What Uma Talreja teaches about brand purpose

We do find people who have come to the online channels, approximately 10 to 20% of them actually visit the store. So as consumers get younger, the preferences change. How does the new age shopper look like and how challenging is it to cater to this segment? We find two very distinct trends. I think the first piece is we find that which is a very surprising discovery for us as well was that people who are shopping with us in the 18 to 25 bracket actually buy more premium products.

And the average selling price of the products that these kids buy from us are actually more expensive than what somebody else is buying. So I think the sense of being more conscious with the discretionary money is also setting in a little later. And when the younger guys come to us or younger audience comes to us, they are still experimenting. And there is also this whole sense of indulgence when they come into their own means. And that is what we are seeing is taking place at our stores.

The second thing also is we find very interesting is that the acquisition categories. What I mean by that is what do they really come for versus what somebody else comes for are also slightly different. So we find the penetration of accessories right or even beauty in this category is far higher in terms of a new customer entering the store. Whereas in the case of consumers who are slightly older, they are adding that as they go. So they are coming in mainly for apparel and more the core categories in apparel, shirts, trousers, women's Indian wear etc.

But in this case, what they are doing is they are coming in with a lot more in terms of adjacent categories that they need to complete a look. So there is a lot of opportunity to cross sell. There is a lot of opportunity to cross sell in this segment as well. You have a successful loyalty program for a citizen. How has that helped you improve stickiness, especially for the millennial and Gen Z crowd where they expect a lot more out of brands today?

Over a period of time, the program has obviously evolved to bring in benefits which makes sense to consumers and what they are looking for. So for example, parking is a very important benefit that the program offers both these anniversaries which are expected out of a brand which is trying to create a more occasion-based relationship as well with its customers. However, I think where we find the maximum use of leveraging is through the program insights and what we actually look at in terms of transaction data firstly.

So we have been able to track that over a period of time in terms of what consumers are buying and what they are missing out as well. So I think there is where we have been able to make a big difference in terms of our one-to-one marketing in terms of looking at saying that it is looking at a look-alike model to say that you know where is it that a consumer like you would also find traction in the store and maybe you are missing something out which is new in fashion. It is new in wardrobe. It is new in trends and how do we actually offer that?

And we started actually building our recommendations more around what is missing rather than what you already like for that audience. We also offer assistance through personal shoppers and we find that sometimes yes younger people do want to look for that assistance because they are trying to make up their mind between brands or try to understand what is similar between brands. Can they actually look for something which is you know multitasking in their wardrobe? Can I wear the same shirt with multiple things? Can I layer a jacket etc.

So that also works very well. Something like a style advisor? Yes. So it is more like a relationship manager in the store who helps you to find the right products in the store basis you know your needs evolving into a style advisor if it is a special occasion. That is quite interesting. So Shopper Stop is one of the first brands to look at Omni channel in a big way. That is a big focus. And you have customers moving like you mentioned from online to offline and as a brand you need to make sure that experience is seamless. Yes.

So how do you look at marketing on both of these offline and online platforms and where does it fit for you in terms of both driving demand as well as storytelling to build the brand? I think what we have done is we have looked at a larger if I have to say digital across various means in terms of marketing firstly. So I think the first layer for us is storytelling. Shopper Stop is a brand built on stories. Of course Indian consumers all love stories.

So that is where we use digital and which is sitting on top of everything that we do in print print being a very big category in Indian retail. But we use digital more for storytelling. So whether it is through influencers whether it is our own brand stories and we go back and look at what we have done recently for Mother's Day or we have done a very big campaign around women and women empowerment. I think we are finding a lot of success there. Digital there helps us one of course in telling the story far better than we could do on other channels.

But it also helps us get reach. So OTT has been a very big important growing platform for us where we have been actually focusing. Other than of course the standard video platforms which now are pretty prominent like YouTube and Facebook etc. Instagram. But OTT has actually played a very big role in us reaching out to consumers incrementally over anything else.

The second leg of digital for us really is looking at how we can actually build an organic presence in terms of people who are trying to discover things about us or about trends or what they need to know when they are getting ready to shop. So I think that is the channel that we are building where our focus has earlier been on Facebook. So we have pretty good leadership on Facebook actually in doing that job and achieving that task. But Instagram is where actually all our energies are going on.

So that is the second leg of digital for us in terms of building that organic content which consumers want to consume. And that is creating a pipeline for driving traffic to our digital channels obviously our web and app as well. The third leg for us is on performance which is search marketing or social which is driven at actually creating traffic and addressing the demand which we want to create online. But for us because we are omnichannel we actually track that visitor online to offline.

So we do find people who have come to the online channels approximately 10 to 20 percent of them actually visit the store. And then the last channel for us is actually leads which we use for whether it is personal shopper appointment generation right or institutional businesses for example. Or even for actually acquiring loyalty customers in using loyalty for lead generation through the program as well. So we do find people who have come to the online channels and we have to find people who have come to the online channels.

So we have to find people who have come to the online channels. So we have to find people who have come to the online channels. So we have to find people who have come to the online channels. So we have to find people who have come to the online channels. So we have to find people who have come to the online channels. So we have to find people who have come to the online channels. So we have to find people who have come to the online channels. So we have to find people who have come to the online channels.