Category: Press Quotes

Mint Money Festival Special

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November 9, 2015

Rashmi Aich, Kavya Balaji, Tania Kishore Jaleel, Vivina Vishwanathan & Lisa Pallavi Barbora, MINT

New Delhi, 9 November 2015

We are in the midst of the festival season and there has been a barrage of offers across various sectors. Numerous advertisements from both online and offline retailers could be seen as early as September. This time, the e-tailers have tried to one up the brick-and-mortar peers by offering app-only deals. While much of the festival season is left, it has been strong going so far. A recent Nomura Global Markets Research report—Holiday shopping season starts with a bang—said that quarterly expectations for India’s holiday sales are close to $4 billion. Read some of the other findings from the report with the stories. While most of the action seems to be online, offline retailers are trying to keep pace, if not in price then in service and customer experience. Mint Money takes a close look at different types of offers and how one can be a smart shopper. We take a look at popular segments of electronic gadgets, white goods, apparel, jewellery, furniture, and even real estate and gold, and bring to light some of the hidden details.

GADGETS

In today’s world, where technology upgrades at a fast pace, everyone wants to own the latest gadget as soon as it hits the market. The festival season adds fuel to the fire, with buyers spoilt for choice on both online and offline platforms.

This year, e-commerce participants managed to grab the first mover’s advantage and started their festival season sales as early as September-end. Earlier, the biggest sales used to happen closer to the main festivals.

You may have seen many advertisements by online portals in newspapers last month, and these are still continuing. In fact, according to a recent report by Nomura, in the sales by the three top ecommerce marketplaces—Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon India—mobile phones were the biggest selling category, followed by apparel.

Mobile phones are also high demand because manufacturers come up with new models almost every other month. Moreover, festival season sales woo customers by giving offers and “best-price” on their favourite gadgets. Among these, Apple’s iPhone has been a hot favourite with Indian customers. Mint compared prices of iPhone 6 16 GB across the mobile apps of the top three online retailers, and brick-and-mortar stores—Croma, Spice Hotspot and Vijay Sales—during the festive season sale on 15 and 16 October.

While physical stores were far behind in the price offering, online stores did offer good discounts. However, the maximum retail price (MRP) had high variations across e-tailers as well, which, in turn, meant big differences in the discounts offered. Even as Snapdeal and Amazon offered the phone at the same price of Rs.37,999, the former showed an MRP of Rs.56,000 and the latter of Rs.52,000, making a difference of around 5 percentage points in the discounts offered by the two.

“The difference in MRP is mostly due to the different prices offered by the sellers on the online retailer’s platform (marketplaces). Also, it is a common practice in retailing to mark up price by a big margin and then sell on a huge discount, keeping the sales margin intact,” said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive officer, Third Eyesight, a retail consulting firm.

Apart from prices, the delivery time and charges also varied across sellers on e-tailers.

While the variation in online prices was high, the selling price quoted by physical retailers had miniscule or no discount on the MRP. Moreover, their prices were much higher than what online stores were offering. For example, for the Apple iPhone mentioned earlier, the difference was at least 19.7%.

However, the benefit of paying the extra money is that you can get the product at once. Also, the process of exchange is simpler as you don’t have to wait for the replacement to be sent as in the case of etailers. This factor is especially relevant if you are buying a product whose online and offline price is the same.

—Rashmi Aich

APPARELS

In October, Vipin Venugopal, a junior executive at a private manpower solutions firm in Mumbai bought a shirt by Pepe Jeans from an e-commerce website for Rs.600. “The price of the same shirt at the showroom was Rs.1,699. It was a steal,” said Venugopal. And seeing such mouthwatering discounts, Venugopal bought more things online for his sister, Vidya. “I bought a total of seven items for my sister during the online discounts. We had scanned showrooms for some kurtas, but online we ended up getting at least 40% discounts,” said Venugopal.

Going online to buy clothes could work in your favour, too.

According to a survey released in October by industry body Assocham, the most popular e-commerce websites—Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, Myntra and Jabong—have been doling out price cuts or discounts on purchase of popular brands of apparel, footwear and electronic goods, coinciding with the festival period. The growing trend is being attributed to the fact that all reputed Indian and international brands have tied up with these websites and their goods are being offered to consumers at much lower prices than in their retail stores.

“For the past couple of years, discounts on websites have been good. The discounts are now coming down but the reality is that consumers are checking out online platforms for apparel. When it comes to clothes, so far, pricing has been the key parameter rather than convenience,” said Saloni Nangia, president, Technopak Advisors Pvt. Ltd, a New Delhi-based retail consulting firm.

Mint did an online and offline survey of major apparel brands and found that select products available on e-commerce websites were cheaper by up to 20% as compared with the same products in a mall.

“Most of the discounts are given by the portals directly for customer acquisition and I don’t see this changing in the next 18-20 months at least,” said Nangia. According to an April report by UBS Securities India Pvt. Ltd, by the end of the calendar year, fashionwear, including apparel and footwear, is expected to be the largest retail category online, with sales of $3.9 billion, bigger than sales of electronics and consumer durables at $3.5 billion.

Retail analysts also believe that as Indians evolve in terms of fashion, buyers will slowly move towards curated merchandising than just looking at discounts.

