Sales hit as salespersons only sell for commission

Bangalore: The latest survey by Grass Roots Group reveals that technology and consumer electronic majors in India may be losing up to 84 lakh per store annually due to wrong business practices. Salespersons are only selling smart-sell brands which give them better commission, according to Rediff.com.

The survey titled 'Are You Being Sold?' focused on 14 multinational brands in IT hardware and software, as well as consumer electronic space across countries, including India, China, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia and Australia. The performance of sales staff was judged on the basis of the complete shopping experience, including a salesperson's response time, product knowledge and attempts to close a sale.

Even though Indian sales staff excelled in product knowledge and technical know-how, the study reveals that only 43 percent salespeople in India made an attempt to close the deal and a majority of the shoppers were not even asked if they wished to purchase the product.

India is among the poorest performers in the Asia Pacific, where Grass Roots conducted the study, when it comes to preferred brand suggestions given by salespeople, which is not good news for an industry where around 30 percent of the sales are made due to resale recommendation.

"The competition for the share of the consumer's wallet is fierce. Brands should not simply use reseller rebates or marketing fund contributions to generate top-of-mind activity by salespeople," says Stephen Hibberd, Regional Director (Asia), Grass Roots Group. He further adds that having spent hundreds of millions of dollars on R&D, manufacturing, distributing and advertising a product, no brand can afford to let the customer walk out of a store without buying the product merely due to a poor retail environment.