Abstract
It is a globally accepted strategy that, retaining existing consumers is significantly cost effective than focussing on acquiring new consumers. In brick-and-mortar retailing, sales personnel play the most important and complex role whereby they are the ones who are connected to consumers directly on a real-time basis. It is observed that the majority of brick-and-mortar retailers in India use measures to measure sales personnel performance which is mathematically derived numbers viz. average transaction value (ATV), average basket size (ABS) and contribution margin percentage (GM%) and these are all output driven measures. Such output driven measures are making the sales personnel’s role further more complex and in turn, their focus is expected to have shifted from consumer needs to these output driven measures set by their management. In this research, we have carried out an experiment using input driven measures viz. category invoice penetration(CIP) and invoices/bills generated by the sales personnel per day and evaluated the change in(a) sales personal attitude towards consumer orientation and (b) overall store profitability.
Highlights
IntroductionMulti-category and multi-branded retail store comprise of many products/categories which cater to specific needs consumers
It was anticipated that most of the output driven measures such as average selling price, average transaction value, average basket size, and gross margin percent will significantly degrow which was made known to the sales personnel in the experimental group of stores well in advance which was supported by the post-test results
The new measures experimented were input driven, meaning, they were all helping the sales personnel to understand the role of each product to be it essential, non-essential, high priced, low priced and so on and indirectly these measures were pushing them to focus on just the consumer, consumer’s immediate needs, consumer’s lifetime value rather all the time thinking about just one transaction
Summary
Multi-category and multi-branded retail store comprise of many products/categories which cater to specific needs consumers. Classify these products into different sections either based on consumer needs (demand side) or product’s behaviour (supply side) or visual appeal (communication side) and this classification is known as categories. Each of these categories includes at least twenty-five sub-categories and each sub-category will comprise minimum hundred variants and every product/category play an important role with respect to consumer and retailer. It is imperative to note that, the understanding of the role played by a particular product/category might not be same among consumers, retailers and sales personnel. What is really important and of significant essence is that every salesperson in the store is familiar with each of these product/category roles in relation to consumer store visit frequency and utilize this knowledge to enhance their own performance in a sagacious manner thereby enhancing (a) overall consumer repeat store visit frequency, (b) overall store profitability and (c) their individual performance
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
