Russian Experience

We have been in Russia (St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Moscow) from the 13rd to the 20th of october. We took advantage of this travel to explore the customer's behavior in this country. We discovered relevant informations and we will share it with you. 

In the street there are sandwich men to attract customers and they distribute promotions and special offers that can make the customers come in the store (as we can see in the pictures). However, when we walk in the street, we bump into to much sandwich men and is it may annoy potential customers because every 100 meters they propose to take a paper.

Inside the shops or mall they are relaxing musics, a lot of colors and sometimes good smell. According to us, Russian malls are very different because people do not go there only to spend money but to spend time and have a good moment. For instance, in one afternoon you can see around ten weddings inside the mall. They take pictures with the smile, as if the mall was a very popular place, like a beautiful park. This happened in the Red Square mall which is located in Moscow.
Furthermore, most of Russian's supermarket are opened every day and every night. This lead people to come there and after that this become an habit. This selling strategy bring new customers and thank to that they can reach new kind of target. In addition, the brand become stronger in the client's subconsciously.

During the camp, we thought about the nature impact in the mall and in Russia, nature is in the hearth of development mall strategy. When you go inside, the first thing you can see are trees and plants. It's in harmonization with the sustainable development. Plus, we saw wood's aisles and we heard people saying that it was really attractive because high-end. However, this strategies depends also on the mall's location and the target to because for example this red square mall is for tourists. Moreover, we have the impression to be in the forest thanks to bridges, rivers etc. For instance, during autumn trees have orange leafs. It's truly in coherence with seasons and it requires a constantly adaptation. 

We were surprised when we saw the mall for different reasons:

-       The architecture of this mall: In effect, this mall was constituted by the top column modules and the décor of column (Hausmann styles). We can saw different entrances and exits very impressive (very tall and big entrance very majestic)

-       The main plan : The mall present with three floors and all the floors was connected by the escalators. The majority shop were famous brands and proposed a high end products likes “Max &Co”, “Gucci” or “Rolex”. This mall answered the different customer’s need. In effect, There was also many restaurants in order to keep as long as possible the people and there to buy (marketing strategy). The complex has a spacious entrance. There is also, a monumental glass roof.

What’s more, the mall was illuminated for the night inside and outside; it’s for this many reasons that always, the mall was full because it attracts many tourists.

We have a similar mall in France with many common points: The passage Pomeraye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_Pommeraye

We found something interesting, all the restaurants are in the last upstair deck. So, if you want to eat, you need to pass by all the shops and you can be attract by one and come back to do some shopping later.

In the street they are a lot of luminous signs, and even too commercial area so that we are a little lost.

One thing we can blame them is that they also do not speak English and make no effort to understand anything and yet we were in St Petersburg or Moscow so we imagine in non-tourist areas.

Picture in front of St. Petersburg mall. 

Attractive aisles

Center of the mall

Red square mall entrance

Emeline, Thomas and Aymeric.