Retail Dude

Hello Readers,

A sudden brew in the coffee mug of India spurred this article!

India forever has been a contemporary tea drinking nation than anything else. Although coffee was predominantly popular down the southern states, the up class nature of coffee bars made it popular across the country. What clicked with all the retailers was the young and deep pocketed urban youth of India. These cafes perfectly filled the gap of a nice comfy place to hang out with your pals or that sophistication of breakfast meetings.

Clearly, with India’s middle class aspiring to be in sync with the global culture almost all the major coffee chains of the world (Starbucks is still in the picture) were hungry for the country. An express growth lured all of them. That led to the “superlative experience” of these outlets. Products in a wide range of variants that included not only hot coffee, cold coffee, coffee add ons, powder coffee etc but also other drinks and snacks. Actually in most joints tea also made to the menu, which would be touted as adapting to the local environments. The chains have also been adopting state-of-the-art store formats and some even offer wi-fi access to their customers. As a step forward, CCD has incorporated formats like music cafés, book cafés, highway cafés, lounge cafés, garden cafés and cyber cafés targeting a diversified customer profile. Some also went ahead to sell merchandise through their outlets. A prominent feature into Bollywood sponsorships only made sipping a cult. Infact the bug also hit some prominent retailers like Shoppers Stop (Brio), Reliance (Time Out) who had coffee joints introduced to their outlets. Tata Coffee, Indias largest exporter also couldn’t wait to open up Mr Bean Coffee Junction in Chennai recently. FMCG majors like Nestle already had their kiosks well placed when coffee retailing was happening.

Some of the prominent names like CCD, Barista (now acquired by Lavazza), CBTL, Costa Coffee, Barnies and Coffee World are still vying for market share and have very unique expansion plans. Barista in a recent outrage to gain back market share have gone veggie in all outlets of Ahmedabad and are serving udipi menu in the likes of dosas and uttapam! They have also applied for liquor licenses for their ‘Creme’ outlets in Delhi and Mumbai where they plan to keep international varieties of beer and wine. Whereas robust plans of CCD are just enthralling as they have identified 6 new verticals to serve your favorite coffee which also included hospitals. From Highway outlets to more luxurious outlets will include recently launched CCD Squares and Lounges, CCD with its current 720 stores and an addition of 20 -25 every month looks to remain firm on the top.

There is also news that FMCG major HUL is eyeing this lucrative market as well. It will be interesting to see whether HUL gives some spill or chill to the established players.

We all know, a lot can happen over a cuppa coffee.

Cheers

Sudip

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“Everything you desire, everything that glitters, everything that swims, everything on ice

Welcome to everything”

The Dubai Mall

Welcome to World’s new largest mall – The Dubai Mall, outnumbering the previous largest mall “South china Mall”, Dongguan, China with approx. 5 million sq ft. And if you are in a mood to say “Size doesn’t matter” then I have something more to tell you about this flagship shopping mall by Emaar Malls Group.  The Dubai Mall will have over 1,200 retail outlets and 160 food & beverage outlets spread over a gross leasable area of 3.77 million sq ft. Over 165 retailers – or 30% of the mall’s total gross leasable area is dedicated to new retailers to the region, or brands opening up standalone stores for the first time. The mall is an integral component of Downtown Burj Dubai, a 500-acre mixed-use development anchored by the iconic Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building.

Amongst other world-class attractions at the mall are-

·         SEGA Republic®, an indoor theme park

·         KidZania®, a unique children’s ‘edu-tainment’ concept

·         The Grove, an open air streetscape with fully retractable roof and a 22-screen Cineplex

·         world’s largest gold souk

·         the 850,000 ft² Fashion Island

·         one of the world’s largest aquariums

·         an Olympic-sized ice skating rink

·         Oasis Fountain Waterfall

·         WaterFront Atrium

·         a view of the (soon to be completed) world’s tallest building, Burj Dubai

The Dubai Mall has confirmed its two department stores Galeries Lafayette and Bloomingdale’s, both making their regional debut. There are over 14,000 undercover car park spaces across three car parks and an adjoining luxury 5-star hotel – The Address, Dubai Mall - with 250 rooms and 450 serviced residences.

The mall has already won five awards. It won two awards at the Retail Future Project Awards at MAPIC, Cannes, in 2004, for Best Retail Development Scheme (Large), Best Use of Lighting in a Retail Environment. And the Dubai Mall brochure has won three awards at the Summit Creative Awards 2005, in Portland, Oregon; Gold award for Best Art Direction / Graphic Design, Silver award for Best 4-colour B2B Brochure, and Judges Special Recognition award.

The Dubai Mall will open doors to the public on Tuesday, 4 November at 2pm(Local Time). The opening of The Dubai Mall marks the largest-ever opening of a shopping mall in the world in terms of retail offer. The mall will have smooth and easy access from Sheikh Zayed Road, off Financial Street Road (previously Doha Road), Emaar Boulevard, Downtown Burj Dubai and through the newly opened bridge off Interchange One. Opening attractions at The Dubai Mall include over 600 retail outlets including Waitrose, Hamleys and Kinokuniya Books; Dubai Aquarium & Discovery Centre that has been awarded the Guinness World record for the ‘World’s Largest Acrylic Panel’ and featuring a 270-degree walkthrough tunnel.

-Prateek Katiyar

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Certainly, sir, and how would you like your sandwich?