“You can expect niche businesses to evolve where discounted pricing may not be available,” said Nangia.

What you get

E-commerce websites, too, are evolving. Some of them now provide trend and style guides along with discounts. Flipkart, for instance, has a feature called ‘Image Search’ where you can browse through an assortment of clothing. You can click on a picture and search for similar products on the portal’s mobile app.

Many of us might be doing this: you go to a mall, and if you like a product, immediately go online on your smartphone to check for any price differential. However, before clicking on the ‘Buy Now’ option, do factor in other costs such a delivery charges, if any. Apart from that, since most of the websites now act as a marketplace (products are provided by multiple parties; transactions go through the website), you may want to check the delivery duration when buying from different sellers.

—Vivina Vishwanathan

WHITE GOODS

Earlier, if someone wanted to buy an appliance, she would go to not one shop but many, look at the product, compare prices and only then buy. But today, shoppers are willing to skip the physical inspection and buy the product online if the price is right. In fact, prices for white goods such as televisions, washing machines and refrigerators are usually lesser online than in-store. For instance, the Samsung 32J6300 32 inch Full HD Smart Curved LED TV was available on Flipkart for Rs.42,290 while the price was Rs.49,900 at the Samsung store. The same was the case for an LG 6 Kg fully automatic top loading washing machine. The price was Rs.13,770 on Amazon.in during its festive sale, while offline store Croma was selling it at Rs.16,300. Another advantage of buying online is that you can read reviews of other buyers before you choose a product.

However, while buying online, it is important to compare prices across sites and also look at the delivery and installation details. It would be advisable to go through comments posted by other buyers on social media websites or the portal itself, as sometimes the installation and delivery is delayed or even improper. For instance, Mayank Agarwal from Delhi bought an Onida AC from Flipkart. “It promised free standard installation, but the installation team did not call or turn up even after 11 days. I was getting repeated calls from Onida dealers who were charging Rs.1,500 for standard installation, which was otherwise to be free.” Mint had sent an email to Flipkart seeking a comment regarding the complaint, but the e-tailer did not respond.

Another issue is warranty and customer service. Online buyers of large appliances often don’t receive proper warranty or customer service from the brand. Take the case of Vijay V. from Chennai, who bought an LG refrigerator from Amazon. “LG customer service denied replacement of parts when I encountered a manufacturing defect even though it was under warranty,” said Vijay. In an emailed response to Mint, an Amazon spokesperson said, “If the customer reaches out to us during the return window applicable for that product category, we would initiate returns or replacement of the product. Brands are obligated to honour the warranty for a genuine product irrespective of the sale channel.”

These just might be the reasons why it won’t hurt to spend some time and effort to check out in-store deals as well. Brick-and-mortar stores have some advantages that online portals don’t offer. For example, you can bargain for a better price or ask for better freebies. You can even ask the store if it can reduce the cost of the freebies from the product’s cost. Also, the installation and warranty might be much better as stores have in-house staff for installation and give the warranty upfront along with the bill.

As regards payment, the finance options are almost the same for both. Equated monthly instalment (EMI) options are available with most online and offline retailers. For in-store purchases, you can make a downpayment, take the product and pay the rest as EMI. Online purchases, however, require either full payment or full amount needs to be converted to EMI. Also, in-store finance offers include EMI at 0% interest; online retailers only offer EMI through credit cards where processing fees might be high.

—Kavya Balaji

JEWELLERY

It’s no surprise that you can now buy diamonds online; it is convenient and the choice is immense. At the same time, unlike buying a pressure cooker or even a mobile phone, you have to be very discerning about buying jewellery. It’s not a standardised product; every piece of jewellery is unique. When you deliberate jewellery shopping this festive season, consider your options—online and offline—after evaluating the merits.

According to Neha Kapadia, partner, Design Jewels, a Mumbai-based jewellery store, “Nine out of 10 times, jewellery is purchased from the ‘trusted family jeweller’. This person knows your taste, quality requirements and there is familiarity. Then there are those who buy from bigger shops though this usually turns out to be more expensive. But in buying online, the element of negotiation—be it in price, design or quality—is missing.”

With your family jeweller, there is comfort in showing old pieces, spending time talking about redesigning and creating a more contemporary piece and that hits home. Most people don’t really want to buy jewellery in a hurry.

Moreover, festive and wedding jewellery are large spends. So, one needs to be conscious about quality. While it is simpler to understand the purity levels in gold, with diamond jewellery, there are multiple factors to keep track of. Every stone has a cut, colour, clarity and carat, according to which it is priced. It’s hard enough trying to decipher these on your own through a website, let alone trying to figure out whether pricing matches the specifications. However, jewellery bought online also comes with a certificate, so the quality is assured.

Calvin John, vice-president, offline marketing, CaratLane.com, said, “In case of solitaires, we have certification from only internationally accredited laboratories; for other jewellery, there is Indian certification. As a first step, when a customer makes a purchase, she can view the certification online itself. And the certification is sent with the delivery.”

When it comes to design, though, Internet is your oyster—you can browse through not only traditional Indian designs but also global trends. “People often choose designs online and then come to a store to get it made.

