Question

It is Tuesday morning, and Judy Jamison is eating breakfast thinking about buying a new dress
for the party she’ll be attending this Friday night at the new club downtown. She sends a tweet to
her friends about her plans to go shopping after work today and asks for suggestions of retailers
she might visit. She gets some suggestions from friends and then decides to do some research on
the Internet. She logs on to her laptop, accesses her personal shopper program called FRED, and
has the following interactive dialog:
Fred: Do you wish to browse, go to a specific store, or buy a specific item? Judy: Specific item.
Fred: Occasion? [Menu appears and Judy selects.] Judy: Dress.
Fred: Type of dress? [Menu appears.] Judy: Cocktail dress. Fred: Price range? [Menu appears.]
Judy: $175–$200.
[Now FRED goes out and literally shops the world electronically, visiting the servers for companies
selling cocktail dresses in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and North and South America.]
Fred: 1,231 items have been identified. How many do you want to review? [Menu appears.]
Judy: Just 5.
(FRED) selects the five best alternatives on the basis of information it has about Judy’s style
preferences. The five cocktail dresses appear on the screen with the price, brand name, and retailer
listed beneath each one. Judy clicks on each dress to get more information about it. With
another click, she sees a full-motion video of a woman who looks similar to Judy modelling the
dress. She selects the dress she finds most appealing.
However, Judy decides not to buy the dress because she is not sure the dress will fit right when it
arrives and she will not have time to return it and get another size. She likes the Robert Rodriguez
styles FRED found, so she goes to Brand- Habit.com, types in the designer’s name and
her zip code, and finds the closest store that carries his designs. The site directs her to the store’s
Web site to look at more dresses. She decides to visit the store after work. Shortly after Judy
walks into the store, a chip in her credit card signals her presence and status as a frequent shopper
to a mobile device held by the store sales associate responsible for preferred clients. Information
about items in which Judy might be interested, including the items she viewed on the Web
site through FRED, is downloaded from the store server to Judy’s and the sales associate’s devices.
A sales associate approaches Judy and says, “Hello, Ms. Jamison. My name is Joan Bradford.
How can I help you?” Judy tells the associate she needs to buy a dress for a party. She has
seen some dresses on the store’s Web site and would like to look at them in the store. The sales
associate takes Judy to a virtual dressing room. In the dressing room, Judy sits in a comfortable
chair and views the dresses displayed on her image, which has been drawn from a body scan
stored in Judy’s customer file. Information about Judy’s recent visit to the retailer’s Web site and
her past purchases is used to select the dresses displayed.
Using her mobile phone, Judy shares this personalized viewing with her friend, who is still at
work in California. They discuss which dress looks best on Judy. Then, using her mobile phone again, Judy drills down to find more information about the dress—the fabric, cleaning instructions,
and so forth. Finally, she selects a dress and purchases it with one click. Using information
displayed on her mobile device, the sales associate Joan suggests a handbag and scarf that would
complement the dress. These accessories are added to the image of Judy in the dress. Judy decides
to buy the scarf but not the handbag. Finally, Judy is told about the minor alterations needed
to make the dress a perfect fit. She can check the retailer’s Web site to find out when the alterations
are completed and then indicate whether she wants the dress delivered to her home or she
will pick it up at the store. As Judy passes through the cosmetics department on her way to her
car, she sees an appealing new lipstick shade. She decides to purchase the lipstick and a 3-ounce
bottle of her favourite perfume and walks out of the store. The store systems sense her departure,
and the merchandise she has selected is automatically charged to her account through signals
from radio frequency identification (RFID) chips
1. In your own words and with examples from the story, summarize how the story reflects the
changing trends in retailing as a result of the following:
a. The consumer
b. Competition.
c. Technology.

Answer 1

Retailing has changed because the consumer wants everything to be perfect. Because of higher competition, retailers want to give the best possible service otherwise they would lose consumers. In order to meet the consumers demands, the retailers analyse the history of buying and thus market intensively those products which the consumer has bought historically. Plus to increase sales, they try to sell accessories as seen with the scarf and handbag example from this story. Now when the consumer purchased the lipstick and perfume, the retailers would include that in future trend to pull the customer and sell items.

As a result of competition, retailers have differentiated themselves with the kind of service, and products, ranging from all sorts of intermediaries to increase the market share. Now this particular store sells mainly clothes wear, but it has diversified itself to include cosmetics and accessories in order to increase market share and customer retention. This increases margins and economic profit as they achieve scale because of such ancilliary items in their store.

As a result of technology, the store is better able to customise the experience for the individual, the website increases efficiency and reduces the time effort by filtering out the products, and by looking at the past history of the consumer. The store also uses technology to analyse the behaviour pattern of buying and displays only those products to the consumer for which the consumer has in the past shelled out money. This increases customer satisfaction and the ability of the consumer to visit the store repeatedly for this customised help and experience.