admin
February 28, 2011
Business
Standard, Mumbai, February 28, 2011
Sayantani
Kar (with inputs from Preeti Khicha)
When some of India’s big retail chains banded together recently to substitute Reckitt Benckiser’s products with private labels to protest the latter’s decision to cut sales margins on its products, they were doing something many global retailers have done with great success. Part of their overall strategy, especially for large chains in the US and Europe, is to develop quality private label products that complement other pieces in their marketing mix. While this is one way retailers can differentiate their firms from competition, it also helps them flex their muscles in their relationships with brand manufacturers. Indeed, retail giants Tesco, Walmart and Carrefour have a significant portion of their sales coming from private labels — ranging from 10 per cent for Costco and 50 per cent for Tesco.
India is a back runner in the private label race, but it is
catching up. A Shoppers Trend Study by Nielsen found awareness
about private labels has gone up from 64 per cent in 2009 to 78
per cent in 2010 across 11 cities in India. Nielsen Director (retail
services) Siddharthan Sundaram says, “Over the last three
to four months, we found an increased awareness of private labels
in categories such as staples, household products, personal care
products such as soaps, biscuits and packaged groceries.”
Thanks partly to the recent economic downturn, there is greater
acceptance — and even loyalty — to such brands in India,
say marketers. Future Group Business Head (private brands) Devendra
Chawla reasons, “A label on the shelf becomes a brand by
covering the two feet distance from the shelf to the trolley.
After all it is the consumer’s choice.” Even in the
toughest segment for private labels to crack — fast moving
consumer goods including food and personal care — store labels
claim share of 19-25 per cent.
Low-involvement categories such as household cleaners were among the first to see the entry of private labels (17-44 per cent of sale in modern trade), bringing in huge margin-lifts for modern retailers. In categories such as food products — jams, biscuits and staples — private labels today contribute more than 25 per cent of modern trade sales. Little wonder, retailers are now mining shopper data to make private labels shed their ‘low’ly tag — low involvement and low cost. Store chains are segmenting their brands according to consumer needs, combining more than one brand according to consumer behaviour, besides launching high-involvement premium products and innovative packaging to give national brands a run for their money.
Innovate or die
Retail innovation has had a big role to play in speeding up the
process of consumer acceptance. Future Group’s retail arm,
which includes Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar, calls its in-house
products ‘private brands’ not labels. It has a separate
team, headed by Devendra Chawla, to research and test FMCG products
before launch. The team has a range of private brands — Tasty
Treat, Fresh and Pure, Cleanmate, Caremate, Sach, John Miller,
Premium Harvest and Ektaa. Look at how it is using shopper data
to improve its products. The insight that kids found ketchup bottles
cumbersome and had to be served — making it inconvenient
if an adult was not around — led it to change the packaging
that in turn gave the brand a margin advantage. By offering ketchup
in pouches, it saved on the price of the glass bottle and freight
(pouches take up less space in a truck, hence more can be fitted
in). While ketchup in glass bottles continue to be Rs 99 for a
kilo, its Tasty Treat ketchup pouches come in Rs 59 packs.
By working with vendors it has also come up with interesting combinations — for example, its Tasty Treat jam has three small tubs packed as one unit, each tub containing a different flavour to offer consumers larger variety.
Retailers have now donned the hats of “product selectors” and “product developers” at the same time, points out Third Eyesight CEO Devangshu Dutta. “So far, most of the retailers were just selecting products from vendors which are mostly lower-priced knock-offs of manufacturer brands,” he says. Not any more.
Ashutosh Chakradeo, head (buying, merchandising and supply chain), HyperCity Retail, explains the process his company follows: “To develop food products, we identify vendors, tie up with food laboratories, chefs and consumers to be part of the tasting panels. Before launching a private label we do at least a month of consumer testing. We identify customers from our loyalty programme called Discovery Club, which tells us who buys a certain category of product. We give the relevant consumers our private label products for trial for a month. We meet the customers at their homes, take their feedback and these changes are incorporated into the private label brand.”
