Retail Dude

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Though this poll dose not require any analysis as IRCTC is way ahead of other options. We would rather compare these stats as use of rail website vs. others (air & road). In India use of rail transport is more common that any other mode because it is comfortable and economical. Though we cannot underestimate road transport based on these stats as people generally don’t book bus tickets online.In this pie we have ignored ‘Red Bus’ and ‘Rediff Fares’ as no one voted for them.

If we observe, total number of tickets booked online as a percentage of total tickets sold for both rail transport and air transport, we will see that the air transport is way ahead. But still we have more penetration for IRCTC because of more use of rail transport. Following is the stats which shows the use of online booking for rail transport in India for 2007-08 published by Business Line:

Online Booking of Train Tickets

- Team: RetailDude

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I’ll start with a quote

“Collaborating with competitors involves yin and yang, two opposing and simultaneously complementary facets of a single phenomenon. This balance can create substantial value, particularly when the collaboration involves common processes that provide no competitive advantage.”  By Evan Rosen.

This was used, as recently as yesterday, by none other than the doyen of Modern Indian Retailing, Shri Kishore Biyani. He was concluding his key-note address at the Retail Summit : 2008.

Collaboration remained the agenda of his speech, which he admitted, was a very different strategy in today’s “New World Order”. In the same breath, he also admitted that his own speech, last year, was based on the ”Old World Order”.

It’s a pleasure. To find that our retail-gurus have finally removed their blinkers, in a hurry!

Hang on, hang on! Have they? What are the possible “collaborations” he’s touched upon?

Sourcing of merchandise, HR, Real-Estate & some other necessary services required by all organised retailers. Now, I’m not sure if ”these” could be called ”collaborations” in the real sense of the world or even by the quote above! This looks more like another word that starts with the alphabet C too: Cartelisation!

The Sales-Logistics-Marketing gurus attending the seminar would have definitely risen in unison when KB closed his address. To applaud. After all, terms like “collaboration” have this unavoidable connotations with others like “teamwork, networking, partnerships etc.”, all very “current”.

Our neighbouring country is keen to collaborate with us……on burning issues.

The august congregation inside the auditorium were, hopefully, sharp enough (sharpened by their enviable alma-maters, then their fast-track career demands & so on so forth), to read between KB’s bold lines. So, the applause must have been genuine!

Yes, we all love collaborations, as we all were born of at least one (notwithstanding Mamma Mia)!

Borrowing again from Rosen “yin and yang, two opposing and simultaneously complementary facets of a single phenomenon”, I’d have thought a different way to collaborate, for “real-success”.

Have the doyens considered collaborating with millions of mom-and-pop store across the country, ever?

That, can really turn out to be the latest definition of “collaboration”.

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Why should a consumer pay for cheese and get butter? Why should he be charged for a pen that does not write; a refrigerator that does not cool and an LCD which has already been used by store staff (reff– Rajiv’s article 2^nd dec)?

Many a times we come across goods and services that are not up to the mark and do not meet our expectation. (By expectation I mean those features which the producers or service providers promises to deliver or should deliver). Some times the problem can be resolved by accelerating the issue to higher level but at times these measures are unavailable or they simply don’t work. A layman is handicapped and wishes some system; some mechanism must be in place to punish the retailer, to pacify the action and to give justice to the biggest player of the industry – The consumer!!

If we refer to the Indian Legal structure we have Consumer Protection Act, Sales of Goods Act, bla blah!  But knowing the Indian legal system I guess hardly some fraction of our population is seeking relief via such routes. Though the three tier consumer dispute forum is useful many a time, they take lots of patience and time. Another problem with this system is many of us do not know law and hiring a professional service is an expensive choice.

Having said that it doesn’t mean that choices for consumers are limited and they have no way to deal with these kinds of situations. The first remedy is to always bring the issue to the notice of senior management. Well that at least is a benefit of buying from the organized market. The staff at store level might be inefficient but it doesn’t imply for the entire company. Many a times I have got amazing response using such mode.

If this doesn’t work there are blogs where you can post your experience and the company responds to it. It works as in this competitive market no one can afford to lose their reputation in the market. Im sure Rajiv must have posted a word at Big Bazaar blog, and if not his article here will sure reach the right ear soon.

