Shifting Trends: The Key to a Successful Retail Business

FEATURE

Shifting Trends: The key to a successful retail business

As we kick off this year, the Retail People Magazine had an exclusive interview with Nathalie Beydoun, Retail & HR Manager from BFL Group. Nathalie joined BFL in 2018. As a Retail Manager, Nathalie oversees the daily operations, monitor merchandising processes, as well as plan and supervise instore promotional events. Let’s hear her insights on the importance of staying up to date with shifting trends that leads to a successful retail business.

Nathalie Beydoun

1. Why do brands need to continuously innovate, revamp current products and create new ones?

Retail & HR Manager

BFL Group

In the current retail landscape, innovative strategies are vital for the brands to stay relevant in a dynamic customer-centric retail market. Retailers who address and adapt to the rapidly changing customer behaviour and emerging trends will remain relevant among their customers.

Considering the swiftly changing consumer behaviour in a highly competitive retail market, brand loyalty will shift in the blink of an eye. Brands must also devise strategies considering the preferences and the changing interests of the customers, as it is necessary for attracting and retaining customer loyalty in a rapidly transforming retail market. 2. In a world of E-commerce, how does managing constantly evolving trends became a challenge for retailers?

To stay relevant in a rapidly transforming market with the rise of e-commerce and address the changing consumer behaviour, retailers must reinvent their business models. Industries such as fashion are benefitting from the rise of e-commerce.

The online fashion industry is one of the key sectors that benefit from e-commerce and high internet penetration. As digitalization has reshaped consumer behaviour in the fashion industry, the brands must adopt a myriad of ways to meet the demands of the customers. A vast majority of the fashion industry customers now prefer online shopping rather than in-store shopping. According to experts, the growing popularity of e-commerce is due to technological advancements and user-friendly interfaces of internetenabled devices.

3. Why do retail brands today see influencers as a huge bonus for business growth than sticking to the old school routine of celebrities endorsement?

Today, influencers have taken a more prominent role in the marketing strategies of brands and retailers than celebrities. Statistics shows that consumers prefer the content created by social media influencers to celebrity endorsements. Consumers consider influencers more genuine as influencers endorse products or services only after they are confident about the quality. The brands rely more on the influencers than celebrity brand partnerships for their credibility among the customers, and costeffectiveness. The brands and retailers have also devised technology to develop platforms that will enable collaboration with the influencers and analyse the success of marketing campaigns. An important aspect of influencer marketing is that brands are increasingly turning to influencers who can create quality, targeted content that will generate more engagement among keen and enthusiastic audience. This will in turn help the brand yield intangible benefits such as authenticity, validation, deeper stories about brands, unique perspectives, and a wider reach. A positive customer experience is necessary for the success of any business as it is vital for creating brand loyalty and generating revenue. Word-of-mouth marketing, triggered by great customer experience delivered by a brand, is considered trustworthy and crucial for success. The loyal customers of a brand who will reflect their interest in a brand through their conversations and life are one of the greatest assets of any business. Due to digitalization, customers now have vast opportunities to learn and explore before they make a purchase. By providing a remarkable customer experience, a brand can retain its customers and continue business with them. To generate brand awareness and brand loyalty, a business can adopt the following measures such as a customer satisfaction survey to understand the customers, the demands of products or features and the customer support tickets. 5. What is your outlook for BFL Group in the retail sector in 2022?

We are focusing on our expansion strategies, and we aim to achieve exponential growth this year. Moreover, we look forward to opening new stores in line with our plans to establish new customer bases in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. As for the UAE, with the resilience of its economy and strong market position, we expect to maintain sustainable growth in our sales in 2022. Our core ethos of offering a wide range of branded items at reasonable rates continues to be our key advantage in the market to win customers and their loyalty. As a brand that gives utmost importance to customer engagement, we will continue to offer top-quality services in our outlets and e-commerce platform. In 2022, we also look forward to further strengthening the additional revenue stream generated by our e-commerce platform, as many consumers have switched to online purchases.