“Our stores act as research labs and are a constant source of feedback,” points out Chawla of Future Group. Chawla estimates 3-4 per cent of the sales of private labels are ploughed back into packaging and design innovation. Reliance Retail CEO Bijou Kurien says, “The teams are our main investment in private labels. Our 100-strong designers across all the formats help in coming up with product designs that fill a need gap or offer a few more features at the same price as national brands.” Reliance Retail has recently launched its own brand of watches priced Rs 149-199 which “no national player can offer” points out Kurien.
The edge
Most vendors directly supply to retailers’ distribution centres,
cutting out cost leakage at the distributor’s and carrying
and forwarding centres. Direct access to store shelves and aisles
also cuts out the high mainstream advertising costs that brands
have to bear. By clever product arrangements and in-store promotions,
retailers can sway the shopper and draw attention to the price
advantage. Chakradeo says, “We display private labels in
heavy footfall areas in the store. We complement displays —
so we keep our private label ketchup near the bakery.”
To tackle the tricky personal care category of face creams and shampoos that Aditya Birla Retail’s More chain has entered, it plans to communicate promotional offers straight to its loyalty programme members. “It will help us induce trials,” says Thomas Varghese, More’s CEO.
Bundling products is another way to woo the value-conscious consumer. Six months back, Future Group started bundling its private brands. Chawla says, “Take home-cleaning, which requires a floor cleaner, glass cleaner, toilet cleaner and utensil cleaner which we combined as a shudhikaran solution of our Cleanmate brand.” The combi-pack costs Rs 125, which would come to around Rs 220-250 if shoppers bought a la carte. The margins are still high at 26 per cent. “Vendors are assured of volumes,” points out Chawla.
What it also does is convert the fence-sitter who has not yet bought into a category. For example, consumers who avail of the shudhikaran solution also get into the habit of using glass cleaners — a category which has a small base and gets most of its sales from modern trade. Similarly, Future Group saw a 25 per cent spurt in the sales of soups when it clubbed soup mugs with its Tasty Treat soup packets based on the insight that Indians preference to sip their soup out of a coffee mug.
Don’t be surprised if you see MNC brands coming out with combo-offers for their products, way bigger than the occasional bucket with a detergent!
Growing up
There are signs the industry is evolving. Private labels in FMCG
are shedding their low-cost tags. But retailers know better than
to vacate low price-points altogether. Instead, they are segmenting
their brands just as a manufacturer brand would do. Chakradeo
of Hypercity says, “Over a period, we hope to increase the
stickiness and the differentiation our brands bring to our stores.
Particularly, in staples where we have seen our private label
business grow rapidly. This is a very quality and price-sensitive
category. We started with basic products but now we have premium
daals (lentils) and basmati rice as part of our portfolio.”
Future Group too has its ‘good, better, best’ policy firmly in place. In staples, the stores offer some products ‘loose’, such as rice, wheat, lentils, which is at the bottom of the ladder. Its Food Bazaar version of the products straddle the middle category, and above the two is its brand, Premium Harvest, which retails at a price higher than some manufacturer brands.
Stickiness may also result from the manner in which retailers are positioning their brands. Future Group’s brand Ektaa will retail regional food and staples across its stores in the country so that migrants can buy supplies they are comfortable with. Be it Govindbhog rice and kasundi (a rice variety and mustard sauce preferred by Bengalis), khakra (Gujarati snack) or murukku (loved by Tamilians). Boston Consulting Group Partner & Director Abheek Singhi says, “Indian retailers are not cut-pasting private label products from other markets but adapting them.”
Are private labels a risk worth taking? Chakradeo says, “The entire product formulation for our cleaners was done in partnership with Dow Chemicals, USA. We did not make any investment and we gave them a percentage of sales as fee. Investments are not huge in making private labels as in most cases it is partnered with vendors. It is more of operating expenses than capital expenditure.”
