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Retail marketing winners – value and premium
March 12th, 2009
A trip along Oxford Street yesterday at lunchtime showed in ‘real time’ the shift in retail spending.
The street was very crowded with shoppers, many of them tourists from France and Italy or from Eastern Europe, enjoying the reduction in sterling’s value.
Yet many of the lunchtime shoppers were clely locals who had ‘escaped’ from nearby offices to enjoy the early spring sunshine and to browse the rails.
What was interesting from a marketer’s perspective was what the shoppers were buying.
A quick review of the carrier bags that shoppers were carrying yesterday showed that the clear winners were Primark and Selfridges. Certainly both stores were very busy with queues at tills, particularly at the former.
The carriers that were glaringly absent were from the ‘middle market’ – Next, M&S, Bhs etc.
This was a physical demonstration of market positioning with consumers shopping at the top of the market and the bottom.
While these observations spring from two hours one lunchtime, it does show that is being reflected in market share and share prices – the middle market is finding the going tough.
Retailers in the middle ground need to create a reason why we should shop there. Differentiation is the key! Give us a reason to spend money with you!
Oxford St image courtesy of The Guardian
