Inflation addressing strategies by Retailers

Contributed by Richa Kapoor

Retail is one of the most badly affected industries in the current inflationary conditions, and is experimenting with various schemes and strategies to keep up the footfalls and sales graph.
Retailers are using these strategies in combination to make sure the consumer sees value in the offering and decides to visit the store in this lean time. In the recent past the retailers have been focusing on the following:

Flat Discounts: This is one of the most widely used promotions technique by the retailer, under this a retailer offers a flat percentage deduction of the price of a commodity.

Happy Hours shopping: is a period of time during which some restaurants offer discounts for alcoholic drinks for promotion of the venue in the quieter times. The same is being replicated by retailers some retailers are offering happy hours discounts during the day when all the merchandise is sold at rock-bottom prices

Buy One, Get One Free: Originally, "buy one get one free" was a random, end of season or stock clearance method used by stores who were left with a large quantity of stock that they were looking to sell quickly. More recently it has become a popular, planned and considered marketing method to sell high-end brands

Coupons: These have become a standard promotion tool with retailers for inviting consumers at the store; this not only invites a consumer to the store but also leads to a higher conversion rate than what is allowed for. Under this many retailers are tying-up with Corporates to give away their sales coupons as rewards.

Free-Standing Insertions: Insertions in the local newspaper showcasing best and lowest price deals is emerging as the biggest crowd puller.

Rebates: To attract huge footfalls retailers are rewarding consumers through offering rebates like additional discounts, assured gifts, money back, holiday trips for carrying with them a cutting of newspaper advertisement of the store or past purchase bills.
Retailers are becoming much more flexible and agile than they used to be. It would be interesting to see some new techniques and strategies by the retailers to adjust to the global slowdown.

Reference: Wikipedia