Multi Brand Outlet

It is an every day challenge for a retailer to satisfy the diversified demands of discerning customers. The further challenges are to reel in more customers, assure their loyalty, drive in more footfalls and the ensure the conversion rate. In order to gain more profits, retailers try to lure the customers with in-store signages, advertisements and customer-loyalty programmes. No matter how unique these strategies may be, they do not guarantee a success rate.

Thus, to ensure a minimum return on investment, the retailers need to ascertain that the format, product assortment and the location of their store assures profits. Exclusive brand outlet (EBO) does ensure that the store is never out of stock, thanks to the predominant one-brand presence. However, veterans argue that it is the multi-brand outlets (MBOs), which drives more footfalls. In the MBOs, the retailers offer wider range of merchandise but EBOs are in command with better visual merchandising, more control over the brand, customer experience etc.

In the response to the open poll question on IndiaRetailing — Exclusive brand stores may allow for greater depth and branding of merchandise, but multi-brand outlets and shop-in-shops are really the revenue drivers for a brand — 91.67 per cent of the respondents support the statement while the remaining 8.33 per cent of them negated it.

Devangshu Dutta, chief executive, Third Eyesight observes, “MBOs and shops-in-shop (SIS) can certainly help a brand build its footprint more rapidly and with lower capital than it