Last week we had a couple of field visits which made us do the practical implications of our theories. Firstly we went to Stuttgart to BREUNINGER which is one of the biggest shopping malls consisting of all the big brands from Burberry to Gucci. The mall is designed in a very organized manner- different section for bags, watches, clothing and the merchandise has great depth. There we were asked to do a group activity and study the target market and best selling products of two brands (luxury brand and the other chosen was young fashion). The mall has both luxury brands as well as economy ones-everything is provided under one roof catering to all segments of the market. After the activity got over we had time to go for our own personal shopping which made my day. After our shopping spree, the teacher in charge took us to this India restaurant ‘PUNJAB GARDEN’ where we had Indian food which was decent though nothing compared to Delhi food. The next day we all went to METZINGEN which has Hugo Boss Factory where all the exquisite pieces are made consisting of all the latest machinery and great care is taken of every merchandise. Their technology and product line was far efficient as compared with Indian production. Even the pattern was computerised and they had two different 2inch n 5 inch cutting machineries. At every stage of production the merchandise was iron although normally the merchandise is ironed after the final production. The tailor even had hand done hemming to make sure that the customer pays extra in return. It is the most expensive brand in hugo boss. They had different machinery to even press the sleeve shoulders. Metzingen has factory outlets of all the brands be it Burberry, Esprit, S.Oliver, D&G, etc. there is a huge variation in prices and one can shop at discounted prices. I had lot of fun and enjoyed thoroughly.

Global trade partners in Germany has been my favourite class. I have learned a lot about brands , consumer , trends , problems in Germany. Its not difficult to sell in Germany difficult is to build a brand image. They are facing a young fashion problem because majority of the population is dependent. Another problem is they don’t have production in Germany, only the sample designing is done here. The target group here from the company’s prospective are –

1. Age

2. Look of fashion

3. Size.

Companies are targeting one of the above group.

Age group target brand are street one, S. Oliver girl , Madonna (25-35) etc

Comma , Marc Aurel , more and more (35-50) etc

Size group target brands are Betty Barclay, Cecil etc

Look for fashion is brands which have short fashion and they are the one who initiate new fashion and within 4 months the rest of the brands copy the fashion.

Germans are very brand conscious. 61% of them are individualistic, 35% of them follow group fashion (peer pleasure) and only 4% of them don’t care what they wear. Brand name and brand image are very important here and so is who owns the company.

It is said that if you need to be successful in a company first thing is dressing sense. To proof your style people spend huge on shoes and watches here.

Germany has 6 sizes in merchandise

Normal size

Tall size

Short size

Normal belly

Short belly with short legs

Normal with short belly

So every company follows their own sizes. They don’t have any as such standard german size. They follow one of the above size. Germans are the biggest fashion consumer.

Germany has three distribution chanel. Retails , departmental store and internet /vertical shops.

Some of the vertical companies are new yorker , zara , mango , zero , c&a . System companies are street one , cecil , s.oliver , spirit etc.

They have a pyramid of brands

Alpha – those brands which are dominant in their own sector. Example male fashion – hugo boss

Beta – brands which go down.

Gama – brands which are in crisis.

Companies have huge amount of advertisement budget . germans come across 3000 advertisement in a day.

In the later half of the class we had german class. Where mrs copper taught us some basic greeting manner in german , how to communicate while shopping . it was really sweet of her to get us a menu card and help us translate it in English.

The next week was really interesting as I had lot of fun and learnt lot of new things about the European Market. I was quite surprised when I came to know that Germany is facing young fashion problems majorly because of population as people fall in the age group of 35-65. People here spend money mainly on accommodation, food and international travel. Learning all these new things about a completely different country was a really good learning experience. The brands here do not have problems selling clothes but they face major issues while selling their brand image. We all went to Madonna which is a very famous brand for the youth and sells affordable fashion- we all did order training there (we made teams and calculated square per feet, were given a budget to buy the merchandise and in the end we displayed the collection for October which had less of colours and more of basic wear as preferred by Germans). They appreciated us and guided us how do we have to go about buying the merchandise in Germany keeping in mind the target market. I even studied basic German here which was a nice experience though it is difficult. Next we had a class with Mr. Reddy who taught us more about the German culture and what the problems are faced by Germans- sense of social apathy, social envy, and German victimisation, thrifty; do not trust easily, collapse of the family model. Later in the day LDT had a barbeque organised for us which was a delightful experience and we even participated by helping them in cutting vegetables, setting the table, etc.

Other than ECE , we went to ikea... its a huge store... and i think the sucess story behind the mall is the bulk purchase / production. Things are cheap and full of variety. it is very well structure.. the store management and deptarment very well planned. i personally dont like the idea of forcing the customer to check out all the three floors especially if she/he is coming for somthing small and specific. the mall only had one exit and one billing area. the customer does not hv freedom to quit the mall anytime. they are force to see the complete mall because of one exit.
although the store is huge and have great product line and depth but they need to value ones time also. its very cumbersome to walk all the three floor for 2 or three things.

yesterday we went to mercedes benz mesuem . it was 8 story buliding with a entery fee of 4 euro.. i think they can increase the fee to 5 euro.. because its very beautiful and undercharge for their services.. the history of the company and the sucess was delivered to us by a audio tape.. while walking we can hear about the cars and company as in when we cross the cars.
this kind of experience can be charged a little high.

14 june
we had a class - negotiations with europeans. it was a very basic class .. where we started with a group excerise pointing to the level of expectations from germany and the fullfillment of it.
we were taught about emotions , gestures , body language and different country culture...
in all it was great learning and now i can say i know a little about the germans.

it was a great experience visitng a mall in germany.. we went to meet ECE central manager who elebrated on how the company started and is now among the top 5 company in construction. the sucess story was long.. but what i loved the most in the presentation was the way the carry on research. they get questionnaire fill in the mall and outside to understand the customer footfall travel area and time of travelling. they had a map where they use to request the customers to pin the area where they are coming from. the mall is among the top 5 mall so they have 139 showrooms and around a footfall of 20,000 - 40,000 people per day. out of the footfall around 90% people shop. the reason for such a high customer base is -

• the mall have all the national and international brands
• its catering to the age group of 16-45
• its on the high way... so who so ever come they buy somthing for sure
• it has a parking space of around 4500 carsthey have easy access to the mall by bus and metro stationthey

we also saw some of the technical areas on the mall... they have 30 ac and a 12300 hourse power generator. every part of the mall is so well structured that nothing can go wrong .. they have emergency drill on every new store opening .. they change all the tube lights together so that there is no color difference in the light. every small and big details are studied properly. this mall has be rebuild again within 2000-20002 and the shops were operational. and for this company deadlines are important if they say the mall will open on 5 august it will.for there marketing they have events for children , cultural events and a monthly news paper. this news paper has a distribution to the near by zone. i loved the concept of news paper and map pin board the most.germans abide rules like anything.. one can never loose anything ever.. if u left your wallet in some room ... even after a week .. you can find your wallet at the same place...i am loving the exposure here. they are so systematic and so effecitient at their work... they love their work and are very loyal.. i have obsereved that people are bit reserved may be because we are staying in a village but they are very patient and helpful. we are facing a lot of travel and langauge problem.. so we need to take route guides from localites... because of communication problem it even takes 15 - 20 mins to understand what they are saying... but they make sure they solve our problems... i dont know why people dont speak english.. i guess it should be compulsory in every school