Insights in retail customer behavior, how parents cause purchases, and how children get influenced

1. RETAIL INSIGHT: SPENDING
PATTERNS AT SCHOOL EXHIBITIONS

2. The events
• Exhibitions run by an omni-channel retailer which
specialises in the K-12 segment.
• Children between 3-10 years, mainly till 9 years
• Illustrative event days
– Christmas carnival, on a public holiday
• Children accompanied by parents; sometimes with grandparents
– Annual day related talent day, on a week day
• Children accompanied primarily by mothers; sometimes
with grand-parents
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3. Our preliminary observations
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Environment makes a difference
Fathers buy differently from mothers
Technology awareness is still low
Customer discretion plays an important part
Customer centric assortment / merchandising
Influence of television
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4. Environment
• The situation and environment does make a
significant difference in the consumer behavior
and content of each cart /shopping basket.
– A large fete /carnival gets consumers to buy more fun
filled items and products e.g. color supplies sold more
– Inside school exhibition, caused a larger focus on
books, CDs etc.
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5. Which parent buys
• Whether it’s the father or the mother buying
– Mothers wean children away from entertainment
related items, and away from “non-required” coloring
or stationery material
– Fathers are more generous about non-books or noneducational items, and also tend to spend more; and
also linger longer
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6. Technology awareness
• Parents were clearly from the affluent sections of
the society – but their technology awareness is
still lower than expected.
– Many still buy large number of books from brick and
mortar stores at non-discounted prices
– Unaware that purchasing on the internet will get
them discounts, or free home delivery
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7. Customer discretion
• Customer discretion plays an important part in
final purchases
– Parents largely influence purchases made for children
– Parents (especially mothers) make a negative
purchase decision for potential “bad influences” e.g.
Hannah Montana, Barbie etc.
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8. Customer centricity
• Assortment
– Important to ensure assortment covered spread of target consumers
– Assortment spread across books, CDs, Video and stationery helped
• Visual merchandising
– Colorful stationery displayed in the visible centre attracts children
into the store
– Spreading out books across two sections helped distribute the
consumers across limited space
– Hannah Montana, Barbie, Ben 10, Pepper, Dora and Doaremon
towards the outer edges of the store attracted consumers into the
store
– Children’s worksheets at checkout pulled people in, and also caused
stock out of worksheets
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9. Television in our lives
• Television does indeed play an important part in
our lives and certainly in the lives of children
– Barbie, Hanna Montana, Scooby Doo, Bob the Builder,
Ben10, Doraemon are hit characters
– Chhota Bheem is extremely popular and children
wanted to pick Chhota Bheem DVDs.
• Mothers weaned their children away mentioning that it
would be a waste of money since Chhota Bheem is being
shown on the tube
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