But this isn’t new; earlier, too, designs were chosen from magazines and other places. Only the medium has changed,” said Saurabh Gadgil, chairman and managing director of Maharashtra-based PN Gadgil Jewellers.

The online experience is getting enhanced with mobile apps that help you see how a pair of earrings or a necklace would look on you (use the app to upload your photo and superimpose the chosen pieces on it)—sifting through hundreds of designs becomes a job on the go. But the look and feel can be different on a screen than on your person. For that, many retailers let you call the piece home and try it on before you buy.

John said, “The concept of looking for jewellery online was far fetched till a few years ago. Now people have started buying. The quality of user experience has evolved; we have a 3D virtual app to show how jewellery will look on you.”

While online purchases offer various advantages, convenience is the most important. It’s too tempting; say, you have seen a pair of gold and diamond earrings. They look nice and get delivered right to your doorstep, along with the relevant certificates. You avoid the traffic jams and the nasty look that the sales person at the jewellery store gives after you decide not to buy any of the 30 pairs that she has shown you. Moreover, as geographical mobility increases, people may no longer have access to their family jeweller.

There is also a price advantage while buying online; experts say prices could be cheaper by as much as 20-30% given that online retailers don’t have to keep an inventory of jewellery and have almost no real estate cost to bear.

But the choice between online and offline isn’t always simple. Kapadia said, “Despite certification, most people are not well versed with quality and price specifications. So, most online sales are restricted to smaller pieces, (usually) of lower quality and smaller budgets.”

You may not be ready to spend lakhs on buying diamond sets online, but it’s convenient to try out a pair of contemporary earrings, which will cost a few thousands, or, even buy standard gold coins that you have to gift during the festival season. Many websites offer a good return policy as well and have a try-at-home facility for some of the products. You can leave your details on the website and a counsellor will get in touch and bring you the desired pieces to be tried at home. If you like something, you can immediately make a payment. But if you don’t like any piece, you are not obligated to buy.

There are, however, some basic checks to do such as read the return policy, compare prices based on quality, delivery time, and others. Gadgil believes that the online jewellery platform caters to a new segment and a customer will rely on both channels for an overall experience. For heavy and high-value purchases, however, customer behaviour is likely to remain biased towards the family jeweller or a retail store.

—Lisa Pallavi Barbora

FURNITURE

New furniture also features in people’s festival buying list, and this time around, many online portals are trying to cash in on this. Just before the festive season began, e-tailers Flipkart and Amazon.in started offering furniture on their websites and apps. During its Big Billion Sale, Flipkart had dates dedicated to this category of products. Furniture portal, Pepperfry, has its ongoing Mega Diwali Sale with up to 51% off on products as well as extra 10% cashback for purchases above Rs.40,000.

Offline retailers, too, have hefty discounts. Durian Industries has up to 50% off on its products. Luxury furniture store, Furniturewalla, too, has a similar offer. Even your local shops and markets will have festival offers on.

Since the furniture market is largely unorganised, there isn’t a standard benchmark for prices. As an example, we looked at the prices of a king-size bed with matt finish and storage. At Durian, the post-discount price was Rs.53,000, on Pepperfry it was Rs.43,946, and at Urban Ladder it was Rs.41,799.

E-tailers are able to offer steeper discounts because of the margins they enjoy, said Arvind Singhal, founder and chairman of Delhi-based retail consultancy, Technopak Advisors. “Pricing in this segment is opaque. There is a lack of transparency as to how the pricing has been arrived at. The offline furniture companies usually operate at a 60% margin over the retail price. And online firms, it can be 10-15% above this,” he said.

So, yes, the online prices seem better, but here a few things to keep in mind before you start shopping. For instance, you cannot opt for cash on delivery for more expensive items. At Pepperfry, it is above Rs.3,000, and at Urban Ladder, above Rs.25,000 (no such limits at brick-and-mortar stores). But you can pay via Net banking, e-wallets and even in instalments.

Furniture online portals also offer much more choice, and because of the convenience of being able to browse through many products comfortably, many consumers are now making even big-ticket furniture purchases online, said Kashyap Vadapalli, chief marketing officer, Pepperfry.com.

However, not everyone is comfortable doing so. For example, Manish Ambwani, a human resources professional from Delhi, recently purchased a shelf for the living room from an online furniture portal. “Both, my wife and I work, so we did not have the time to go to different shops to make a decision. But for now, I would still buy bigger products from a store where I can see its quality,” said Ambwani.

The other aspects that make shopping online convenient are quick delivery and return policy. But this can be a cumbersome process with furniture. Delhi-based Reena Singh, founder of Khushi Pediatric Therapy Centre, wanted to buy a green coloured bookshelf to match the colour of her organisation’s sign. Since she usually does most of her shopping (be it clothes, home appliances and gadgets) online, she thought to give furniture a go. But not only did it take a month for the bookshelf to arrive, it was in a different colour (turquoise blue). Though she immediately returned the shelf, it took another month to get the refund.

“Read product details carefully when buying online—size, material, care instructions, warranty, shipping, payment and refund. This will ensure that there is no dissonance when the product actually arrives at the customer’s home,” said Prithvi Raj Tejavath, vice-president, category management, UrbanLadder.

