Retail Dude

So it’s about touch point, about reaching customers, about giving them information with experience and in return collecting information of customer to ensure future communication’s standard and again a good experience in that for the customer & it’s also about conversion rate, about an appeal to a potential customer to become a customer. In this tech. and digital age retailers have lots many tools that they can use to enhance customer experience and can increase their reach. But when, which and why they should use these tools is totally dependent on their requirements and return on investments. So I am not going to provide any guide on how to approach these tools but instead going to introduce a new touch point for the retailers which can be beneficial for their business. The tool named mobile and cellular marketing(also involved interactive marketing), which were there for some time now and retailers were using them partially like sending text message alerts , using bluetooth to send new offerings and offers etc., but with the launch of iPhone (touch and 3G) boundaries seems to be limitless. But now you wonder whats their in iPhone for a retailer. So some facts and figures for you -   Apple surpassed a number of  12 million as far as its sales in 2008 was concerned and this surpasses the expectations of apple who decided to achieve a mark of  10 million as a sales for 2008. This growth is coupled with 93 percent of iPhone owners who have added an application, it is clear that brands have a new and powerful marketing channel that they should embrace, as this will provide them a base of 10+ million potential customers whom they can reach with only one application in iPhone. There are thousands of applications in Apple’s Appstore and more and more are added daily. Some retailers already taken a step of initiation and launched their application for iPhone, to name some are – Amazon, Target, Gap and Sam’s club and many more on their way to do so.

Now the question is what kind of application a retailer is supposed to develop for an iphone. So a retailer can opt for an application with features like –  

1.        Get location of a nearest store even direction to reach there (using iPhone’s GPS), or call the store directly.

2.       Get a Detailed catalog of products and services as well as hours of service for a store.

3.       Get an update on offers/schemes/events etc.

4.       Promote products and use apps as a channel of marketing.

5.       Capture details of customer for CRM/Database.

6.       Food retailers/QSR/restaurants can get order from iPhone and get the food ready while the customer arrives. This will reduce delivery time a lot.

7.       Fun filled apps mostly seasonal and used to promote specific products

Apart from this there is no limit of how creative you can become in terms of application.

So far I talked about iPhone applications but as more and more smartphones are venturing into market the same principle can be applied albeit with a different feature set,  as Research In Motion launches the BlackBerry Application Storefront and Application Center, and Google’s Android gains wider adoption, also Nokia is planning to launch its music and application store this year. So this new medium should be leveraged as this involves less investment and greater returns plus reach - a digital touch point for retailers.

-Prateek Katiyar

P.S. - Readers are invited to

• Give viewpoint on “Whats there in digital touchpoint for Indian retailers”.
• Provide ideas for applications you want to see from your favorite retailers(Indian+global).

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Here is a great opportunity to grab all the insights and tools you need to climb to the top. It is for those of you who are serious about making your mark in Retail Management and serious about getting results. Here are a few guides specific to retail success. Have a look at this “Success in Retail” bundle by DMSRetail and you will realize this is better than squeezing out retail logics from management fundas as most Retails Institutes still do!!

There is something for all of us (Professionals, Strugglers & Aspirants) in this success bundle. Let me go Profile by profile though I firmly believe no categorization in learning should be made. In retail there is a new challenge every day.

Retail Buyers, Merchandisers, Category Managers, and M.I.S people; the biggest nightmare for you all I’m sure is Retail Maths. DMSRetail has developed a Retail Math eBook for retail management. This book will give you all of the information you need to start using retail math with confidence. You will understand how to make the Common and not so common retail metrics, their formulas and calculations and what to do with the answers you get.

Store Managers, Floor Managers, and Category Managers; challenge is planning and developing a winning culture in the store. There are books which help you plan your store, design planograms, manage work hours, manage manpower and business.

Area Sales Managers (ASMs), Region Sales Managers (RSM’s), and Retail Operation Managers (ROMs); still wondering how to staff your stores and train them to achieve sales targets and goals.

Retail Recruiters and Human Resource Managers; always wondering how to evaluate retail employee performance and skills and hone them further. The book named “I succeed” employee evaluation system will help you identify employee issues, Set a truly motivational program in motion, Understand how recognition of employees’ strengths can benefit your business and confirm that your current organization is still working for you.

Customer relationship Managers (CRMs) and Customer Care Associates (CCAs); Customer service is never enough, it never seems to satisfy. Anyone who reads the ‘Retail Customer Service Fundamentals’ guide will know how to create a proper shopping experience at every touch point with the customer.

Retail Strategists and Retail Analysts; do you want a formula to step up your sales by 20% in next 6 months. Quantitative information will help retailers understand their customer potential and qualitative intelligence will improve marketing, messaging and targeting strategies. Combined, this intelligence offers retailers a data-driven strategy to increase profitability.

