LIFESTYLE MANGALORE

The lifestyle store in Mangalore aims at providing the complete shopping experience to its customers. The Lifestyle store is located at K.S RAO road hampankatta area of Mangalore. The shop-within-a-shop concept is what Lifestyle has aimed at. People look for everything under one roof in a retail store or mall environment; hence Lifestyle has divided its outlet between different concepts. Being a store at Mangalore is an opportunity for retailers as investment yield is high in this city. Lifestyle stores atmosphere is the combination of the store physical characteristics, such as architecture, layout, signs and displays, colors, lighting, colors, lighting, temperature, sounds fragrance, which together create an image in the customers mind. The store ambience communicates information about the stores pricing, and the fashion ability of its merchandise. Lifestyle store is perceived as a premium store it provides an international shopping experience to its customers with quality services and quality merchandise. The interior of the store gives a chic, elegant and stylish look. One of the interesting feature is that the CSR are also being trained in retailing as Lifestyle International has tied up with colleges to provide grooming to its sales team. Training institutes which offer a three month course in Fashion Retail Management Studies that will be sponsored by Lifestyle. The company plans to induct candidates who have completed the course into their stores with regular salaries for a mandatory two year period.

Concepts at Lifestyle:
Splash, Lifestyle, Baby shop, Shoe mart and home center function as separate stores abroad but in India lifestyle offers the customers all the concepts within one store to make shopping a complete experience The following table shows the concepts and their codes.

CONCEPTS

CONCEPT CODE

BABY SHOP SPLASH HOMECENTER SHOEMART LIFESTYLE

01 03 04 02 07

BREIF INTRODUCTION OF THE CONCEPTS

BABY SHOP code 01 This concept caters to the needs of the growing years. It has apparels, toys, nursery products, school and stationary products and accessories for children. Most of the products for infants and nursery are imported. This concept is the first baby of Lifestyle. It is the favorite concept of children as it offers them the newest and a very large collection of apparels, toys, school stationary. SHOE MART code 02 This concept caters to the footwear needs of men, ladies and children. It provides the customers with all the new styles in footwear. It also offers many foot care products, hosiery, luggage and ladies hand bags. The brands offered here are the most trusted and liked by the customers of Lifestyle. It offers formal, casual, sports and ethnic shoes. It offers a wide range in all the categories. SPLASH code 03 This concept offers apparels and accessories for men and women. It offers the most new styles of the season, carefully selected by the buying team. The brands found here are a big name by themselves and the in house brands offer the best quality and the most stylish and trendy collections. Anything that is seen on the Indian fashion scene internationally can be found here. Formals, casuals, denims, ethnic, accessories and innerwear can be found here. HOME CENTER code 04 This concept caters to all the merchandise required to make a house A home. A varied collection of soft furnishings, glassware, kitchen utensils, furniture, plastics and bath, garden and gift products, is offered. Most of the products here are imported, thus giving different options to customers from what the competitors give. This pulls the customers back to the concept over and again.

LIFESTYLE code 07 This concept offers all the lifestyle defining products. It has fine jewellery, watches, health and beauty products, cosmetics, perfumes and fashion accessories. It has the most vibrant and trendy collection of watches and fashion accessories which are a favorite of all the customers at Lifestyle. All the new launches of the cosmetics brands can be found here. The brands that we find here are nationally and internationally recognized, trusted and appreciated names.

The apparel section which constitutes the major part of the store. More than 31.92% of store area that is14877 Sq.Ft is retail area and 18000 is the total area .This broadly can be divided into 2 ways: Mens wear Womens wear. Basically lifestyle is following different concepts for its different departments and for apparels there is splash and baby shop. THE CONCEPT SPLASH Splash is a multi brand concept for good quality, trendy, fashion clothing at affordable prices for adult and teenage mens and womens wear. Splash caters to both formal and casual wear. Splash, provides garments for all in a family and has found acceptance among customers who expect quality as well as a well-known brand.

Splash is the highest contributor at lifestyle contributing 50-53% to the total store sales. It covers the largest area among all the concepts and has the largest number of staff working in it. There are with 10 changing rooms in the womens department and 10 in the mens. Its divided into:

Ladies Ladies casuals Ladies formal Ladies denim Winter wear Ethnic

Mens: Formal Casual Accessories Knits and sports Denim

Lingerie Accessories

Ethnic Winter wear

Bossini and Kappa are being sold exclusively at lifestyle in the Splash concepts.

In-House labels: It is difficult for retailers to develop a competitive advantage through merchandise because competitors can purchase and sell the same popular national brands. Many retailers realize a sustainable competitive advantage by developing private label brands (in house labels) which are products developed and marketed by a retailer and available only from that retailer .Retail buyers or category managers develop specifications for the merchandise and then contract with the vendor to manufacture it. But the retailer not the manufacturer is responsible for promoting the brand. In-house brands and the segment they cater to: Brands Ginger Code Zync Moire Mlange Forca Vivaz String C& G Category Offers a wide range of fashion apparel for young women clothing to men and women Casual clothing that is trendy Ethnic wear offering Salwar Kurta Duppatas (SKDs) Ethnic wear for women (mix and match) Casual clothing that is trendy Mens ethnic wears Ladies lingerie

Advantage to lifestyle through its IN HOUSE BRANDS Better margins Control over designs Variety in styles.

1. The exclusivity of strong private labels boosts store loyalty. 2. Like manufacturer brands, successful private label brands can draw customers to the store. For e.g. ginger offers fashion merchandise and draws customers to the store. 3. Retailers have more control over manufacturing, quality control, and distribution of the merchandise. A brand is placed according to the layout and the brands demand in the market.

According to the purchasing power the concept segregates customers in the following: 1. Premium: with higher purchasing power and who go in for premium brands like Arrow, Van Heusan. 2. Regular: Customers who purchase moderately priced merchandise e.g. W
3.

Budget: customers who purchase merchandise only if it comes under their budget bracket. For these customers the starting prices of products should be low.

Customer profile: Lifestyle Caters to the premium and elite customers that fall in the higher income group levels. The core customers of lifestyle do not mind spending provided that they get quality and exclusivity of product and service in return.. Pricing: The pricing for lifestyle is premium because of the high quality merchandise and services offered by the store since the operational cost of the store are high premium pricing is essential to maintain the margin. CONCEPT INSIGHTS Concept manager : Merchandise controller : Location : Ground floor Staff Contribution to Lifestyles yearly turnover : Backbone of the concept : o Proper and timely replenishment and variety of merchandise. o Proper arrangement and display of the merchandise. o Impressive display on mannequins