Also, read through customer reviews about products and the service. Try to buy from only the bigger and better known sites, especially if you are buying expensive products. Also, do keep in mind that when buying online, you will not get the delivery immediately, unlike in a physical store, where the product usually gets delivered to your house that very day.

—Tania Kishore Jaleel

(Published in MINT.)

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Fashion giants race to dress India’s sari-shunning youth

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November 6, 2015

Emily Ford, South China Morning Post
New Delhi, 6 November 2015

Rifling through sweaters in India’s first Gap store in a glitzy New Delhi mall, 21-year-old Ridhi Goel says her grandmother doesn’t mind how she dresses, as long as it’s not too revealing.

“She’s fine with me wearing Western clothes like a shirt but not jeans and a crop top,” said the journalism student, her grey leggings contrasting sharply with her mother’s colourful kurta.

“All my family wears Indian clothes, but I find them too uncomfortable. I think maybe there is a generational divide.”

Most women in India still wear traditional dress such as saris or salwar kameez – but things are changing, and on city streets, dazzling silks mingle with T-shirts and jeans.

Young people’s appetite for Western clothes has led to a flurry of foreign brands opening up in India in the past few months, including US chain Gap and Sweden’s H&M.

Others are expanding fast, including popular Spanish retailer Zara and British high-street staple Marks & Spencer, which in October opened its 50th shop in India, its biggest market outside the UK.

Urbanisation, a growing middle class, rising disposable incomes and one of the youngest populations in the world make India hard to ignore.

“The time has come for Western wear to have exponential growth,” says J. Suresh, the managing director of textile group Arvind Lifestyle Brands, Gap’s partner in India,.

“If you look at any girl born after 1990 she will be wearing Western wear. That is the generation coming into college, their first job,” he says. “They will be completely in Western wear.”

While women are the biggest shoppers, in India men’s clothing dominates, taking 42 per cent of the US38 billion market in 2014, according to consultancy Technopak. The average customer targeted by Gap in its US stores is 35, but their Indian counterpart is five to 10 years their junior, Suresh says.

Gap had a head start in India thanks to Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, whose ubiquitous orange hoodie in 1990s hit Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Something Happens) gave the brand a ready-made following.

But it is young Indian women, increasingly affluent and joining the workforce in expanding numbers, who are driving change, with data showing sales of womenswear growing faster than men’s. And while Western clothes currently make up only about a quarter of Indian womenswear, their sales are outpacing traditional dress.

A Marks & Spencer spokesperson cites its Indigo denim range and lingerie as two of its best-performing lines in the country, with more than 300,000 bras sold in 2014-15.

“As an increasing number of women move into white collar and blue-collar roles, they are also adopting Western attire,” says Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, a retail consultancy in Delhi.

More negatively, media stereotypes of overseas fashion as a proxy for “a modern thought process” and conversely, Indian clothing as “backward or repressive, certainly are an important influencer”, he says.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi is famous for wearing a short-sleeved kurta, he is in the minority among India’s men. They already dress predominantly in Western clothes, as do children, whose parents see it as a practical choice for school.

For foreign brands, fast-growing India is a welcome change from sluggish markets like Britain, and a loosening of foreign direct investment laws has made it easier to open shops. Yet the retail landscape in India – geographically about as large and diverse as the European Union – is hard to navigate, leading some entrants, including British department store Debenhams, to pull out.

“Tackling the Indian market successfully requires a different mind-set,” Dutta says.

Foreign newcomers also face competition from Indian-owned, Western-style brands such as Allen Solly or Louis Philippe, which are more familiar with the nuances of the market. The successful ones adapt their ranges – Marks & Spencer “stretches” its seasons to cater for the long Indian summer and offers polo shirts in four times as many colours as in Britain. Others aggressively cut prices.

In a country where the average monthly wage is US$215, according to 2012 figures from the International Labour Organisation, brands that are mid-market in Europe or the United States become much higher end in India.

Dressed in a pink polo shirt and jeans in the capital’s new H&M store, airline officer Sunil Bassi, 49, says he is “not fussy” about his clothes and came to shop for his wife.

“Obviously Western fashion is very popular. How many people in here do you see wearing Indian clothes?” he says.

(Published in South China Morning Post.)

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Adidas gets single-brand retail nod, to open first store next year

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November 4, 2015

Ashish K Tiwari, DNA (Daily News & Analysis)

Mumbai, 4 November 2015

Dave Thomas, managing director, Adidas Group India, said the company has been given go-ahead to introduce own retail format stores in India.

“We strongly believe own retail will enable us to take our market leadership position to an even higher level. It will give us additional flexibility to bring in global concepts across all categories in larger stores, thereby enabling us to further enhance the premium experience for our consumers,” he said, adding that the management is working towards introducing the first own Adidas retail store sometime in second half of next year.

The large format destination stores typically occupy anywhere between 3,000 sq ft to 5,000 sq ft of retail space and are generally located in high footfall locations including high streets. Taking into consideration costs associated with running such stores, retail experts estimate Adidas to invest between Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore for each store. “Based on this calculation, Adidas could be investing Rs 50-100 crore for setting up 50 to 100 large format stores,” said a retail consultant, adding that the company could also take over strategically located stores already in the franchise network to rebrand and operate them as destination stores.

