Pop-up Retail

An emerging retail trend is that of Pop-up Retail or Pop-up stores. These are temporary stores that pop-up at any location, draws in crowds, generate sales and shut down. These could be used by any category of products but is largely used by apparel to create interest in the new lines and showcase the same.

 

It is a great idea and can be used in a variety of ways.

• Showcase a service which is difficult to communicate like how Singapore Airlines did last month.
• Demonstrate usage of a new product like how Nokia did for OVI services or Canon did for their products.
• Open a pop-up store in a new catchment or city where the regular store is expected to open soon to give the shoppers a feel of that store.
• Leverage seasonal events and festivals to reduce shopper overcrowding at the regular outlets.

I saw a great pop-up store initiative by Sri Krishna Sweets which is a chain of sweet shops as also is into restaurants. We all know the crowds that throng stores, especially apparel, sweet and firework stores during Diwali. This initiative must have been to reduce the crowd at the regular outlets as also increase penetrations by getting new customers to purchase the sweets as also get a taste of the dishes at their restaurants. Some interesting innovations, which I think will make this a sure fire hit are as follows –

 

 

• Centrally located at the heart of Chennai in a large wedding hall, ensures ease of access.
• It is positioned as a 48 hour event starting at 8 am on 3rd Nov. When most shops anyways are open till almost mid night during this season, this has upped the ante.
• 10% discount between 11 pm and 5 am ensures some amount of shoppers during the most lean period. Especially with Diwali being on 5th morning. I would not be surprised if customers actually went there on 5th early morning to make purchases.
• Apart from sweets being sold, there are food counters of various cuisines
• Plus, some of the sweets are being made fresh and hot for sales, which might again prompt people to go there on 5th morning.
• A thought to keep children entertained was evident from the clowns, a stilt walker, etc.
• Lastly to bring a festive flavor and also interest the adults there were traditional Tamil Nadu folk dancers and even one of those roadside parrot astrologer.

 

 

Needless to say, it was advertised and there was a sizable crowd by 4 pm on the 4th. Well planned and more importantly well executed. Check out the pictures and videos to get a feel of this pop-up store, which I took after taking the permission of the person in charge who seemed quite happy to have this initiative being noticed with interest.

 

Best wishes to all the readers of "An Indian and A Retailer" for a Very Happy and Propserous Diwali.

Lack of Ownership and Initiative

I have recently been conducting several training programs for store managers. A common theme that I like driving home is the point of ownership. This is a favorite topic of mine since chain stores constantly talk about this, but on a day to day basis, do absolutely nothing at all to ensure that the store staff have ownership.

A case to the point is my experience recently at two stores while doing Diwali shopping.

First is a chain of discount/ value apparel stores. The store was over merchandised with hardly any circulation space. The staff had left cardboard boxes of stock all over the store, including the stairs and one of the two elevators was blocked with these boxes. Bright spot lights with crowds and inadequate air conditioning was a sure fire-recipe for people to faint. Long lines outside the trial room led to shoppers using the wash room as a trial room and there was a line outside that too!!!

To cut a long story short, we were waiting to get billed and leave. The customer ahead of me was caught up in some complex promotion involving discount vouchers and all that. (That’s a different topic about why people have such complicated promotions).

Anyways, here I was standing in the line and sweating. Sweating - because the store had these nice bright spotlights as mentioned before and the air conditioning near the entrance where the cash tills were located was not working. When my turn for billing came, I asked the person who appeared to be in in-charge (who turned out to be the store manager) why something cannot be done to make this experience better. He was lost!

I suggested that he should get a fan at least near the cash till and he gave a half hearted reply. I can bet that if I went there after a few days later, there would be no fan and no change.

Because, the store manager and staff have no ownership! The guys at the head office grill them about sales and reports. But not about ownership! Sad. But true.

Compare this to a store down the road. A stand alone apparel store. The customer crowd was pretty much the same but one did not feel suffocated as the air conditioning worked, there were no boxes of stock lying around waiting to trip someone, staff were helpful, etc.

When I was billing, which was pretty fast given the crowd, my family members were not crowding around me increasing the tensions. They were enthralled by a magic show. Yes, a magic show being conducted near the billing counter.

I don’t know if this is a result of the owners having read my book, “The Indian reTALES” but I was thrilled that someone was directly implementing what I have written about billing and how to handle the same. It was great to experience ownership of the store where customers felt good after having made the purchases instead of feeling like prisoners who have escaped the Tihar Jail.

So, to my moot point - will the lack of ownership of store managers of chain stores be the death knell?

I think so. Wake up guys and change the way Indian Corporate Retail works.

Empower the store staff and make them own the customer experience.

The MRP Scam !!

I have been writing and speaking a lot about the irrelevance of MRP and also how most establishments flout this rule with impunity.

See the scanned picture of the bill which illustrates the point.

Recently we went to a restaurant for dinner and ended up paying Rs. 125/- for a can of Diet Pepsi!

Most restaurants get around the MRP rule by serving the soft drinks in a glass and billing it as soft drink. Whereas in this place they happily brought the can to the table and have blatantly charged Diet Pepsi at almost 4 times the MRP!

