Luxury Brand Store

Ankita Bhosle

Overview

Clothing is one of the rare commodities that people usually prefer to visit a physical store for, rather than purchasing online. This is because online shopping cannot replace the experience of shopping in-store, especially since trial of clothes is such an important part of buying them. Since the primary purpose of these resources is to clothe and adorn the body, the fit, color, suitability for particular body types are important factors influencing the decision of buying (or not buying) them. Hence, the design of physical stores/boutiques for showcasing apparel is important, especially so for luxury brands who have small and highly specialized collections. I am really fascinated by the thought that goes behind organizing apparel for display (and sale) in such stores. I find this interesting because I am a shopaholic, and I think the design decisions behind the organization of resources in luxury stores has a lot to do with higher and/or impulsive buying tendencies of consumers, and subsequent increase in sales. Organization strategy is at the heart of manipulating, shaping and possibly even controlling consumer behavior in luxury retail stores.

 

What resources are being organized?

The (physical) things being organized in a luxury store would be apparel, accessories (scarves, footwear, bags, jewelry, watches, belts, etc.), cosmetics and lifestyle products. The racks, tables, mannequins and pedestals that are used to display the resources are also part of the organizing system. Catalogs or lookbooks, labels on racks and on the products – all descriptions of the resources – are also organized. The sparse furniture (a sofa or two, billing counter, security sensors at entrance, seats to try on shoes) along with separate areas like trial rooms, restroom, back room for inventory need to be organized too. A luxury stores also usually has some props, lighting, art that are strategically placed to lend an ambience that aligns well with the design aesthetic of the store and showcases the resources ‘in the right light’. All these resources form the organizing ecosystem of a luxury store. For the sake of convenience, I would like to take into account only non-human resources (no store personnel). Also, the digital and online inventories of the resources in the store are out of the scope of this case study.

 

Why are the resources being organized?

The primary purpose would be merchandizing – to showcase/display/present the products, afford interactions like trial and buying, and induce and promote sales. On a higher level, it facilitates accessing the objects in this ecosystem and performing operations/interactions (browsing, selecting, trying and buying) on them. There are also other purposes like attracting or enticing customers and marketing strategy to increase sales of the resources. Maintaining orderliness, monitoring and tracking activity inside the store are other purposes.

 

How much are the resources being organized?

The extent of organization is not very uniform across the store, with some parts being more granular than others. The newest collections are generally very well organized, with a well defined structure and considering possible relations between objects (ex. matching garments, pairing items with one another). The clearance section is usually disorganized and haphazard, with items on sale usually thrown in a box or strewn across a few tables/racks. The organization principles followed are motivated by different purposes: they can be utility/convenience based (e.g. all pants together, all coats together, etc.) or more innovative and specialized (e.g. if a new collection is composed of mainly two-three colors, all items of the same color (garments, shoes, bags, etc.) are clustered together for aesthetic effect and to create an impact). Thus, the properties of the resources play an important part in their organization. A faceted classification is followed, as there is always more than one way to organize the resources, based on different properties. E.g. Apart from one of the above design choices for organizing the resources, organization by size cannot be completely disregarded.

 

When are the resources being organized?

When a new collection arrives, it gets the highest priority. This new collection is now organized in a more granular manner, whereas the older one, which was the highly organized one earlier, gets demoted, and is now organized in a less granular, more general manner. This reorganization strategy is implemented to highlight and draw attention onto the newest collections, and capitalize on the buzz and novelty. Even the props and lighting in the store are adjusted and re-organized accordingly. Apart from this, there would also be some routine re-organization at the start/end of a day, as a maintenance activity, though this would probably be more of a ‘putting things back into place’ activity than an actual unique activity. There are also some periodic changes in the organization strategies, as may be dictated by changes in brand policies or marketing and merchandizing strategies, causing potential reshuffling of the items in the system.

 

Who does the organizing?

The organization activities would most likely be performed by the store personnel as per the merchandising strategy of the brand and in adherence to the store policies. However, the actual ‘design’ of the organization is done by merchandizing experts, whereas the ‘implementation’ is done by the store personnel.

 

Other considerations:

It would be interesting to see how the organization system changes if the physical location of the store changes. The original theme, with its interplay of different organization principles, has to be retained and implemented in the new premises, while at the same time, maintaining uniformity across all outlets of the same brand. Standardization is the answer to this problem and can be used to impose uniformity in the luxury brand store as well as across all outlets of the same brand.