How to handle different types of retail shoppers and make shopping a memorable experience for them

Retailing is essentially an art which depends upon the ability of a retailer to handle customers. This ability in turn depends upon another ability of the retailer and that is to identify the differences among the various types of customers that visit their store. This research paper is based on the various strategies applied by the retailers/retail sales personnel to handle various types of customers so that they are able to provide them, customer delight and hence a memorable shopping experience. The problem has been dealt with, with the help of a primary data collected through a field survey conducted with around 250 retail shoppers’ in various organized & unorganized sector retail outlets such as Lifestyle malls, Shoppers Stop, Reliance fresh, Easy day, Bombay selections, Ambience mall & Tata Croma retail stores. Despite of the limitations of the research which are inherent to any such study, following major conclusions have been arrived at:

Store/Sales staff with which a customer actually interacts, play most crucial role in making the shopping experience of a customer.

Each customer entering a retail store is different in terms of his shopping attitude and purchase behavior.

A sales/service personal should be smart enough to understand these differences and modify his/her sales presentation according to the type of customer he/she is handling at a particular time.

Profitability can be increased by handling different customers, differently.