Swiping credit cards to swipe through the fashion trends? Not anymore!

“Top 5 finds at Zudio”

“Sweaters and Sweatshirts that don’t burn your pockets!”

Well, this is how Zudio is being promoted over the 6 inches screen of every alternate social media user.

Trent’s Zudio, a subsidiary of Tata Group is a core retail chain that focuses on bringing to the fore irresistible fashion at unmatched prices. But how does Zudio do so?

Tata entered the rat race of retail businesses of casual wear and clothing with the launch of Zudio via its subsidiary- Trent, best known for its Westside apparel stores in India.

Zudio became popular at the initial start of its operations all because of the primary reason- affordable trendy clothing. The pricing of the brand stays true to its core goal. The promotions of the brand are not the ones revolving around hype but, around the value, it is offering. Let’s dig deeper into the same and crack the clues Zudio has dropped all through its operating hours!

Decoding The Psychology Of Price and People- Superpower of Zudio

The brand never worked upon strategies that may have led them to burn bags of bucks but, believed in the business of belief. The brand inbuilt trust via varied correlated factors it has:

TATA- Tata as a brand is one of the prestigious and most trusted brand in the nation holding its legacy in the hearts and minds of the public. A significant trust that it has infused with its new launch one is the reason people are ready to go, pick a bag, and shop.

Lower Pricing- The average price of a good tee-shirt in a market is around Rs 250-300 but, with Zudio the price point dips down to Rs 149 for a basic tee-shirt. This gap generated by the brand is a prime reason for its prime share in the market today. The brand focuses on selling the products at a price that rarely crosses the mark of 999. Something seen very rarely today, No?

A focus on penetrative, competitive and psychological pricing is what can define the pricing strategy of the brand in a glimpse. How?

Well, to define the mentioned terms and help you decode them better, think of how Reliance Jio came into the Indian segment. Do you recall the free unlimited data distributed to the users? Well, this is penetrative pricing. This pricing revolves around gaining customers’ attention during its initial start via freebies/ low prices or any other benefits. The goal is to aggressively get customers in the door with low prices and gain market share. As done by Jio, The initial strategy adopted was distributing free mobile data and recharge to its users. But once the user base shifted towards Jio a rise in price was observed once the users were made habitual of longer screen times and higher internet speeds.

To talk of competitive pricing, as the name suggests- this type of pricing has one fundamental rule. The rule is to focus on attracting the competition’s audience and strategically selecting price points for your goods or services based on competitor pricing in your market or niche, rather than basing prices solely on business costs or target profit margins. Competitive pricing is an important element to sustain in the market.

Do you also get enticed by the number 9 mentioned in the MRPs of products? Do you read the 599 marked product as a product worth Rs 500 in a glimpse?

Well, this is the oldest gimmick played upon users when it comes to pricing. This is an example of how marketers use psychological pricing to sell stock. It revolves around the strategy that uses pricing to influence a customer's spending or shopping habits to make more or higher value sales. The goal is to meet a customer's psychological need for something, whether that's saving money, investing in the highest quality item, or getting a “good deal.”

Zudio as a brand used a mix of the three pricing strategies to cleverly attract customers. It started with lower prices that were competitive enough to win the competition.

Less distance, more reach. The brands’ focus on Place and Product –

The retail chain’s child- Zudio focuses upon a sale price of Rs.499 or less is the highlight of the website that directs you to the nearby stores to claim the offer. A purely offline model of selling is what is observed for the brand. The stores being present in cities that lay in Tier-2 and Tier-1 shows how the brand aims to strategically target the lower income group buyers that look up to matching the trends without matching their expensive price tags. The brand has proven itself as a solution for their needs by selling the trendiest tee-shirts to affordable shoes. It holds categories for all genders and age groups, considering a basic choice of clothes. Ranges of the products include everything from cosmetics, skincare to clothing and footwear. Zudio is basically a one-stop shop for all your trendy needs at an affordable price.