So guys if you are interested you can get hold of this DMS Retail Success guides by ordering online or even at some chosen book stores. Go ahead and benefit.

Happy Reading!!

-Roli

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Before proceeding to the main topic let me build up some context. I will first of all like to define what touch point means for a retailer.  Actually touch points are the instances of interactions between retailer and customer/potential customer. But take these interactions into broader meaning, because in retail if a window display attracts a customer to a store, this eventually comes under an interaction. So keeping retail business in mind I categorized these touch points in two broad categories –

1.       Active touch Points

2.       Passive touch points

Now the active touch points are those where a retailer/associate/customer facing group has a face-to-face/phone/email interaction. But a passive touch point includes advertisement/windows display/store atmosphere/word of mouth etc but these also have equal amount of influence on customer as compared to active touch points. Further these two touch points can be divided into “Managed touch points” like store atmospheres and the customer facing group these things a retailer can managed according his own wish and can also manipulate things , but there are some “Non-managed touch points” like word of mouth on which the retail don’t have any control.

But now in this era of technology one more dimension has been added to the touch points for the retailers. Now we can classify touch points for the retailers into –

1.       Traditional touch points

2.       Digital touch points

Traditional touch points are the touch points which include store display ambience etc, customer facing group, and TV/banners/Radio advertisements. But the digital touch points are those which involve websites/email/mobile SMS/MMS or Mobile applications.

Internet is here for many years now and maximum retailers now know the potential of web and are using it as a good touch point for their customers. This not only increases the reach of a retailer but also facilitates customers in many ways most prominent of them is convenience and time. But with the evolution of smartphones and the launch of much talked and promoted iphone this interaction/touch point reached a new height about which I will talk in my next post till then happy reading guyzz ………

-Prateek Katiyar

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“Bollywood” is one of the biggest entertainment phenomena that rules India.

Last year Future Group came up with merchandise ‘inspired’ by Saawariya, which reflected the colour theme, tone, background, ambience and concepts of the movie, specially-created Saawariya merchandise was available across categories such as clothing, home, bed, bath (well Ummm..!!) , linen & beauty accessories for women and male apparel.

“Om Shanti Om” apart from a merchandising deal with Shoppers’ Stop (which involved almost 50-50 revenue sharing), also signed up with brands like Videocon, Nokia (which was the mobile-phone maker’s first such tie-up in Bollywood), cosmetics company Maybelline (Deepika Padukone is the brand endorser), and SIA Jewelry. These are just not brand associations but carry a lot of endorsement value with them both for the Actors and the products.

Well Bollywood merchandising is not a new concept really, yet, what is interesting is the scale that it has been/will be taken to.

From just one-off examples, which had a few corners dedicated to a particular movie’s merchandise, we will now see entire Bollywood Experience zones come up at retail stores.

Future Group and Percept have entered into a joint venture through which an initial investment of Rs 50 crore will create Bollywood cafes, theme parks, walk-ins and even museums at Future group’s retail outlets. Though the project seems to be going slow from what we see right now but still the business obviously seems to have become quite profitable for companies to create special experience zones to pull in more customers.

So, while apparels, accessories for men, women and children have generally been the criteria for forming separate zones till now, we have a new one henceforth- Bollywood.

There will be enough good news that bollywood’s association with retail will also give us in near future. Thanks to the desperate efforts of retailers to market their product differently and make it more attractive to buy. More recently for those who have seen “Ghajini” must have noticed Aamir khan wearing Van Heusen, a Madura Garments brand (which crafted a special range for the movie) and sporting Xylus(Titan) watches off and on.

 Ghajini gives you another reason to rejoice. The pic above is actually a campaign currently running and one which you can avail right away. You can get the ticket money reimbursed on the bill value of your purchase from the Van Heusen Ghajini collection. So for those who have still not seen the movie go ahead, it is paisa wasool all the wayJ!!  For those who are luckily still carrying the ticket, its still worth discount on your favourite shirt. I’m sorry for giving the information late for those who have thrown the tickets.

Happy Shopping the Bollywood Ishtyle !!

- Roli

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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

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Dear Readers,

Being committed to bring you the best of class information, here is just another very very useful read on Category Management. From being a very strong tool by retailers across the globe, category management has evovled and is now the mantra of the merchandising process in itself.

http://www.4shared.com/file/77534463/cecd9736/Category_Management.html

The slides have the basic knowhows of it. It has been shared by Mr Umesh Dhand who is a professional with over 12 years of work experience including 8 years of buying & merchandising experience in retail across lifestyle & value retailing across several categories. Currently he is the GM - Merchandising at Aditya Birla Retail Ltd, and has also worked as a Category Manager at Shoppers Stop in the past. A big thank you to him.

Happy Learning!

Sudip

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Hey guys, for those who do not have a job, do you just want any job or have you given a thought what would be the best place to be in these times of recession. For those who have a job, are you still looking forward for the ‘Retail Boom’ to happen or you know where your job is taking you and where you can actually be. Here is a little weekend analysis from me on both these situations. Sit back and read, hope it gives all of us who get lost living by the day, some clarity on what we want.