The footwear company has been primarily operating in the Indian market through a network of 760 franchise retail stores (across Adidas, Adidas Originals and Reebok). While continuing to expand the franchise distribution network, the company will simultaneously work on strengthening the presence with large format stores under the Adidas brand.

“We are confident that the own retail channel plus e-commerce channel complemented by our franchise network will drive growth for our brands and our business in India,” said Thomas, adding that the total count will be taken up to 1,000 retail stores by 2020.

Devangshu Dutta, chief executive, Third Eyesight, a retail consulting firm, said the brand (Adidas) has been in the Indian market for almost two decades now and has seen the ups and downs while continuing to grow and become a leading player. “The decision to bring in FDI is a clear indication of their seriousness and commitment to the Indian market. While their retail footprint is entirely based on the franchise model, with government clearing their 100% FDI proposal now they can have better control on the market/operations,” said Dutta, adding that the company will also work on offering customers a wider assortment of products including the premium and super premium footwear.

FDI in single brand retail trade has been a heavily discussed topic over the last couple of years especially the mandatory requirement of 30% local sourcing which did not go well with the international retailing fraternity. In fact, according to industry experts the 30% local sourcing criteria has been a major hurdle for international brands to look at the 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) option for single brand retail trade in India.

“The local sourcing mandatory requirement has proved to be a huge bottleneck and that’s one key reason for international brands shying away from investing in the Indian retail industry. However, in July 2015, the Indian Government clarified its stand that foreign retailers can undertake single brand retail trading in India through one or more wholly owned subsidiaries or joint ventures in India. This came as a huge relief to many international brands intending to expand,” said Shweta Dwivedi, senior associate, Khaitan & Co.

What is seen as an important development post government nod to Adidas is that so far the FDI policy was not clear whether foreign retailers can have retail entities and franchise arrangements in parallel in India. “Reports indicate that Adidas has received approval for 100% FDI to operate retail outlets in India, and may be allowed to operate through franchise as well as retail entity route in India. If this be the case, I think this development will also motivate a lot of other international players who have been sitting on the fence to take the plunge and bring in FDI for their respective operations in India,” said Dwivedi.

With approval for 100% FDI in retail already in hand, the Adidas management’s primary focus in India will be to grow profitably and consolidate leadership position with an increased focus on the premium segment of the market. “With Adidas Originals, we are moving into the fashion and lifestyle domain, while with Adidas we will continue to look at dominating running, training and football categories. Reebok will continue to focus on the growing base of ‘fit gen’ consumers,” said Thomas.

The company will also work on augmenting the omni-channel retail approach wherein it has equipped around 150 stores with tablets that can be used to buy our products online, which are then delivered to the consumers’ homes. “We will increase the number of stores covered under omni-channel retailing to 200 by the end of this year and to 400 by April 2016,” said Thomas.

(Published in DNA.)

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Startups popularising do-it-yourself kits through their products

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October 29, 2015

Tasmayee Laha Roy, The Economic Times

Kolkata, 29 October 2015

Whether it is making your own coffee table or rustling up an exotic dish, Generation Y has taken a liking to DIY (do it yourself) kits. Helping them in this endeavour are some retail and food startups, which themselves are experimenting with the concept.

Half-year-old Bengaluru-based startup Ubyld ships close to 100 DIY furniture kits every day. Cofounder Shobha Nair said as much as 90% of its customers were women, "who take pride in making their own shelves, consoles, wine racks, coffee tables and chairs".

Priced between Rs 1,500 and Rs 3,300, the Ubyld kit comes with pre-drilled wood components, screws, screwdriver, glue and an instruction guide. The guide has a smart QR code, which when scanned with a smartphone loads a 3D view of the furniture being built.

"In an age where mass production has become a norm, DIY is a way to differentiate your product. Things like sewing kits have been around for a very long way to create customised products for the younger lot who want to fit into the crowd and stand out at the same time," said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive at retail consultancy Third Eyesight.

"Uniqueness in the product, and also the involvement that goes into making your own things, is driving the DIY craze," he added.

Delhi-based leather brand Nappa Dori has a kit for the Indian doit-youselfers who would like stitching up their own belts. This 14-element kit comes at Rs 2,800 and belt making includes everything from dying the raw strip of leather to punching holes.

Nappa Dori sells close to 20 such kits a day to customers from the three stores of the brand in Delhi and on its portal. It also ships these kits abroad where DIY is a popular concept.

DIY has most takers among gourmets, who order these kits to cook up exotic dishes and get rid of packaged food. While some of these kits offer just measured ingredients, there are others who provide partly prepped ingredients.

Let’s Chef, Hautechef and Burgundy Box are among the food startups that are working on the idea. Most of these startups also serve meal boxes.

(Published in The Economic Times.)

