Retail at the Airport

When a visitor at an airport wishes to shop, what would he/she look for? I guess the retailers at the Bangalore International Airport never thought about that when they were setting up their stores. I find a lot of the merchandise that has been put on display at these stores are surely not the kind that an airport shopper would pick-up. Let us see why...

An airport shoppers is one who wants to pick up something that he/she:
1) Is going to utilizing over the course of the journey
2) Is going to present to someone as a gift
3) Is going to carry as a souvenir that is extraordinary or typical of the place which can be taken back. At least that is what I look to shop in an Airport.

Let us see what BIAL has done. The Raheja group came and booked a large space and BIAL found it convenient and gave it away for Crosswords and Shoppers Stop to be opened. A book shop is good, it works especially in the context of an airport. But a large part of the merchandise featured in the Crossword store in BIAL are coffee table books. Lets say, coffee table books are bulky, expensive, not easy to carry and most important of all a lot of weight added to the hand luggage. It does not make a for a good in-flight read, unless the person is travelling by business class (not to mention the ratio of allocation of seat for business versus economy in a plane and the profile of people booking those seats). So just because coffee table books fetch a higher margin, they place the books there and generate very little revenue from the same.

I don't understand the rationale behind having a Shopper's Stop in the airport. The merchandise on offer is not exclusive or recognized. The brand is not know outside of the country and is available everywhere in this country, why would anybody hit that shop, unless they really need to.

The stores that make up an Airport retail area should have some degree of exclusivity. They should be the sort of things that you do not find very easily around the city. Most airports across the world sell their retail space to luxury brands, since their product mix is very exclusive and the kinds that would make everyone stop and take notice, besides its easier to get them to shell out a few more bucks for the space that they take up. They also allocate space to the not so luxury but, internationally well known brands, which can again draw a crowd on the basis of their brand power. Apart from them, space needs to be allocated to things that are unique to the city. Having this part of the offering covered is very important as far as pushing the city to the world is concerned.

The airport is the first and the last brush that one has with a city. It is important that all of the aspects of the airport are taken care of really well. Poor presentation on any front will most certainly hurt the image that one builds of the city in their minds.