Consumers are now avoiding visits to malls for their grocery shopping’s in order to reduce their impulse purchases.Rather they are switching back to mom-n-pop (Kirana) shops. This has resulted into increase of demand and pressure on them. Kirana stores are not able to meet the demand for home deliveries of consumers. Typical kirana stores are getting almost 200-250 calls daily for home delivery. So, in order to meet their demands, kirana stores in Mumbai have decided to charge extra for home delivery and employ more delivery boys. According to them, it will help them to deliver goods in time and retain their loyal customers.
“Due to the current financial situation where everybody is seen trying to save, we too want to tighten our budget and raise extra to provide for delivery services,” says Chandrakant Gala, secretary of the Bombay Suburban Grain Dealers Association.
But generally customers prefer kirana stores because of the unique services like credit and free home delivery. So, I just hope that by doing so they don’t loose on their customers again.
Some kirana stores had already started charging for delivery. They are charging Rs. 10 for each order below Rs. 500 whereas they are delivering orders above Rs. 500 for free. And they have not seen any negative reaction from the customers, so hopefully it may work.
- 
Rajeev Damani 
Email
Print
Loading ...
January 7th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Charging for home delivery may be a smart move, depending on location / geography. In towns like Mumbai, where public transport is not cheap, taking the car out is a nightmare most of the time & now the security issues - a paltry Rs. 10 surcharge is unlikely to affect many. People lower down the pyramid are unlikely to feel the pinch either. One, because most of us do not mind a little stroll to the shop around the corner & our children are mostly eager to visit a shop.
On the other hand, most home delivery food outlets either charge a premium or a minimum transaction for the services. That does not seem to be an issue!
In Delhi too, I find a similar attitude, so Delhi retailers may follow suit.
However, this practise is likely to bomb in certain markets, like Chennai or Kolkata.
We also know that many households in urban India employ full-time maids / servants. Those who do their own shopping, would know that the same resources are often used to fetch grocery etc. At times drivers / caretakers are also involved.
This reminds me of a unique service, started by a group of enterprising entrepreneurs in Kolkata. Around 1990, this set up, called Odd Jobs was set up, to provide services like shopping, bill payments, application submissions etc.
The idea was way ahead of its time & the business never took off!
In a similar vein, ITC limited’s Expression Greetings Cards venture test-marketed a Gift Calendar / Reminder Service. Unfortunately it was a new business for ITC & it had the model wrong. By the time it was tweaked & prefected, the TG had shifted to online services!
Even today, there are similar opportunities which organised retail CAN exploit! But then, the top-bosses will need to “hear” what the markets have to say & go a bit beyond the “retail” boundaries.
Unfortunately, that’s much more difficult than clearing JEEs or MATs…..!