers about their experience that
what they think about the impression of the logos and symbols of a particular brand. And
does it attract the customer to visit the store.

We have given our result in the finding part of the project report.
In this part we have given our result store by store that what we have found in each store
was there any difference in the perception of the customer as the product got changed in
different store. Like for Shirts and trousers the customers are visiting the store just by
getting influenced by the logos and symbols of brand and in other products like FMCG
the customer are again visiting the store by getting influenced by the brands of the
product.
 FINDINGS

Many factors determine a consumer’s perception of a product’s quality and price. This
study explores how the presentation of a coupon’s discount can influence a consumer’s
judgment of a product’s price and quality. The author conducts three experiments in
which participants evaluate perceived quality, the value of a promotion, and purchase
intentions.

When planning coupons, promotion managers should realize a coupon’s discount amount
has a communication effect that influences consumers’ perceptions of both product
quality and price. When a large face value is used, it is best to provide information on
regular prices to minimize the likelihood that consumers will infer that the product’s
regular price is high.

Price tolerance is the degree to which consumers accept price increases without
expressing measurable resistance. Price tolerance is important for promotion pricing
because frequent price promotions sometimes lead consumers to establish reference
prices that are below a brand’s regular price. When price tolerance is high, setting prices
at the regular price level, or higher, does not dissuade consumers from purchasing the
brand.

So Price v/s good brand is always a matter of discussion but we can easily say that if a
product has a good brand image than it can charge higher prices than its competitor
because a good brand image means that the product has good quality and perception in
the mind set of customer.

Following are the findings of our visit –

1. We have visited few retail store in Delhi. We had talked with the customers in the
retail store. The most important part we had found that their were multiple brands
present in the retail store.
2. During the visit in ebony we found that most of the customers were coming for
formal & fashionable garments and for the brands like Arrow.
3. There are variable numbers of formal cloths of brand available in the retail
outlet that’s why professional peoples visit the outlet frequently.
4. We found that mass number of customer came at the evening time& we found
that their was good management in the retailer outlet.
5. We found that the retail outlet was well decorated with lights to attract the
customers.
6. We found that many retail outlets provided many facilities to the customer .for
example garden, parking facilities.
7. We found that customers get every kind of things easily whether it is a personal,
household & daily uses product.
8. During the visit, we have talk to the customer about that why they are come in
these retail outlets. They said that because of the presence of that brand.
9. During the visit we asked to the teenaged girl’s why they are visiting the outlet
.they said that availability of cosmetic brand like – Loreal, Ele -18, Granier etc. in
the shopper’s stop.
10. We found that not only the gents& ladies were buying the goods but they was
good brands for kids was present in the store also .It means for kids thing
purchases the parents visited the retail outlets.
11. We have found that many of the people visiting the store were there because of
the discounts and different schemes offered by the retailers.
 CONCLUSION –

By our findings we can conclude the following –

(1) The Brands have a great impact on the customer’s mind and they are very much
influenced by these brands.
(2) Most the people visit the retail store just by getting influenced by the brands
present in the store. Like – if one is very much impressed by the brand of Arrow
shirt and that’s why he was visiting the retail store of Ebony. So it shows that this
brand has attracted the customer to visit the retail store.
(3) But some people are also there who was visiting the store by getting influenced by
the location and decoration of the retail store.
(4) Many of them were also visiting the retail store because of some discount offers,
offered by the retail store like a few days before there was a huge sale on the
product of Woodland shoes and around 75% of the people were visiting the retail
store just because of this offer.
(5) But still we can say that brands do have great impact and it really attract the
customer to visit the retail stores.
 RECOMMENDATION –

After our visit we can recommend the following –

(1) We do have retail stores only for the premium segment. And these brands are
targeting only to this target market and there is not any retail store for middle
class segment so we would like to recommend that there should be brands
specially targeting to the middle class people and simultaneously there should be
retail stores of these brands also.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY –

(1) We have visited various websites like – Quickmba.com, google.com, msn.com

(2) We have also visited a few of retail stores in Delhi like – Ebony, Shoppers stop,
Big-jois etc.
(3) We have also read magazines like – 4Ps for Branding.
(4) Book – Al rise and Jakson.