Focused retailing, Santa Claus, and the Gingerbread people
Opportunity: Focus and dominate your niche
One of my first observations upon first arriving in Central and Eastern Europe in 1994 was how the offerings of the retail stores were so unfocused. With the release of the free market, everyone just put product out on tables and hoped it sold regardless if they came even close to fitting a niche.
This has improved considerably but…there are still many remnants of this anything and everything retail style. I went this weekend to the Luxury Show at RomExpo in Bucharest (I’ll do another post shortly) but had to wait two hours as there was no indication on the announcements that the exposition actually opened 2 hours later. Luckily there was a souvenir exposition in one of the nearby halls where I could kill time.
Although I suppose the expo was supposed to be a Christmas theme, many vendors took the liberty to sell whatever they had. At one stall, perched on a shelf near the display of Christmas tree decorations was a row of shampoo for sale. Need some festive decorations, hairspray and an air purifier … there was a different stall for you.
Fortunately I did find one focused merchant who specialized in ornaments and decorations from Scandinavia. He had a great supply of completely unique items. Since he was focused, he could dedicate the shelf space to all types of items but…within the family of Scandinavian Christmas decorations. I bought a small Santa and some Gingerbread folks and chatted with the owner, Mr. Daniel Ilie about his bustling store.
A few days later, I was browsing through the “Time Out- Bucuresti†magazine – in their December “gift idea†edition…. There I saw my very same Santa Claus pictured as a gift idea. It seems others may be ready for some niche items.
Written by Steve
December 18th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Wow! Congrats! You managed to find something nice! I myself tried to find some unique decorations to offer them as gifts to my parents, but couldn’t find any so far. I decided not to go this year to the souvenir exposition, as from the last years’ experience, there were only kitsch stuff, that the sellers called ornaments… sad …
December 19th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Occasionally one can find tasteful ornaments - but retailers rarely do a good job of selecting these and presenting them. I managed to find in Unirii some rather nice wreaths made out of bits of wood, pinecones, berries and other natural material. However, these were hidden under wreaths made out of plastic flowers and other similar monsters.
December 20th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Romanian vendors don’t really understand the value of focusing. I think this is the major problem that should be solved.