Anju Saxena finds the hypermarket in her neighbourhood in Malad in Mumbai slightly overwhelming. Spread over three levels -- the first level devoted to groceries, the second to apparel and the third to home goods and electronics -- it is just so huge. Most of the time, Anju visits only the ground floor.
A few weeks ago, she spotted a pair of pillows in another shopper's trolley at the checkout. The pillows were taped together, and she guessed there was some kind of deal being offered on those pillows. She asked her daughter to guard her trolley while she made a quick trip to the second floor, to the pillow and mattress section. There was indeed a deal on the foam pillows and since she had been thinking of replacing a couple of her pillows, she was quick to grab the deal.
Anju confesses that had it not been for the act of peeping into a fellow-shopper's trolley, she would never have availed of the offer.On its part, the store benefited from having a customer 'copy shop'.
Anju never thought she would be proud of her copying skills,until she went to buy a sari and picked up one from another shopper's potential selection.The kurta she wears, which is universally liked, wasn't picked up from a catalogue, but from a design she saw another woman at the tailor's wearing.
In the good old days, before the advent of self-service stores, shoppers relied on an expert to help them take decisions, to get thebest deals, to follow fashion trends. This was the shopkeeper. The advice might not have been 100% reliable, but where it lost on believability, it won hands down on the reassurance factor. How often have we heard our trusty shopkeeper say "aaj kal yehi chalta hai," and therefore taken his advice?
There's no one at modern retail stores to tell us that. When we shop, we are on our own, except for the messages flung at us from the hundreds of notices hanging from all the racks, telling us what the various deals are. The information is there, but what about reassurance? Where is the stand-in for the man behind the counter who knows it all? Who will tell us "aaj kal kya chalta hai" or "iss dukaan mein accha kya hai?"
Anju has evolved a method for knowing what the general trend is. She goes around the aisles of the hypermarket to find the best deals, but also keeps an eye cocked on the other trolleys that wheel around her to discover some trend or deal she might have missed out on.
Smart store managers have also evolved substitutes for the friendly 'advisor'. A simple idea that a manager in a Thane store has adopted is a 'trend' trolley, a trolley that contains the best offers in the store. The trolley is taken around the floor. And that's all. It acts as a crossover between the friendly shopkeeper and the unobtrusive modern store.
Copy shopping is particularly in evidence when it comes to fashion trends. What is the one big influence on a woman's choice of what she wears? It isn't advertisements or fashion articles. It is what the neighbour, friend, or fellow-shopper is wearing.
At marriages, women often change in a common area and exchange notes on the latest trends in saris, jewellery, shoes and handbags, etc. At parties and other celebrations, women naturally observe the minute details of other guests' apparel, and mental notes are taken on what one's next purchase should be. It isn't fashion editors who choose for us what our sleeves pattern should be, but the woman next door.
And so, at apparel stores, the most happening place is the fitting room area. Women keep an eye out for what the others are trying out, and more often than not, get ideas on patterns, colours, embellishments by looking at what theother person is wearing. The voiceless exchange of ideas is more potent than any picture of a model on the wall.
Instinctively, the female community of shoppers recognises this, and encourages its
members to freely offer and seek advice. Oftentimes, the word of a stranger is what creates the turning point in a decision.
At a large chain of apparel stores, it is company policy to keep a rack of outfits outside the fitting rooms. These outfits are picked up from the fitting rooms after the shoppers have left and hung there for other shoppers to make a note of. At a single place, the shopper can see for herself what her fellow shoppers are going for.
The silent suggestion is powerful in the way it is positioned. An even more potent alternative could be to offer the customers a choice of a communal trial room, in addition to the partitioned, personal trial rooms. In the shared trial rooms, multiple shoppers could try out their tops and kurtas, etc.
Shoppers coming alone will benefit from the plethora of advice that they will receive from others in that trial room. They will see what others are wearing, and need not make any effort to figure trends for themselves. And of course, the noise and cheer of a communal location is always an uplifting experience, as wedding guests will testify to.
While modern shopping formats have eliminated the friendly but slightly intrusive shopkeeper, there are ways to manage the shopper's need to pick information from other fellow shoppers --- directly or tacitly. Such information builds reassurance and increases sales. Smart store managers have already started following their instincts on this one and begun enabling the phenomenon of 'copy shopping'.
The writer is the group customer director, Future Group and can be reached
at damodar.mall@futuregroup.in. Views are personal.