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Riding fast on the e-way

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September 30, 2015

Raghavendra Kamath, Business Standard
Mumbai, 30 September 2015

It might not exactly be a battle zone, but the historic south Mumbai neighbourhood of Fort recently witnessed a quiet retail war. Not very far from the Bombay High Court runs a busy street that leads to US coffee chain Starbucks’ first Mumbai store. Situated near Horniman Circle, a stone’s throw from the Bombay Stock Exchange, the store experienced quite a crowd when it first opened. Along the usually crowded street leading up to it are a dozen other shops that jostle for attention, among which is a store that has shut down and whose signboard reads ‘The Lounge’.
It’s not unusual to see a shut store in Mumbai’s many alleys and bylanes, but what’s interesting about this closed outlet is that it used to be run by one of India’s oldest and largest coffee chains — Café Coffee Day (CCD). The story goes back to October 2012, when Tata Starbucks, an equal-stake joint venture between Tata Global Beverages and Starbucks Corporation, opened its first store in India in the aforementioned locality. CCD, owned by VG Siddhartha, wanted to take the fight to the enemy camp. The Lounge was one such format aimed at countering the sophisticated look and feel of Starbucks.

The nearly 2,000 sq ft outlet clearly was no match for the global coffee giant’s maiden store. While business picked up for the new store, customers deserted CCD’s The Lounge, eventually leading to its closure sometime in mid-2014. Although Starbucks is a relative newbie on the Indian café circuit, its brand recall and growing presence — over 75 outlets in two years — is giving customers who grew up with CCD a chance to switch loyalties.

Take Ratnesh Jain, 18, a college student who keeps track of every penny he spends. Depending on how much time he has on his hands and the location that is most convenient to him, Jain picks either a CCD or Starbucks outlet to meet-up, although he says he clearly prefers Starbucks, a departure from his choice in the past. “It’s difficult to match the service and ambience of Starbucks. Not just that, Starbucks delivers value for money in terms of a better menu with larger and more delicious helpings, as compared with CCD,” reveals Jain while sitting at a CCD store in upmarket Colaba.

Jain goes on to explain, “For a very small portion of a Dark Fantasy cake, CCD charges about Rs. 100, plus extra for toppings, taking the entire bill to about Rs. 200. Starbucks, on the other hand, charges around Rs. 200 for a similar dessert and offers a much larger portion, complete with toppings.” Jain doesn’t mind that CCD doesn’t offer him free Wi-Fi, although he feels the pinch of the coffee and food not matching his palate. Many others like Jain have developed a newfound loyalty for Starbucks, where they say they find better service and ambience. “You don’t mind paying more in return for better ambience, lively atmosphere and an eclectic menu. CCD got lucky as it had a first-mover advantage and customers did not have much choice back then,” points out 20-year-old student Ketaki Sharma. She is a regular at Starbucks and spends hours working on college projects there, along with her classmates and friends.

Yet another Starbucks patron — 20-year-old Damini Kane — says there is a clear difference between the service standards of Starbucks and the rest of the café chains in India. “CCD should certainly focus on improving its menu, becoming more customer-friendly and, importantly, make its cafes more inviting,” says Kane. At a Starbucks outlet, you might find everyone from office-goers to students, tourists and the like making full use of the uninterrupted free Wi-Fi.

In response, CCD tried to field the same proposition to draw in customers and not all loyalists switched camps. Youngsters like Pakhee Malhotra are clearly not buying into Starbuck’s phoren halo. “Starbucks doesn’t sell good coffee. It sells overpriced coffee. To pop about Rs. 200 for a Grande Caramel Macchiato you must have a really rich dad. Hats off to you for drinking away money like that,” writes Malhotra in an article on iDiva. Though this counterpoint seems to favour CCD, in an age of growing competition and fickle brand loyalty, it needs to look at ways to fire up its brand pull and improve customer satisfaction. While the café chain has its task cut out when it comes to creating a great consumer experience, the 55-year-old Siddhartha deserves accolades for the manner in which he built — and, more importantly, ran profitably — an enviable coffee business for the past two decades.

Freshly ground

The idea of setting up cafés was not even on the agenda for Siddhartha, the son of a coffee plantation owner who is married to the daughter of SM Krishna, the former chief minister of Karnataka. “Getting into the coffee business was incidental. We started off exporting coffee and realised two years later that it would not take us too far,” says the reclusive billionaire as he makes himself comfortable at the Lounge outlet at Nariman Point, the central business district of Mumbai. It was in 1994 that he came across an article on a German company called Tchibo, which started off as a 10×10 store in 1949 to finally emerge as a chain of coffee retailers and cafes.

“I was inspired by that and started with 20 stores in south India selling coffee powder. In 1995, we decided to take the café route, since there was a bigger opportunity for value addition there. In the coffee powder business, the mark-up is 100%, while in the café business it is as much as 800-900%,” points out Siddhartha. Taking inspiration from how other international brands went about building their businesses, Siddhartha and his team started putting the company together.

While exports continue to be a part of the business, the coffee arm today comprises a café network, which includes the value format of CCD, The Lounge for trendy and affluent customers and The Square for coffee connoisseurs. While Lounges (between 1,000 sq ft and 1,300 sq ft) and Squares (between 2,500 sq ft and 3,000 sq ft) are located at expensive locations that attract more affluent clientele, the CCD outlets are at more affordable locations.

Besides, the company also sells vending machines to institutional and individual clients, sets up kiosks and is selling brewed coffee powder through Fresh & Ground branded outlets. (See: A distinct flavour) When CCD entered Mumbai 14 years back, it opted for smaller stores as the team wasn’t confident that the market was ready, apart from the fact that rentals were too high even back then.