Finally even though our legal system is not very consumer friendly there are lots of NGOs who provide professional services for a nominal fee of Rs. 200 – Rs. 500 p.a. and takes care of all legal proceedings on your behalf (obviously this you resort to when the problem is major) Many a times it works wonder as people get on their toe after receiving a legal notice and are ready to settle the claim at the earliest. Besides, various industries such as banks and telecom have separate grievances handling bodies and complaints to these bodies can be made online through the links provided on their websites.

But all these measures are insufficient and what can actually remedies the problem is the efficiency and diligence on the part of individual, companies and management to understand that they are part of the big value chain and if everyone does the work they are supposed to do effectively we can force changes.

-Roli

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These days came to fill some colors to the black and white balance sheets of american retailers, or we can say black, cyber and mobile days came to save the holiday season in this weak economic period. And as a result retailers not only got huge footfall but also an awesome sale. Some store managers quoted –

“Morning traffic was “awesome”, and “even better than last year.”

“I’m guessing it was about 85 percent credit and 15 percent cash,”

“People are happy, and few — if any — mention the economy.”

 As soon as I heard about these black Friday and cyber Monday, one thing came into my mind and that was Big Bazaar. It’s the only retailer in India who leveraged these similar occasions in India like “Maha Saver theen din” on Dhanterash and something similar even on Independence Day(I am not saying other retailers don’t do these kind of promotion but the kind of advertisement Big bazaar do just overwhelm all others). And because of this it made huge retail sales, regardless of razor thin margins due to offers there was profit, reason was volumes. But there is negative aspect of these days and that is handling tremendous traffic and rush, which Big Bazaar many a times failed to handles and same happen on Black Friday, retailers were unable to handle rush and on Cyber Monday most of the retail websites goes down too often causing inconvenience to customers. But in the last what matters were the sales for retailers and special offers to consumers.

And whats there in this for Indian retailers – a lesson to form a community not a competition and organize these days nationwide and organized retail wide, together they will be better equip to handle rush and to make profits.

- Prateek Katiyar

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Being a Post-Graduate in Retail and a RetailDude, I was not able to avoid writing this post. It basically covers my experience in Big Bazar near one of the busiest area in Bangalore i.e. ITPL. It’s a big huge outlet but lacking at all the so called customer touch points.

During my Post-Graduation, I was lucky to be taught by one of the most renowned name in the field of CRM i.e. Prof. Mukesh Chaturvedi of Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH). I will not write about him in this post as this space will be less and I won’t be able to do justice to his Knowledge and Experience. But the insight he gave us on how can we increase customer service by using customer touch point to our (Retailers) benefit helped me to understand that how bad is Big Bazar at it.

I and my friend Pranshu went there to buy a 21” Television which was already selected on net and we just went there to pay and pick. My dissatisfaction begin from the baggage counter (1st touch point) where the person refuse to keep helmet of my friend and said that it can be kept only if we can adjust it somehow in our bag. Anyhow we carried the helmet with us. Then as we went inside, air conditioner was not working and store was stinking. People didn’t had much idea that where exactly electronics department is located in store. Somehow we managed to know that it is in 1st floor. When we went there we find some televisions with a layer of dust over it, but no executives to assist us. After a little bit of search we found that all executives were busy watching a South Indian Movie in LCDs which were displayed for customers. I can’t tell you how badly they were using that LCD. How can someone buy this used LCD at the price of new one? When we went there we asked the department head that we want to look for a 21” television. That dude didn’t even bothered to look at our face and pointed an executive to assist us while he continued with his movie. We were feeling very much sorry for the executive whom we interrupt in mid of the movie. So, he asked us what you want and very quickly told that what the options they have are. He was actually in hurry as he was missing important scenes of the movie. Somehow we felt that we should not disturb him anymore and we decided to go back.

I came down and enquired for customer service desk. Thankfully it was in ground floor only. There I find a group of employees chit-chatting. I went and briefed my experience. They said this is something which is happening on regular basis why don’t you write a complain. I was shocked to know this again. I wrote a complain and left with a feeling that nothing will be done for this complain.

I don’t have any enmity against Big Bazar. I have earlier had good experience in Big Bazar near my home in Delhi at EDM. It is just the result of expansion drive with which they are not able to provide uniform experience at all of their stores which is ultimately reducing customer loyalty. It’s happening in almost all the companies in this format. We cry that we don’t have sales, cost are increasing blab blab. But this experience shows that how we lose customers who come with a fix mindset of buying a pre-decided product. Result was that we went to a local dealer and bought the television where we had a very good experience. And I don’t think that I will enter any Big Bazar store in near future!!

- Rajeev Damani

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