For those looking forward to a job; alright there is no ‘Boom’ round the corner; but still Retail Sector is the answer. There is ample good news to look forward to, few are listed here and I’m sure all my readers would have one such news with them.

While most companies are trying to find strategies to beat the global slowdown, consumer goods companies have not only decided to increase manpower, but also to scale up their research and development (R&D) spends.

• LG Electronics plans to invest $50 million (around Rs 250 crore) to enhance its manpower and R&D in India by 2009.

• According to ITC’s sustainability report, ITC’s payroll expenses grew from Rs 541 crore in FY06 to Rs 630 crore in FY07 and Rs 733 crore in FY08 and the company remains bullish on hiring.

• Aditya Birla Retail (ABRL) has announced plans to open ten hypermarkets in India within the next two years under the ”More” banner. It also aims to have 1500 supermarkets and 100 hypermarkets by 2013. According to CEO Sumant Sinha, ABRL the company will invest a total of US$2.5bn on its expansion plans.

Those with a passion for retail just remember one thing, in the short term it might seem more important to get a job that gives the best compensation, but in the long-term, most employees are chronically dissatisfied until they get a job that provides the best personal fulfillment.

For those in Retail Industry, this is what we can look forward to, because this will be the solution to the ongoing slump.

Good with Consumer Psychology and creative at thought you can be a “Consumer Psychologist”. Consumer psychologists study people’s emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to a wide variety of stimuli including advertisements, packaging, marketing promotions, communications, products, services, and experiences. From these studies the consumer psychologist can help decision makers determine design and development changes that will produce an improved consumer response and produce an increase in sales. As the field gains credibility, consumer psychologists are being given high level management and policy level positions in marketing, advertising, and retail organizations. Your primary responsibilities as a consumer psychologist will be research, analysis and development.

You feel you have amazing selling capabilities, and you can sell almost anything you can be a “Personal Shopper”. Personal shoppers provide expert advice and give the highest level of customized service possible to individual shoppers. By giving personalized attention and providing advanced knowledge of products, services, and trends, personal shoppers become trusted consultants for shoppers who want an enhanced buying experience which is easy, inspiring and productive. You will be responsible for building a client base of loyal shoppers who make frequent purchases. The result of your efforts should be higher sales ticket averages and extreme customer satisfaction.

For all those good at Retail Numbers, business, analysis and strategies, you can be a “Retail Competitive Intelligence Analyst”. As a Competitive Intelligence Analyst, you will be keeping an eye on the strategies and pricing of your employer’s competitors, and making recommendations for marketing, promotions and strategic initiatives based on the data you collect and analyze.

All these Job Profiles will not come without the required skills. Its possible only if we indentify our passion and work towards it. For complete details on these Job Profiles like the skill set required, the compensation etc. please visit http://retailindustry.about.com/od/retailjobsprofiles/Retail_Jobs_&_Your_Retail_Career_Path.htm

-Roli

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We just “love” acronyms! ASSOCHAM, FICCI, IIT, NatGeo, SET et-ce-te-ra.

Oops! Forgot MBA completely ;-P  Oh My God, the title above can also be called MBA. Just joking!

There was this article on Mint, yesterday (read at http://epaper.livemint.com/Default.aspx?selpg=883&selDt=12/15/2008&BMode=100 ). Many other news-media have been reporting similar analysis, of the “Organised Retail” scenario, one after another.

Factually, retail takes 3rd place after economy & terror, on print media!

At the same time I find bold expansion plans or entry plans of new corporations, into this same hot-spot! What’s up guys? Agreed that organised retail has a very long way to go, from the measly 5% share. Also agreed that retail real-estate prices/rentals have “corrected” by at least 20%. And I do agree that FMCG consumption is likely to remain bouyant too.

Even then, how does it make sense to sink fresh investment in retail, at this juncture? Specially by the “unititiated”? If you read the Mint article carefully, you’ll find definite insecurities (about the industry), expressed in very subtle terms. Example: “If the organised retailers get on to the right model, it can grow by 20-25%”. Key words here - If, right model, can. All very “iffy”.

Big bosses like KB & others are all doing some “cutting-shutting” (remember that ad featuring two kids?) Which is very appropriate. Surgery is almost always the 1st resort. Chemo comes closer towards the end.

This scenario is very dicey! Who has so much surplus funds, to let them earn returns on such a long-tail cycle? If they do, why aren’t they investing the same in much safer (in the short term at least) ventures? Is there a grey area here?

India cannot afford to lose more money chasing bad. The effects will be catastrophic! I really hope we are not turning into a country run by Blind managers, following in the footsteps of our blinkered politicians.

Belt up, we are perilously close……

- Arnab

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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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