It´s all about the prices!by Plamena

My observation exercise included 6 stores on a main street in Bochum, Germany. The observation itself did not lead to any new discoveries about new businesses but it did help me rediscover the retail world with fresh eyes.

Instead of being there to buy I went there to discover the ideas behind the face of the shop. And after gathering the following data, I came up with the following conclusions1.

1 Please do have in mind that I was not very welcome to take pictures inside the store. Even though this interfered with my assignment, it also led to a new discovery that I kindly included in my conclusions.

1. A doormat imitates a `welcome doormat` 2. A beautiful girl poster at the back attracts and one could see it from the door

3.An interesting idea with the legs on the wall; however the light in the store doesn´t concentrate on the items but rather on the walls.4. The drawers look like those we use at home and not typical store drawers

The electronics store was full with posters with text on them, even the ads on the windows were mainly with posters and no items. The information was too overwhelming.

The beauty shop was on the other hand full with posters with no text on them but with beautiful faces. The lights were invisible and they were coming from the advertising posters of the different brands. Window ads with posters & products.

The book store was the most appealing one with its bright colors. It was the store with the most items (both discounted and not) to be sold outside the premises of the store.

This was the least appealing store: the featured items on the window were not well illuminated and the colors were too dark. The idea behind the colors might be to represent luxury goods, however, one could not see well enough the item. So, even though the quality of the product is good, one could not see it inside the shop. Also, the three signs of the store were quite confusing.

Who doesn´t know C&A? Well, apparently this is what they use to reduce costs in their stores. The lights were ok, the colors of the store were ok, the temperature inside was ok, everything was ok. With this ok their items were losing their light (quality). The one thing that was well displayed were the price tags and the price posters which were screaming: Look, I´m cheap, buy me! The whole concept of cheap selling in bulk did not appeal to me very much, but then again I did enter the shop. All this tells me that whatever the representation, a client is FIRST led by a price.

To sum up, If I ever open a store it will have the following features (description for a clothing shop):

one relatively big sign but not that bigcolorful external representationopen doora combination of well illuminated posters with beautiful girls on it & mannequins with featured trendy clothsa welcome doormat with the name of my shopwhite colors with lights mainly on the itemsproducts displayed at eye levelhigh ceilingmusic playing sparse merchandisedistinctive smellsomething to remind the cozy atmosphere at home but also luxury items to tell you that you experience something that you cannot at homea camera to take pictures of the people trying the cloths on ...And very well displayed prices. This is the main drive for a person to come inside your store.

Thank you for taking time reading my small paper! :)

Plamena