Who is managing the store!

Over the past few weeks or rather months I have been noticing a dangerous trend in the supermarket chains I tend to go to. Barring one as an exception the store manager/ in-charge seems to be missing in action.

Either he or she is nowhere in the store and my guess is that in most instances they have been called for some meeting at the office. Such a meeting would debate at length on why sales are dropping and what can be done to increase the same.

In a few cases the manager emerged from the store back office in response to a request by some cashier to unblock the billing machine. This is a safety or rather security need wherein in certain cases like changing the prices of products, an authorization code is required for the cashier to continue billing.

After unblocking the machine the manager glares at the cashier and customers alike and retreats into his office again, to do God knows what. If I were to be charitable I would presume that he is compiling piles of reports that someone in the office has asked for, which will all finally end up as a bullet point on a presentation.

Why is this dangerous? Simply because others will follow as they are being led.

I have often stated how the staff are the face of the Retailer and they define the interactions which make or break shopper loyalty and hence the viability of the store. If the staff see their store in-charge being more internally focused in terms of primarily pleasing their bosses, having none or very little time for customers, wont they emulate the same?

There is a ritual called store walk which ensures that the store in-charge takes stock of things literally and figuratively. If not done, it is a guarantee that the store will go down the drain in terms of hygiene, display, etc.

Lastly, the staff are on their feet almost through the eight hour shift. Being on the floor with them, guiding them and motivating them is the best form of leadership and is guaranteed to have positive results.

Instead of this routine, which is core to Retailing I hardly see the store in charge interacting with either customers or the staff.

Maybe the change should start with the bosses. They need to leave the conference rooms and be at the store more often. While at the store, have stand up meetings if required.

However, the best bet would be to talk with the staff and customers and they will get millions of ideas to improve sales. More importantly, such ideas will work!

To be launched soon...

March 20th, 2009 is a memorable day as that is when I started the blog “An Indian and A Retailer”. It was actually started suddenly on a whim and before I knew, it had gained a life and momentum of its own. A whole lot of people saw the blog, wrote to me and commented on the posts. Very soon, it was being quoted by Retail and Strategy consultants during their presentations.

I came to know about the widespread popularity of the blog when one such consultant referred to a post during their presentation regarding supply chain. Several members of the audience were my good friends and ex colleagues. Obviously they wasted no time in calling me up and congratulating me.

The blog has been receiving a steady viewership and the walk-in counter is set to cross the 12,000 mark soon. Indicating that on an average 1,000 odd people view my blog every month. 30, persons a day. Not bad for something I started just like that!

My sincere thanks to all those who have steadily viewed and supported the blog.

This support and motivation was voiced to me by several visitors to the blog in the form of a suggestion. Why not write a book. Their contention was that given the depth and detail of Retail information and knowledge available, why not expand on the same and publish a book. It would reach more people and benefit them.

In June 2009, I started acting on this suggestion and worked on putting a book together while contacting publishers. March 2010, this dream effort is ready to see the light of the day. Just ahead of the first anniversary of this blog.

Presenting - “The Indian reTALEs”

The book should be published shortly and for now the cover and an overview can be viewed on @ unicornbooks (dot) com.

Look forward to a similar support to the book. Please do spread the word; Post on your Facebook profiles, Tweet about it, mail your contacts, etc. Please help propagate the news of “The Indian reTALEs”.

Retail = Fast reflexes and foresight

I appreciated this Retailer who has reacted by leveraging the budget. Although they do not lose anything because the stocks would have been invoiced at existing prices, this preemptive strike is very good for the following reasons –

• Customer trust and loyalty: Customers would increasingly trust this Retailer because they demonstrate responsiveness. A key factor in building loyalty.
• An opportunity to increase sales and liquidate stocks: Especially in a format where stock holding value is high and any opportunity to sell is welcome.
• Vendor respect: Such a Retailer would stand tall in the eyes of the vendors who would then increasingly cooperate instead of having conflicts.

All in all, a smart move and well worth emulating.

Now, advertising is not a simple business. One needs to have the artwork ready, media space booked, the material sent in advance and so on. So, how did this Retailer react in less than 24 hours?

Simple. It’s all about Foresight.

Book media space. Give a material. Meanwhile have two artworks ready. One talking about how the prices are reduced from today (If the budget led to price drop) and another about holding the old prices in the case of price increase. The budget speech ended post lunch yesterday. An hour or so to decide and send a new artwork to the publications.

Sounds simple isn’t it? It is. But involves a lot of planning and thinking and hard work. That’s Retail Marketing for you.

A moment of disappointed irritation

The finance minister makes mention of a sector that contributes 8% to the GDP and I expectantly looked at the TV.

Yet again Retail whose size is as big and bigger than some other industries and also contributed approximately 8% to the GDP was left out in the cold.

Starting from simple expectations about offset of service tax to mammoth ones like industry status, the wish list was long. But was ignored.

Sad.

Food Inflation @ 18%. What a joke!!

I received a SMS from my friend Vishy which reads as follows –

“Tur dal rates for one Kg as on 8 pm today (10/2/10) – Nilgiris Rs. 115/-, Spencer’s Rs. 99/-, More Rs. 79.98/-, Fresh – Rs. 88.45, Nadar Kadais – vary between 68 to 85. How can there be so much variation in a KVI like Tur Dal? Do people cross check amongst stores?”