“A 6 inch screen decides the way you look today” is what could define the urgency of digital promotions. And here is how Zudio tackles its aspect of Promotion-

The brand is not the one present widely over the owned media channels such as social media channels. The brand is seen on Instagram @myzudio with a following of 13K with posts fewer than 20. A brand that is not active on social media is not a brand being social. Well, until you are a brand with its own already present fanbase and user base.

The social media presence that a brand possesses is only via the reels of the people visiting them. Well, this is the maximum presence of Zudio I have felt on the digital medium. A very popular hashtag present over the internet and their official website www.zudio.com features their customers and their #zudio looks. The brand feels missing on its digital quotient and seems to be visible under the flash of flashy reels by some of the store visitors.

Apart from the Social platforms, a huge lack in terms of advertised promotions is observed by the brand. Hence, bringing us back to the brand’s strategy of lesser promotions but more products. The belief in growing their product is what attracts people too. While researching the brand, another missing block in the puzzle of promotions revolved around their website.

The website shows a glimpse of what a consumer could expect from their offline stores for example- A tee-shirt for 199 and sweatshirts for 699 but, the sense of authenticity seems to be missing. The tab with images of the consumers using #zudio to highlight the brand’s product seems to be just a disorganized screen of stickers. The aesthetics and attractiveness seem to be missing in order to make the visitors scroll down the looks.

But, the store locators available for the 311 stores across the country are what the best toss in the website is. A listed down address book of the stores makes it easier for consumers to take their shopping bags and run for the deals in town! But, the one liner information about the brand under the “Who We Are” section of the ZWorld tab somewhere ruins the magic. The section featuring the campaign is a plus one for the website but, the missing details about those campaigns is a minus two.

Tackling the way ahead to trend among trendy clothes! – What more to opt for?

The highly dipping digital presence in contrast to the rising popularity is what might hit the brand at its point of saturation someday because building an affordable brand is not a difficult task but to survive in the competitive business is. Agreeing to the fact of target audience and correlated prices, I wonder if the sales being observed by the competitors might attract the lower segment to shop premium brands at a lower price too. Therefore, a risk of losing the lust and charm of the popularity being served by the public today is high in the case of Zudio.

To win over the risk the brand should follow the strategy of the CONNECT- INTERACT- ENGAGE.

Well, what is that?

Connect- The brands are built on relationships today. An observation and connection are the need of the hour via any mediums- advertisements or cause. The people today do not look only for the better prices but better brands. Today the brands are judged on different parameters. These consumer driven parameters have one very important aspect- Connect. A brand that is able to understand the way consumers want the brand to behave is what benefits the brand in a longer run. An observation of trends is what is observed via digital mediums today. The needs of the consumers are visible over the platforms and should be judged from there on.

Interact- Once you are able to decode the consumer’s needs and thoughts. You need to work upon knowing their expectations from you. This happens once you communicate with the ultimate audience of the brand. Gaining insights of their thoughts is what can help you remodify your current mode of working to the one that could redirect your business to the ways of Swiping credit cards of customers.

Engage- Talking of how the dish tastes is not enough until you let someone taste it. Well, this is the similar story of this strategy. Until and unless the brands don’t engage with the consumers enough and build their future based on their consumer’s feedback, no expectations of sustainable long-term growth must be posed.

Therefore, to grow the Indian market- a market driven by relationships and reasons. The brands must focus on letting their brand wagon be driven by the thoughts of the consumers because consumers are the king. Zudio successfully placed itself amongst the cupboards and shelves of its consumers but failed to grab the newer consumers because it could not reach their daily schedule of scrolling Instagram feeds. The highly growing brand that observed a growth in the past years of operation and gained popularity recently might see a fall if it relies only on its regular strategy rather than redefining the same.

The brand has aesthetic stores but, not the products. The products as far as I observed during my very few visits seemed to be more on a casual end with no new patterns on my next visit rather the same old tee-shirts. This observation led me to shop online over other stores than visiting the store of Zudio because my expectations fell. Have you visited the store and observed products to be the affordable but repeated items or am I the only one living in a different trendy world? Let me know your thoughts!