Adding insult to injury is the fact that this is printed on a tax invoice. This means that such bills are supposedly inspected by the sales tax officials once in a way. Does that mean that the sales tax department is not aware of the MRP rule or in true bureaucratic style one arm of the government is not bothered about a violation with regard to another!

Why transactions are at the heart of all our living

The Retail Plus team wanted me to write on an interesting theme. All about transactions and how they are at the heart of all our living. The more I thought about the topic, the more fascinating it was. At the end, I was constrained by the word count and could only capture the essence of what I thought.

Transactions start at the moment we neogiate with our parents for something we desire and promise all kinds of goodness and saintly behavior in return. It goes on to the more common and recognizable retail transactions we indulge quite often.

The fact of the matter is that transactions can happen only when both parties have something perceived to be of value by the other. Is it any wonder that Retail in India has taken wings only as recently as two decades ago. After all if someone had to book a scooter and wait for a year or so, how many people will be able to have such transactions.

Please click on the link below to read why transactions are at the heart of everything.

Why transactions are at the heart of all our living

What is weights and measures?

We are a nation of savvy shoppers who bargain hard to get good deals. However, are we smart shoppers? I don't think so.

We do not arm our self with information and knowledge that would help us assert our rights as a consumer and that's why I feel that we are a savvy bunch alright, but not smart shoppers.

Hence the next in the series of smart shoppers is an overview about the law pertaining to weights and measures, as also some inputs on how it helps us become smart shoppers. Click the link below to read on -

What is weights and measures?

Smart Shopper Series

One of the key feedbacks about “The INDIAN reTALEs” was that it was so informative to the shopper/ consumer. The inside workings and what Retail was all about seemed to help people become better shoppers. As mentioned in the book, we are all not equipped/ educated or taught to shop or make purchases. So, inputs that teach us how Retail works also help us become better shoppers and indirectly make Retailers improve as expectations go up.

In that context I have started a series of articles titled as Smart Shopper Series for The Hindu Retail Plus. These articles would help educate people about becoming smarter shoppers.

The first two articles came out over the past few weeks and the links are as follows –

- What is MRP?

- What is FIFO?

I was held up in many things including addressing a Youth Leadership Camp and could not share these links before. Shall share the future links promptly.

Please do forward these links to all your contacts and help them become Smarter Shoppers.

It all comes back to you!

In my life as a Retailer the most common feedback/ complaint has been about bad service.

• The staff are not helpful.
• They don’t know anything
• They are rude.

Etc. Etc.

However no one pauses to thing how rude, insensitive and demoralizing we are as customers. Today, while shopping there was a pregnant lady who insisted on barging in to ask questions when the staff were attending to me. Subsequently, even while billing, she landed up again and bombarded the cashier with questions although the cashier was billing my purchase. Finally the cashier turned and asked her to please wait at which point the lady turned around in a huff and walked away.

Before someone justifies this behavior to the hormonal issues and stress related to pregnancy, let me ask : how often does one behave this way - man or woman?

Very often is the answer.

Is it any wonder that service levels are dropping?

At the end of the day it all comes back to you. Be a boorish, insensitive and rude customer - you get bad service. Watch this funny video which captures the essence of what I say.

Next time you shop, try smiling, wishing the staff, put back things that you dropped from the shelf and you will see a whole new level of customer service unfold before you.

Video courtesy – Neo Naem, Facebook.

Are Chain Stores promoting Cherry Picking?

Increasingly I read about promotions which make no sense. Some even border on the ridiculous. For example, many apparel stores offer promotions like buy 3 and get 5 Free or get 50% off and then 40% off.

Either the merchandiser is completely lost and is drowning in inventory and therefore desperate to liquidate stocks or someone forgot to tell them that promotions are very powerful tools and each type of promotion has a specific purpose. For example a bill value based offer is supposed to increase the overall average bill value and needs some thought and date to fix the optimum slabs. Recently I was reading about a promotion where there was an offer on a particular category’s purchase value coupled with an overall bill value and then additional discount for a specific credit card and so on. Does this make sense?

Absolutely not!

Promotions are tools to drive walk ins and also build loyalty through repeat purchase. One of the cardinal rules for promotion planning is that a single SKU cannot have multiple offers.

The other cardinal rule is the selection of SKU itself, especially for advertisements and other public communication. Today, I saw an advertisement for a leading supermarket chain. The communication highlights refilling the groceries and home needs. In other words it is trying to capture the monthly shopping of the household.

In such a case the core products and KVI is mandatory because that is what the customer will relate to immediately and it will also deliver the message of a better price.

Consider this advertisement, which does not feature Rice, Toor Dal or Sugar - some very important KVIs. Oil is featured but a 5 litre jar whereas the average consumption of oil in Chennai Households is 3 litres. What it does feature is Basmati rice, Slice and 7 Up. It does have a sweeping statement about groceries being available at prices expected by the shopper. Such statements rarely have any impact and I shall detail why in a subsequent post.

To be fair, I have seen other such bright advertisements which ignore core SKUs and highlight offers on SKUs which might not influence the monthly shopping decision.

In this context I wonder what the objective of the merchandising and marketing team is. Do they wish to have people looking to buy only Slice and 7 Up come searching for the offers on such SKUs or do they wish to increase the share of monthly shopping baskets in the catchment?

Something does not seem right.