Does burgundy go with black or better with white? Too lazy to drive down to the bookstore for the latest in the Twilight series? — From solving wardrobe dilemmas to door-delivery and pick-up and drop services, retailers and mall-owners are pulling out new cards from the pack to get closer to customers and stand out amid the clutter.

While bookstore chain Crossword allows customers to place an order for home-delivery over the phone, Total Mall, run by Jubilant group, offers free pick-up and drop service for customers.

For this summer, Max Retail, belonging to the Dubai-based Landmark Group, has stationed graduates from the National Institute of Fashion technology to help customers choose their wardrobe. Madura Fashion and Lifestyle offers the “All India One Stock” service — wherein if a customer cannot find a garment in a particular size in a store it is sourced from another store in the country and delivered home free.

In an age of increasing product parity and commoditisation, innovative customer-centric initiatives are gathering steam.

Mr Arvind Singhal, Chairman, Technopak Advisors, says: “In every category, there are established players offering the same product and retail ambience. To stay ahead of peers, retailers must innovate. And today there is also cross-category competition with a bookseller trying to get a customer to spend on books rather than coffee or a movie.”

Explaining the rationale behind roping in NIFT designers, Mr Vasanth Kumar, Executive Director, Max Retail, says: “We help them (customers) choose the right outfit for the right occasion. The idea is choose a look rather than a product.”

Malls too have to think like retailers and change strategies periodically.

Mr Susil Dungarwal, Founder and Chief Mall Mechanic of retail advisory firm, Beyond Squarefeet, says: “The concept of picking up and dropping customers was started by the Big Kids Kemp in Bangalore. Forum Mall in Bangalore introduced the concept of gift vouchers. Ishania mall in Pune then introduced loyalty cards. Malls are engaging customers along with retailers because of the revenue-sharing model the sector is following.”

Have these efforts paid off? According to Mr Ajay Ramachandran, Brand Director, Van Heusen, a Madura brand, Van Heusen sells 20,000 pieces a month and 4 per cent of it comes from the “All India One Stock” offering.

However, all these differentiated services can come to a nought if sales staff on-ground do not match up to customer expectations, says Mr Singhal. “And HR is just one of the many challenges they face. There is also a need for sharper customer segmentation – instead of trying to be many things for many kinds of people. A bookstore should decide if its target is the serious buyer or one who picks up bestsellers in an airport, instead of stocking every title under the sun.”

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