When I spoke to him he was visiting wholesale markets in places like Gulbarga where Tur Dal was being sold for Rs. 38 per kilo. Smaller farmers who sell locally at villages might realize even less at Rs. 32 or so per Kilo. The talk in the wholesale markets was that the prices of Tur Dal had actually come down over the past few weeks. But at the retail end in an urban market, it was soaring!

First is that, this reflects rather poorly on chain stores who are supposed to aggregate volumes and therefore be able to influence the supply chain in order to create value for the consumers. This does not seem to be happening. These chains are at best sourcing from the millers. So, the question is that what or who is driving up the prices? And who is going to bring in changes and advancement of the supply chain if not Retail?

At least Tur Dal can be stored and inventories managed as a buffer to commodity price fluctuations. Now, take the case of a perishable like Tomato. A decade ago the farm gate price used to be Rs. 2 as compared to the Retail price of Rs. 8, while for Potato it used to be Rs.6.5 and Rs. 12. Nowadays, with the retail price being in the range of Rs. 20 odd, do you think there would have been a significant increase in the farm gate prices? Not at all.

Today the price of Hybrid Tomato was Rs. 18 and Potato was Rs. 23 and the sourcing price was only Rs. 3.50 and Rs.9. respectively. Again the point of whether the farmer is benefiting from the increase in prices is there. The Retail price rise is not even proportionately matched by the farm gate price. Today evening, the prices of Tomato and Potato had dropped to Rs. 16 and 11. Does the farmer get such low prices to buffer such huge price variations, by the others?

Why does this happen?

Consumer habit, dependence on the retailers and even some amount of apathy, leads consumers to overlook prices of items purchased from their regular store. Trust drives their habit and the same trust also ensures that they do not check the prices or the bill.

As a consumer, when was the last time you checked the price or the bill of some of these basic items?

P.S. – The Retail prices of tomato and potato have been averaged out across a few stores.

Is it Retailing?

Recently while travelling back to Chennai I was at the airport in Kochi and saw a large number of shops at the domestic terminal. After checking in I decided to explore these shops. What I saw and experienced was an eye opener and on a magnified scale seems to be the problem with most shopping malls.

There were approximately 50 odd shops and most of them were closed. That by itself is OK, given that it was only 7 a.m. But what completely flummoxed me was the sheer repetition and lack of differentiation. I counted 6 odd book shops and the balance were roughly equally divided between Kerala handicrafts, spices, etc. and Kerala Sarees, Apparel, etc.

When I tried finding some differentiation between these similar stores, there were hardly any. Similar or rather the same books, similar packets of banana chips, similar white sarees with designs and so on.

I wonder how these businesses are surviving.

I do not think they differentiate on price because the others would react to any attempts at discounting. Range seems similar. Service might be a differentiation, given that only a few were open so early. Maybe they have devised a staggered timing system where each group of shops opens at different times during the day.

Even then, it seems to be an enormous waste of retail space, inventory and other related investments to create similar shops in a confined environment.

The potential to offer a larger and more diverse range obviously exists. Similarly, I have seen several malls which have focused on getting occupancy instead of ensuring that the right retail mix is ensured for a lasting consumer value proposition.

An airport might still survive with such an approach to retailing with a worse case scenario of reduced income from this area of operation. Whereas a mall which does not ensure an optimum mix will lose out on the long run simply because that is the merchandise mix of a mall and needs as much attention as a Retailer needs to give to their merchandising strategy

Wake up, Wake up, Government of India

In a recent article about supply chain as also in several other forums I have been talking about how the recent price increase of food articles is hitting the consumers without benefiting the farmers and producers. What does it mean?

The long winded supply chain is possibly the key reason behind the price rise.

The constituents of this chain protect their margin without adding any value and in the light of increasing volumes, the wastage also goes up. So, who ends up paying for it? The consumer. While the poor farmer still gets his meager few rupees per kilo as farm gate prices!

Am I talking through the hat? Not really.

Way back in the late 90’s the price of onions shot up to an extent that the central government was reported to have been shaky due to it. During that period the RPG Foodworld stores sold onions at retail prices which were significantly lower. Was it sold at a loss or at lower margins? Not at all.

Smarter sourcing and better supply chain ensured that the chain was able to offer this value to consumers.

This view has been endorsed by the recent India Today, which talks about how fruit and vegetable prices can be managed and moderated by enabling Indian Retail.

Wake up, Wake up policy and legislation makers. It is time to take Indian Retail forward!

Rural Retail and it’s potential

In one of my earlier articles about supply chain in India, I pointed out how Indian Retailers seem to have a love affair with urban shoppers to the extent that I can even dare to call it a fixation. Rural markets while not so densely populated and lacking the purchasing power of urban ones, compensate through sheer numbers.

My view is that there is a huge 360 degrees opportunity in the rural areas which includes sourcing as well as selling. It is estimated that 2/3rds of the 14 Million Retail outlets are in the semi urban and rural areas. Need I say more about potential?

There is most definitely an unrealised sales potential of the rural and semi-urban markets. Recently an article in “The Hindu Business Line” strongly validated my views and shows the sheer potential of these markets if anyone is ready to venture into them.

The very interestingly written article details a village market and the links to the article and a photo feature of the same is as under.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/01/19/stories/2010011951410800.htm"target="blank"

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-life/article1015100.ece

Lastly, if one were to forget these stalls as being independent and separate but look at it as a seamless part of a whole, what do you have?

Voila, a rural hypermarket!

Anyone interested in this opportunity?