Buying behaviour has changed...

Marketers, brand managers and retailers across the globe invest a significant amount of time and money on understanding consumer buying behaviour. They build competencies in translating insights about consumer behaviour into product, services, marketing campaigns, promotional programs, incentives, processes, in-store display & navigation and also retail infrastructure based on a their understanding of the consumer’s current buying process.

Until a few years ago, building these competencies and the resulting investments were justified because consumer behaviour was fairly repetitive. While fashion, styles and the look & feel changed periodically, there was still predictability and homogeneity of behaviour patters within different target audience segments. A high-end consumer bought a certain kind of products and a mid-market consumer bought a certain type of products. Even their destinations for shopping, way of shopping, etc. would be fairly consistent within their segments.

However, that’s changing. A high-end consumer may buy $1000 shoes, $2000 jeans and pair it with a $10 T-shirt or may pair a bespoke $1000 shirt with a $50 pair of denim jeans. And that is now considered ‘cool’. Likewise, the younger generation of mid-market segment may indulge in high-end phones, jeans or accessories etc.

Moreover, apart from buying behaviour that is not predictable, e-commerce has created a common market platform for consumers across all socio-economic segments. Also, e-commerce provides a level-playing field for new entrants to offer the same customer experience that high-end offline retail stores could offer to their exclusive consumers, and which would have taken a lot of time and investments for new entrants to replicate in the offline world. In other words, technology is creating a level playing field where new entrants and existing retail giants are at par.

As consumer behaviour becomes less predictable, it increases the complexity for retailers. They have to now start building competencies to adapt as the market shifts. They have to learn the art of being nimble.

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