Business | Retail

More companies today are opting for buyers over designers

Over the last two weeks my eyes have become bloodshot from poring over various online catalogues I have been placing stock orders for my own business

  • By Devayani Dayal, Special to Gulf News
  • Published: 00:00 May 31, 2011
  • Gulf News

Dubai: Over the last two weeks my eyes have become bloodshot from poring over various online catalogues I have been placing stock orders for my own business. Given that this is my first order, I feel I had to be extra diligent in dotting my ‘i's and crossing my ‘t's.

This grandiose exercise has brought to light how products come from an increasingly "glo-cal" trade economy.

Multi-brand retailers such as Harvey Nichols, Boutique1, Areej and Emax have similar business models where they bring in many brands of related products and sell them under one roof.

I can walk into the retail environment of Harvey Nichols and buy the ‘Baguette' Fendi bag, which has been brought from the Fendi fashion house of the LVMH Group.

And if I do some research, I can also find out that my bag was designed by Silvia Venturini Fendi in 1997. The system is quite transparent.

When considering single-brand retail stores, however, most consumers have a Utopian view that the company employs a lanky temperamental fellow who sips fat-free soya frappes as he designs products in his granite studio using only a 3B pencil.

Unfortunately this scenario may be limited to extremely high-end brands. The reality is that less and less companies have ‘Designers' today; instead more are opting to have ‘Buyers.'

New formula

The imaginary designer is now likely to be chubby and who drinks strong tea with condensed milk and purchases product collections from a Chinese manufacturer who he discovered during the Canton Fair.

The new formula for single-brand stores to obtain products is through the "consumer-lead model". This is where manufacturers do what they are best at and simply mass produce goods.

The retailer also does what he is most comfortable with, which is to sell through various marketing campaigns.

The buyer chooses products that he believes fit the brands' image and are likely to sell. After exhausting negotiations and customisation requirements are agreed upon, the manufacturer slaps the company logo onto the products and ships them to the respective countries.

If I bought a lamp that was exclusively available from THE One in porcelain finish, chances are that Kare Design would sell the same lamp in bamboo finish exclusively in their German stores.

Buying decision

So, how does this impact marketing? Call me old-fashioned, but I always believed that branding and marketing involved communicating details about a company's product to the consumer.

However, priorities within companies are changing. Once upon a time, a brand's image rested on the shoulders of product design, functionality, dur-ability and to a degree the shopping experience.

Now as more companies adopt this model, managements have begun to focus heavily on buying decisions and manufacturing negotiations. Can we buy loose cargo or is a full container load mandatory?

Can we modify 25 designs if we buy 100?

As transparency with regard to design, quality and durability becomes iridescent opacity, the natural trend for marketers is to build a brand's image on the expected shopping experience. Marketers think: ‘I cannot vouch for the product, so let's talk about what I can vouch for — the shop.'

Thus the retail store develops a wonderful ‘umbrella brand' where products may come and go, but the retailers' brand remains strong.

- The writer is a Dubai-based entrepreneur

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