Inflation and Consumer Buying Habits

A few weeks back I was reading a very interesting book on consumer buying behavior Treasure Hunt By Michael Silverstein. In the book the author has brought out many examples and explanations on how middle-class consumers around the world are reshaping the consumer-goods market by trading down to low-price products and services , trading up to premium ones, and avoiding the boredom and low value that increasingly characterizes the middle.

Now in the Sunday ET,there was a very interesting new item on how the sales at the value retailer have been going up in the last few months. The tittle of the article itself is 'While retailers feel the inflation heat, value stores make merry'. The article writes about the strategy adopted by Big Bazaar to attract more customers by Wednesday Bazaar concept — hafte ka sabse sasta din has been a hit among consumers. And the every day low pricing strategy adopted by Subhishka. Link to the article.

It basically goes on to show how the Indian consumer is trading down in a inflation hit market....Though the actual success of these value stores would be when these retailers are able to bring in very good quality private labels against the established brands, but that will take time, till then the consumer has to be satisfied with the discounts that they are able to get...