“Had we opened 1,500-sq ft stores in Mumbai at that time, we would have gone bankrupt. Our key competitor at that time was paying 70% of revenue only towards rent,” points out Siddhartha. Interestingly, CCD did not opt for expanding through the franchisee route and instead chose to spend its own capital. However, to counter high rentals, it entered into revenue-sharing agreements with corporates as well as fuel stations. At present, 25% of its outlets are run on a revenue-share model.

“We have five to seven corporate relationships where we only have revenue-sharing agreements. For them, CCD becomes a complementary service,” mentions Siddhartha. Highlighting the ownership approach, the company’s draft prospectus mentions that complete ownership allows it to control all the operational aspects of its café operations, thereby, ensuring that it is able to deliver a consistent experience to its customers.

From a one-store-one-outlet (Coffee Day Cyber Café) format in Bengaluru to around 1,500 stores, CCD today has a stranglehold over the café market. Over the past two decades, quite a few players have come in and set up shop, but none could match the speed and scale at which CCD grew. Barista, which set up shop in 2000, is a distant second with 169 outlets, followed by Costa Coffee with 89 outlets.

Although Barista initially started operations with premium pricing, it rejigged its strategy mid-way, making its menu more affordable. But that has not worked for the coffee chain, which has already changed hands twice. The other fringe players in the café business include the California-based The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and home-grown Mocha. Australia’s Di Bella Coffee, which had a troubled presence in the country after exiting a JV in 2013, is now re-entering the market with a new licensee, Electel.

Putting CCD’s growth in perspective, Saloni Nangia, president, market research, Technopak Advisors, says, “Café Coffee Day had a very aggressive expansion strategy and it looked at smaller cities, too. It did not limit itself and adapted formats depending on the size of the location, thus, ending up in all sorts of nooks and corners.”

Pricing is another aspect that CCD built its plank on. For a little perspective, a small portion of cappuccino at Starbucks is priced at about Rs. 129, while it comes for Rs. 79 at a Café Coffee Day outlet. A sandwich at Starbucks, however, costs no less than Rs. 170, while at Café Coffee Day one can have it for Rs. 89. Today, unlike Starbucks, the café network has four different price points.
For instance, what it charges at an uptown Mumbai outlet will be very different from what it charges in Navi Mumbai, a Greater Mumbai Metropolitan suburb. On average, however, CCD is still the cheapest among the café and quick service restaurant (QSR) chains. “We are 57% cheaper than the competition. Will they reduce prices by 40% and still be able to pay their rentals?” quips Siddhartha. While he does have the upper hand over his rivals, CCD has its own share of problems.

Storm in a coffee cup

Over the past four years, the vertically integrated CCD has had to shut over 300 stores, even as it opened close to 700 stores over the same period. A record 175 outlets were closed in the nine months of FY15 alone . The company’s draft prospectus mentions that in 2014, it undertook a strategic review of its café network and decided to close certain cafés due to their smaller size, lower levels of performance and higher rentals on renewal of leases.

Putting the development in context, Siddhartha explains, “In Mumbai, 10-12 years ago, we took on lease 400 sq ft stores, which does not make much sense in today’s day and age. Also, ahead of the listing, we wanted to do a one-time clean-up.” Incidentally, amid the closures, CCD’s average sales per day (ASPD) per café grew by 3.9% from FY12 to FY13 and by 11% from FY13 to FY14, further increasing by 13% to Rs. 13,505 for the nine months of FY15.

With an average store size of 1,700-2,000 sq ft and average spend per person of Rs. 175-200, Starbucks delivers ASPD in the range of rs. 60,000-65,000, nearly four times that of CCD and Barista (See: Far from hot). Industry observers believe the spurt in CCD’s average customer spend could partly be because of the high level of closures in FY15 and the fact that it has opened just 79 outlets in the nine months of FY15 against 158 for the whole of FY14.

Siddhartha, however, is not giving up on his expansion plan. The company plans to spend Rs. 88 crore from the proposed IPO proceeds to set up 216 outlets and 105 kiosks by FY17. “The way I see it, India can have thousands of stores on the highways at our price point. On the Kanyakumari-Madurai highway, we have two stores; between Goa and Mangaluru, we have three. That is a very small number. We have sold 1.3 billion cups of coffee and tea this year. Over the past five years, we have grown 30% in that business. This is only the beginning of our growth story,” he avers.

However, after getting aggressive with the Lounge and Square formats to take on Starbucks, Siddhartha had to scale back his plans as he found the move unviable. According to sources, around 2011, Siddhartha wanted to have 25% of CCD’s total outlets under the Lounge and Square formats. But by 2013, realising that the capex involved for both the formats was twice that of a regular CCD outlet, Siddhartha decided to change tack.

As a result, the Lounge format is restricted to 42 stores currently and the Square format to just seven stores. Though Siddhartha is a prudent competitor, what is helping him is that other café players are happy playing second fiddle to CCD. “It is a typical expansion curve. First, you aim for scale and brand recognition and then focus on quality of profits as the model stabilises. Our expansion is now value-based and profitability-centred. It also has to do with market conditions and spending sentiment as a whole,” says Virag Joshi, president and CEO, Devyani International, which runs the Costa Coffee chain.

