Are we understanding our customer ?????

The down turn has given people lot of learning although why we learn only during downturns that is a different question to ask . Anyways let us remain to the point and try to extract some learning from current melt down specific to retail industry . we used to read articles and teach people the only one aspect which is more important is the location lot of people talk about it is the location which is very imprtant . Location is definetely important but i think we need to add few point to this that is location should be YOUR CUSTOMER CENTRIC LOCATION . That is a retailer should know whether the location gives them the profile of the customer which linked with their target audience . The product mix should be in aligned with what customer look on . lot of retailers in the so called boom time have opened a store in the location which is cost effective but the catchment is completely on the other side. In one of the post i have talked about the interlock , which really seems very relevant today . i would like to propose a new term
which can be pertinent to the situation existing today . "Customer Driven & Profitable Location ".
there are few organisation which has closed their specific retail stores stating only one point the location which was wrong. My only hitch is why we understand this only in the time where market are forcing us to know . I want to end the post stating that we should learn from our mistake. The interlock between the catchment and product is most important aspect which retailers need to understand .Bye for now


Ankush