My Fascination with Innovative Mobile Delivery Options

Mobile Retail Delivery is as old as Retail itself and hence my fascination with that delivery model with regard to all the innovation that can be tried out out in this space to leverage the same. India already boasts of 12 or 14 million retail outlets depending on which consultant’s report you are referring to. Also, what is not clear is whether this number includes the hawkers AKA mobile retail. Anyways, lets forget this Akbar-and-Birbal method of trying to measure Indian Retail.

Mobile Retail or mobile vending has been there in various forms from ancient times be it the street hawkers, the boat peddlers of Dal Lake, Floating market of Bangkok or more recently the floating supermarket in Kerala. However, one peculiarity barring the floating supermarket is the self limitation that these entrepreneurs impose on themselves as also the fact that the evolving Indian Retail Market seems to completely ignore it’s enormous potential.

Since 2009 I have been lamenting the fact that that this segment represents an enormous potential and had written a detailed article in The Hindu Business Line.

Article about Innovative mobile delivery models

A cartoon in The Hindu

 Ironically, The Hindu published this cartoon a few months later which epitomizes my construct. Till now this was a thought, a concept, something in the air. Today I saw this is in action and want to share this with my readers.

This picture is that of a normal neighbourhood iron man who does laundry and pressing.

Now watch an innovative mobile retailer has done.

- Put a shed and used it to advertise other services

He has done this a few months ago since he and his friends got this idea. He parks the cart in a safe spot during the night and operates from here during the day. I would not be surprised if he started selling various small essential products.

The difference between the earlier iron man and the second person is all about inititive and drive about which I have written in this post as also earlier ones. When will this become a mass movement?

Imagine if a Retail chain were to leverage this enormous potential of mobile Retail! Brand such carts, offer small, high margin and often used SKUs, so on and so forth.

Some food for thought ???

Store Walk - Does this exist nowadays?

Training and teaching sessions are great learning experiences. It exposes some realities of a market or industry which one would never get to know as a corporate person. Simply put, during interactions the participants share so many interesting insights and the reality on the ground.

One such is about store walk.

This seems to be a dying art form!

Over the past few sessions when I have asked whether people do store walk daily, everyone enthusiastically raises their hand. The next query is about how long you would take to do a store walk of a store of approximately 3,000 to 5,000 Sq. Ft. And, the answer varies from 15 minutes to 30 minutes at the most.

From my perspective, this is not a store walk. It is rather a short walk inside the store!

I was taught ‘Store walk’ by veterans in the field who have spent their entire lives in Retail most often starting off as baggers or temporary staff and were at CEO levels when they shared and taught me the practice of store walk.

It is a bit difficult to share the nuances of this key operational discipline in a post. Let me at least attempt to mention the highlights.

First, a store walk starts from outside the store to check the frontage, signage, etc. and ends with the back office, staff area and more importantly the toilets!

Second, a store walk is like a scan of the store. So, one needs to train his eyes, ears, nose, etc., to detect the smallest of deviations.

Third is the reality that no detail is too small to check. For example, how much of dust has gathered beneath the doormat. This gives you an idea of when it was cleaned last!

Lastly, consistency is the key. Doing a store walk once in a way when you are bored is of no use. Regular and repeated routine ensures discipline.

The downside to this is that when one gets used to doing store walks, most probably people at your home will hate you!!! Because you can judge when the home was cleaned properly, what was moved, so on and so forth. Your observation skills get into an auto pilot mode.

Whether you like it or not, you note and observe things which will help you correct things which need correction.

Press Review of "The INDIAN reTALEs"

I am very happy to share with you the detailed press review of "The INDIAN reTALEs" in the Brand Line supplement of The Hindu's Business Line. The link is as follows -


- Business Line Review of "The INDIAN reTALEs"

Please do take time out to read the same as also forward this to all your friends.

Using social networking sites

When one speaks of the internet in the context of Retail the immediate association is with online shopping. However, there is a very powerful use of the internet that shoppers can leverage to become smart shoppers and getting more value for their value.

I had written about this for The Hindu Retail Plus and the link to that article is as follows -

Using social networking and the internet

An unexplored idea – Mobile Retail

As mentioned in my book and a few earlier articles, the vast majority of street hawkers is a massive and undiscovered Retail opportunity. Their network and relationships are strong foundations upon which corporate Retailers as also manufacturers can build sustainable distribution networks. I wonder why no one wants to do this.

Have written about this wonderful potential yet again for The Hindu Retail Plus and the URL for that is as follows –

They bring Retail to you!

Ownership of the Customer starts with ownership of the store

During a series of recent training programs for Retail Operations people, I was highlighting the importance of taking ownership of the store and hence the customer. In that context the standard question to the audience would be how many of you take ownership of the store and hence the customers.

 

Predictably almost everyone’s hand would go up. Great; everyone is taking ownership of the store and hence the customer.

 

End of the story? Hardly, it is the beginning.

 

The next question would relate to old, slow moving or dead stocks. Regardless of the format the fact of the matter is that any store has a certain percentage of stocks which are non-moving. These are dead investments and only block up the working capital.

 

So, next I would ask how many have such stocks in their respective stores. Be it 1% or 5% or 10%, etc. There would be an enthusiastic response that, yes there are such stocks.

 

Now my next question; If this was your OWN store and your working capital was tied up would you allow this to happen or would you return the stocks or sell it off at a discount and clear the same.

 

At this point, the crux of the ownership issue will come out.

 

• I don’t have approval from HO to do this. If it was my own store, I don’t need that.
• I informed the merchandising team and they have done nothing.

So on and so forth.

 

Beneath these excuses lies a sad story of helplessness. Under the pretext of control and standardization the Corporate Retail of India today has depowered the store. But, on the other hand they are told that they are the face of the Retailer and they need to own the store and customer. What a dichotomy!

 

Having said that, I am also aware of store managers who had the freedom to act and therefore misused it by putting products on discount to reduce stock, at prices below the cost price.

 

The point is that a happy medium is needed and needed soon. The operations team needs to know their boundaries of the game while the boundaries should be large enough to motivate them to take ownership of the store or customers.

 

Otherwise, ownership of the store and customers will increasingly become empty words spouted during meetings and training programs where participants will enthusiastically raise hands to claim ownership, enjoy some good food and then go back to status quo.

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.