Indian Retail Industry-Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd.- Two Basic Forms of Retailers (Part III)

High-End Retail Industry Culture

The term ‘high-end’ is generally associated with a high price tag because such merchandises (products/services/real estate) are aimed at high-income customers. The marketing channels play an important role in setting the prices of products and/services, and more specifically speaking, “the secondary channel is critical when the products require display and demonstration and after sales service and support to sell them” because of the obvious reason that “prestige products require appropriate display and ambience to assist in the sale” (Iacobucci, 2006, pp.291). An appropriate example of this is the entire range of up market cosmetics that are sold through various department stores. Manufacturers of these products “lease space in the store and staff the counters with their own personnel to provide the high quality service that helps to sell the product” and hence, “this allows the retailers to add a nice margin to the manufacturer’s price” (Iacobucci, 2006, pp.291-292).

Furthermore, it has been observed that these products come with lofty mark ups in a bid to give good reason for the different value added services that they provide. Courtney et al. (2005) have opined that “there is likely to be a different type of salesperson and environment for high-end merchandise (appliances) than in a department that has more frequent inventory turnover (casual wear)”, and they have also elaborated that “the learning here is then both a push process (guidelines) and an assimilation process (the collective observation of senior sales personnel)” (Courtney, Haynes & Paradice, 2005, pp.8-9). Perhaps it is the easiest to connect fashion and automobiles with the concept of high-end merchandise. It has been observed that “at the high-end, corporate fashion houses….are able to exert an influence along ‘every point in the fashion chain’ through diversification with products ranging from accessories to household items, and through high-end advertising campaigns” (Manlow, 2009, pp.83).

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