Definition: Mass merchandiser is a particular retailer or specific retail store, which is known to sell a large number of goods belonging to different categories by adopting measures such as customer self-service, deep discounts, wide display and attractive packaging.
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Who is a Mass Merchandiser?
The term mass merchandiser usually refers to those people who have a huge retail store where they sell a wide variety of products. These products belong to various categories keeping in mind the wide array of demographics which includes people of all type.
Now the products that can be found in a retail store generally contain all of those things which any of the people may need. These mass merchandisers sell products for all segments of the demographics depending on the basis of which segment they belong to.
These segments are mainly formulated on the basis of age, gender, income, etc. people of different segments have different sorts of demands. A mass merchandiser thus sells a wide variety of products so that the demands of people belonging to the different segments can be fulfilled.
Among the number of categories that they sell some of the examples of such products are appliances, electronics, accessories, apparels for both male and female, stationery items, office pieces of equipment, home décor, furniture, and the list goes on.
All of these goods are sold in large quantities considering a large number of customer that often are attracted towards such retail stores that offer everything under one roof. So it is basically a one-stop destination for all type of customers belonging to various segments of the demographics and demanding product of different categories.
So in general one can say that these mass merchandisers that those retailers or those retail stores which are known for providing a one-stop shop for all kinds of products belonging to various categories. These may include things from groceries to electronics items.
Among the large verity of products they keep, they also make sure that the prices of these products are such that it attracts not just one but all segments of people. Most of the products that are sold in such retail stores, their prices are affordable by an average middle-class family person.
The main objective behind the retailer to choose the mass merchandising is to be able to obtain higher volumes at cheap prices.
How do the mass merchandisers work?
Since a variety of products are sold, such shops are really big. Thus they offer big trolley to the customers so that they can carry them everywhere in the store and collect all the items that they want to buy and then finally pay the bill at the billing counters. Most of these mass merchandisers promote the self-service facility.
So the customers roam around throughout the store with their trolleys, select all the products they want to buy a reach the billing counters. Now to meet the demand for heavy transactions, such stores use the facility of the bioptic scanners.
This device helps the people sitting at the billing counter to scan the products and determine their weight and price value. At the billing counter, all the products that they have selected are scanned properly and then a bill is generated, after paying which the customers can go home with all of their products bought.
There are many smart strategies that are used by this mass merchandiser to help increase their profitability by selling maximum products on a daily basis. One of the smart strategies of these mass merchandisers to increase their sales is that they offer discount mainly on those products which they are selling in bulk.
Now when the customers come to buy these products, they seeing the discount that is offered on a product when it is bought in bulk, encourages the customers to buy the products they need in bulk qualities even though they were only in need on one.
This way this mass merchandiser is able to generate a lot of profit on a daily basis. This is a very well known fact that in cases of mass merchandisers, the customers buy quantities in bulk because these come with a good discounted price.
One another strategy they use on customers is to encourage them in buying one or two extra items by telling them that these had heavy discounts. Many of the customers fall into this trap and end up buying such products in bulk even when they didn’t actually need that.
These are some of the smart approaches that these people at such retail stores use to increase the sales of their products. Another great strategy is the cross-selling method. This way the sales agents at the big retail stores are able to generate more revenue and hence increase their profitability.
The present scenario of mass merchandisers
Now the mass merchandisers usually target the bigger cities and towns first. These are the places where maximum potential customers can be found. In bigger cities, most of the people are working professional.
So they get very little time to roam around the entire market and buy different categories of products from different shops. Thus the only option that is left to them is to head over to these mass merchandisers. These are the retails stores that offer them all the different categories of products that they need less than one roof.
Thus many of the examples of mass merchandisers can be seen in cities and more developed towns. Although these mass merchandisers have started to expand their business and have started to reach smaller cities as well.
But even though they have started reaching the smaller cities, they aren’t able to expand their branches in such places due to lesser number of potential customers.
Examples of mass merchandisers
Now the example of the mass merchandisers can be seen in mostly the cities and other more developed towns. Although they have now started to expand their business to some new places as well.
Some of the best and well-known example of the mass merchandisers can be both Wal-Mart and Bigbazar. Reliance trends are yet another well-known example of the mass merchandisers.
These stores over time have managed to expand their business a lot. They establish not just one but many branches in one particular city and sell almost everything from groceries to electronics, from home appliances to furniture, from apparels to footwear’s, from office equipment to stationery items. You name it and they have got it. They even sell things like vegetable, fruits a bakery product.
Undoubtedly these are one-stop destination for all kinds of customers who have a different need. Along with selling a wide variety of products, they also make sure to use certain strategies and hacks to help improve their sales. They offer a massive discount when products are bought in bulk. This encourages the consumers to up quantities in bulk even if they didn’t need that in the first place.
There other many strategies, which, most of the customers are unaware of and eventually fall for.
Advantages of mass merchandising
There are a number of benefits that come with the mass merchandising. Some of these are listed below-
- When a customer visits one of those retail stores, they get to choose between various products that are being offered there that too by them. They take enough time to decide what they want and can compare two similar products of different companies right there.
- It is also beneficial for those mass merchandisers as the high inventory turnovers that they obtain can then be used in generating higher revenues.
- With the help of mass merchandising at large scale, the customers are able to achieve the cost efficiency. Since the products that are sold they have come with a higher discount when bought in bulk, the customers are easily able to afford them.
Disadvantages of mass merchandising
Although mass merchandising has a lot of advantages, it still comes with its own set of disadvantages that should not be ignored. These disadvantages are as follows-
- The first disadvantage is for retailers who are planning to get into mass merchandising. This is because since the mass merchandising is done at a large scale, the initial cost of setting up the whole business would require a lot of investments. So it becomes a huge risk for those people to invest such a large amount of money.
- Also since the mass merchandising works at a large scale, a large base of management is required. And then the bigger challenge is to keep this management in control. One needs to have a separate department which would handle all of this controlling of the management.
Those who provide a one-stop destination to their customers hence making their life easier. With almost all the products being available under one roof, it becomes really easy for people to shop.
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