Think local, look global: Vineet Gautam to International retailers

Vineet Gautam, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) & Country Head BESTSELLER India spoke on the theme of ‘Fine-tuning Retail Design ID for India’ at the 12^th edition of ISA 2019 held in Mumbai. As a part of his talk, Gautam spoke about how international retailers should look at Indian consumers and how they should change the retail design depending on the Indian consumer. He said an international brand should think local and look global. “Don’t miss your DNA, stand for what you are and localise what you need to do but don’t overdo it.”

“What we observed over the last decades being in India is over here the customers want far more experience, far more value-add than any other part of the world. The customers here have higher aspirations even if they are shopping at value retailer or luxury retail, the aspiration is far higher in India that any retail brands have to fulfill.  While looking local does not mean you localise your designs, you look at what your customer needs are and that is the first principle that the retail design needs to be based out. Every customer is not same, the target customer is very wide-base in India. One should segment the customers," he said.

He also emphasized the importance of visual merchandising in retail design. He said, “Lot of us look at retail design only from store fixtures and furniture but visual merchandising is far more important part of the retail design because fixtures, furniture, layout, and interior are coveted part of it. Visual merchandising is not just colour blocking, it’s about selling outfits, it’s about selling your core products together. And that is important when you look at your store design.