CCD, however, will have to counter competition that is slowly building up from QSR players such as Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s’ McCafe. Dunkin’ Donuts has opened 50 stores since its entry in 2012. In case of McDonald’s, which introduced the McCafe brand three years ago, the economics work out even better, as the new brand is run from within the existing McDonald’s outlet, thus saving on rentals.

Amit Jatia, vice-chairman, Westlife Development, the master franchisee of McDonald’s in west and south India, says, “What works for us is that we already have about 210 restaurants at prime locations in the west and south markets, with about 50-odd McCafes within them. What this format does is bring incremental revenue for us without any extra real estate costs. We already have accessibility, so what we are doing is introducing our customers to coffee and subsequently ramping the business up.” McDonald’s plans to take up the McCafe count to 70 by the end of FY16 and nearly double that number in another two years.

Jatia acknowledges that the coffee business in India is nascent but growing. What he’s betting on, however, is the potential that the category promises. “The real café chain story will unfold over the next two to three years. The market could get polarised. McCafe is not just about coffee but doubles up as a beverages platform for us as well, and we have to ramp it up quickly,” he adds.

Just like McDonald’s, Jubilant Foodworks, which introduced the Dunkin’ Donuts brand in India, sees the brand serving the dual purpose of a QSR and a café chain. Dev Amritesh, president and CEO, Dunkin’ Donuts, says, “We are in a sweet spot between a QSR and a café. This kind of positioning is very nascent and the opportunity to create an interesting experience is immense. Donuts differentiate us from the rest — the product has a strong novelty and pull factor. It complements the category, which is important to the overall business.”

Gimme more

While no one can beat CCD in terms of its scale, with Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and McCafe entering the picture, industry benchmarks have moved up significantly when it comes to customer experience. In other words, even as it has one eye on profits, Coffee Day Enterprises will have to ensure a greater consumer pull.

“It has scale but still needs to work on experience management, wherein similar customer experience is delivered across the chain. It remains to be seen how CCD will fare wherever it has multiple coffee and QSR chain brands around it,” feels Nangia.

Concurring with the view is Devangshu Dutta, chief executive, Third Eyesight, a retail consultancy. “A significant threat to older café chains lies within their own business. The biggest challenge in this sector is making sure that brand desirability, ubiquity and product-service consistency are balanced. Indian chains run the risk of becoming less desirable as compared with international brands, or may deteriorate in their product-service consistency with rapid growth.”

And while Starbucks with its limited presence may not be a challenge for now, what it has done to the detriment of CCD is that it has spoilt the consumer, especially the youth segment.

“Starbucks has made our customers more demanding. They want the experience of Starbucks at CCD prices. Today, 60% of CCD’s business is generated by repeat customers and 40% by new customers. The big challenge is getting the share of the 40% without losing the existing 60%,” says an ex-CCD employee. The challenge for Siddhartha in creating a greater consumer experience is multi-pronged, as it involves staff, the right menu mix and investing in a better ambience. Point to staff-related issues and Siddhartha says, “We have 13,500 people working for the brand. Yes, we have attrition, although employees at above-the-store level have stayed with us. At the top level, we have 700 people with an attrition of not more than 5-6%.” But the issue is with the front end, which deals with customers. “We interview 100 and shortlist 30, but at the end just 15 join us, and they, too, do not last for more than a year,” says an insider.

Siddhartha does not refute the observation. “For someone earning Rs. 10,000 per month in Mumbai and having to travel two hours to work, the quality of work is always a tricky issue. However, training can make things better.” Initially, the staff was trained for just six days, but over the past year-and-a-half, the company has adopted a policy of retraining recruits a month later, for another 10 days.

“We have a school in Bengaluru where 500 people are trained each year. If we increase our training programme from six days to three months, the quality will improve tremendously,” opines Siddhartha.

When it comes to creating a good ambience, Siddhartha says that in Mumbai alone, CCD has opened 20 stores of over 1,000 sq ft each. “These stores have a better ambience and are as good as any international cafés.”

Realising that existing cafés, too, would need sprucing up, the chain is looking to spend Rs. 60 crore on refurbishment of existing outlets, besides improving vending machines. The other critical challenge that the chain needs to work on is the inconsistency in the quality of its beverages and its limited food menu. In the cafe´ market, beverages primarily dominate the stock keeping unit and sales mix, given the nature of the coffee retail space.

For CCD, beverages contribute 61% and the rest comes from food. Starbucks, on the other hand, has an average beverage sales contribution of 53% and the rest is food. In an earlier interaction with Outlook Business, Avani Davda, CEO, Tata Starbucks, had mentioned, “Food will definitely be a key part of our business here and it is something we will focus on.” In fact, Taj Sats has helped the chain develop a menu that keeps in mind local preferences. So, there’s a cardamom-flavoured mawa croissant that Davda says has “done quite well”, besides tandoori paneer roll, murgh kathi wrap and chatpata paratha wrap, among others.

Clearly, Siddhartha realises that the café market might just be hitting escape velocity and he does not want to let go of the opportunity. “I would be kidding myself if I say I have got it 100% right. We realise we have made mistakes and will rectify that, although you must also look at great American brands and how they were placed when they were 20 years old,” smiles Siddhartha, as he eyes customers who have just made themselves comfortable at The Lounge.

(Published in Outlook Business.)