At SUBWAY sandwich shops around the world, the ’submarine’ style sandwiches come hot or cold, and with an almost infinite combination of breads, fillings and sauces. The first choice: do you want your sandwich to be ‘6-inch’ or ‘footlong’. Then there are 5 types of bread, 11 toppings, and 9 dressings and sauces to choose from - making for an almost endless combination of possibilities. These choices involve consumers in the brand, allowing them to ‘make it their own’ and giving them a reason to keep coming back. There are more than two million different sandwich combinations available on the SUBWAY menu.

The SUBWAY restaurant chain was founded in 1965 by Fred DeLuca, a 17-year-old college freshman, and family friend Dr. Peter Buck. The first restaurant opened in Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA on August 28 and was called Pete’s Super Submarines. Now, there are nearly 30021 Restaurants In 88 Countries, and the company estimates that about 1,900 SUBWAY sandwiches are served every minute around the world. It’s the biggest fast-food chain in the USA, and the company aims to overtake McDonald’s globally by 2009. The number goes on increasing each day. This is one of a kind of its business, since all its outlets are franchisees. They believe that it’s the country that wants good and healthy food that brings them to it and not their operations. SUBWAY chain is a privately held company and is not traded on any stock exchange.

McCarthy, Mambro Bertino Advertising (MMB), located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the SUBWAY^® chain’s creative agency. They very widely use the acronym BMT® which stands for Biggest, Meatiest, and Tastiest. In the early days of SUBWAY^® restaurants, it was a promotion that was based on the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit system in New York City that went along with the subway theme.

And in a deliberate strategy targeting rivals such as McDonald’s and Burger King, SUBWAY have positioned themselves as the healthy choice: offering sandwiches with ‘6 grams of fat or less’ as well as salads and other low-fat options. There is one amazing story of a person called Jared Fogle who lost 245 lbs. by eating nothing but SUBWAY sandwiches for almost a year in a diet program of his own design that included lots of walking and, yes, he is real. Jared came to our attention after Men’s Health magazine ran an article that featured his amazing weight-loss success story. Appearing in a series of SUBWAY TV commercials beginning in January 2000, Jared has since inspired many others to follow his lead. These days, he keeps busy by traveling throughout the United States and Canada, making public appearance and doing thousands of interviews for television, radio, newspapers and magazines. All their menu cards and delivery have the nutrient content of the diet. A wholesome list is also available about nutrition and contents in its website.

They also care about the localized market where they go into, such as they replaced beef with chicken when they launched in India and similarly pork with beef when in Pakistan, so as not to hurt sentiments of its residents.

The questions that comes to my mind is that  “Can we offer customers more choice, and so make the brand more appealing, while staying true to our focused and distinctive brand offer? “

Who remembers that Porsche has a category of SUV’s?  Usually companies and organizations spread out while trying to do so and in the process dilute its own image even if it is the “MENU”. This is what SUBWAY has done so exceptionally.  

BRAVO!

Sudip

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“Defination (Dhaba): A roadside eatery, quiet common in India providing scrumptious food to hungry stomachs, even at odd hours, with a cup of tea and that too at dirt cheap rates”

Highways give me a high, and the passion of driving runs deep in my veins, No, this post is not about my driving experiences, but about a more concerning topic - Food! Yes, I know, yours truly has another passions as well, delicious, scrumptious food, and this weakness has made me look out for the best roadside eating joints available on the roads less travelled, and food retailing of course is one of the sectors I keenly look out on.

I belong to the North part of the country, and a simple drive down from Chandigarh to New Delhi, would allow me to practise my passion of exploring food, now I can go on describing the best eating joints on NH-22, but that’s not the whole point. Somehow the government has woken up to the profits being made by these Dhaba’s - sans the taxes, and popularity beyond the control of the organized retailers (a.k.a Reliance A1), and then there was a demolition drive along my favorite parts of the highway! and then I moved onto new roads, Mumbai - Pune highway, I couldn’t locate many eating joints, but the emergence of some “organized” retailing was evident, with eating joints teaming up with petrol pumps, and providing one stop solution to the hungry stomachs, and during this interrogation I simply, unknowingly and unconsciously ordered my favorite Nescafe Frappe, had it and decided to move, and pat came the price - 40 Rs. - Freakin 40 bucks- for my regular cup of frappe? Was it not 15 bucks I last checked? Convenience charge eh? Inflation you say…

Somehow then, the glorious images of the dhaba menu card started circling around my head, how did they manage it? They were providing convenience as well, and some smiles along with it! and yet, I ended up paying for a service which was pathetic. They lived on numbers! and stick-ed to the traditional methods of bringing down the cost, which apparently is not visible to so called organized retailers, who are busy shifting stores more than providing the experience, and they blame it on inflation.

A simple search about “Dhabha” on Flickr landed me with more images of Dhaba’s opening up abroad, than India. We are somehow, in the rush of differentiating organized with unorganized are forgetting our core competency, we were always the cost cutters, the trend maybe a hit around the globe, but we have always had it, and it was visible in our Dhaba trend, a place where the whole of India, would sit under one roof, from a truck driver to a Mercedes benz, and enjoy a meal which would pack our stomachs, but would still go on. This is the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, the books talk about, not the consumer but the retailer, and this is where the organized retailers need to hit upon, we are still a price + quantity + experience + relationship oriented market.

- Sarthak

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