Retail Dude

It’s nice to see Retail Dude getting into the role of adding value, to retailing professionals. Not many sites give away knowledge / insights without coughing up some fees. So, the effort is definitely worth recognising, more so in today’s context.
However, there are some very basic concepts which require to be understood-internalised-encoded to the retail gene, before anyone even aspires to be successful in this field. Unfortunately, most of such basic funda are never found on nicely bound text or reference books and somehow the much glorified “retail gurus” fail to mention “them”, either.
As I am not paid for parting with any useful knowledge (I do get paid for saying what I am “expected” to say, at august gatherings of bright managers) and also as the scenario looks very messy, I am tempted to share some of my basic gyan.
Whether they are “useful” or not depends entirely on the reader! As far as I am concerned, I do admit that most of them have served me very well, at the marketplaces, all over India.

1. India is NOT US or Europe - Therefore, all of us in retail MUST stop referring to such geographies, immediately. India is not even close to the Bangkoks or Singapore for that matter. But we do have some similarities as far as the captive audiences are concerned.
Therefore - Look inside & start from within. It’s a good idea to start with a month-long sabbatical, tour semi-urban & then semi-rural locations. Tour “with a purpose”. Observe with keen eyes HOW Indians buy, sell, merchandise, promote, hop across mandis with their wares, frequency of haats etc.
I can take a bet that after the trip, you would have learned much more than in the two years in your PGDMB or whatever stamped you “OK” for retail.

2. Now that you are back, try the following : Walk in to any decent organised retail, preferably during peak hours (it may be different across geographies). Once inside, rank “categories” by the number of shoppers actually “touching them or reading the labels”. Avoid “scheme or on-offer” merchandise, just for this exercise.

3. Come out, find out a CCD and compare the following : Which “categories” had similar interest, across the tour-markets & the organised retail outlets? Are they very different? Remember to discount seasonalities that affect consumer behaviour, if necessary.

4. IF you have found even one category where consumer attention is equally strong in both scenarios, you have a winner. Analyse why. What’s special about that category? Or is it one of the basic requierements in any household?

5. Have you learnt something? Great! Eitherway, do let me know.

6. This is only for the bright ones ;-P. How can you apply the same learning to create “more” attention in categories down the list? Are some categories not making any sense at all? You may be right there too!

I am eager to help, to re-orient those who ARE really interested to “master” retailing.
Those who were just riding the wave……well good luck to all of you.
May God create another wave for you.

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