Future Group brought down logistics costs further by 6-8 per cent by appointing vendors in more than one region for 10 of its product categories to fill its distribution centres. Chakradeo adds, “As the volumes go up, we will be able to put up for backend infrastructure facilities for development and R&D.”
Should national brands be worried? Devangshu Dutta says, “As long as retailers have access to the production and development and have customers for it, the private labels will remain profitable.” India Equity Partners Operating Partner V Sitaram sums up, “In modern trade, though the market leaders will face some slip in market share, the number 3 or 4 brands might have a bigger problem in certain categories thanks to private labels.”
As retailers leverage consumer insights to deploy private labels more effectively, national brands are aggressively fighting the challenge. From sprucing up supply chains to galvanising in-store promotions, they are covering all bases. KPMG Executive Director Ramesh Srinivas says, “Earlier brands had to adjust between a modern trade and a general trade supply chain. The former had to be serviced directly at the stores or had their own supply chain while the latter used the manufacturer’s supply chain. Now, some brands separate modern trade teams and even distributors.”
Britannia Category Director (delight and lifestyle) Shalini Degan says, “We have divided our portfolio into three categories, A,B,C, each having its benchmark fill-rate. We don’t allow fill-rates to drop below those levels. Why the segmentation? We need to focus on brands which have a higher traction in modern trade when servicing it, else we might end up focusing on brands that are not modern trade-led.”
Fill-rates denote how often and to what accuracy the retailer’s orders for a product are supplied by the manufacturer. Low fill-rates could mean lost opportunity since the shopper sees an empty shelf or a private label instead of the brand she might have thought of picking up.
Samsung Vice-President and Business Head (home appliances) Mahesh Krishnan says, “We have gone in for central billing system 4-5 months back with all large-format retailers. Orders are tracked on a daily basis giving retailers more control over the chain.”
In other words, private labels are here to stay and will evolve as more and more chains gain national footprint and the economies of scale kick in. Dutta of Third Eyesight says, “Gross margins for organised retailers are still low compared to global standards: So, margin fights will continue for some time till retailers gain a bigger share of the pie.”
(Also read: The Private Label Maturity Model.)
admin
February 23, 2011
REUTERS,
Mumbai, 23 Feb 2011
Swati
Pandey
The textile industry has sought measures to boost exports of apparels and textile products in a cost-competitive market and easier access to funds for cotton buyers as it peaks in a year of global shortage.
The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) has also sought the restoration of drawback rates as "our textile products are facing tough competition in global markets."
"There is an opportunity for taking up market share because costs in China have risen considerably and buyers are shifting some of the sourcing to other parts," said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive, Third Eyesight, a textile consultancy.
"We should be looking at encouraging conversion of raw material within the country. Far too much export is weighted towards raw material and intermediate products," he added.
The government has restricted exports of cotton yarn at 720 million kg for 2010/11 season that began on Oct. 1.
India’s apparel exports volume may crimp by at least 15 percent in FY11 as sky-rocketing cotton prices shrivel demand.
U.S. cotton futures early this month rallied to a record high of $2.1102 per lb. While cotton prices in India are still near a record high touched on Feb 10.
One export sop would be the re-introduction of Section 80 HCC, which exempt income from exports, Manish Mandhana, managing director of Mandhana Industries, said.
"Boosting the cost competitiveness of Indian products in the U.S. and EU markets" is what the industry needs, he added.
CITI also wants that working capital for cotton purchase to textile mills be given at lower margins, cheaper rates and a longer credit-period.
"Given that the situation is not very good because of cotton prices," said R.K. Dalmia, president, Century Textiles, "They should have a sympathetic view of the industry."
CITI wants the government to abolish duties on all machinery for textile and clothing industry until domestic industry is able to supply products of global standards.
It also wants more allocation under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) for FY11 and FY12 in order to avoid delay in disbursements.
TUFS, under which textile units can avail loans at concessional rates, has been suspended as funds earmarked for the eleventh plan period has been already been utilised in the first three years.
(Editing by Harish Nambiar)
admin
February 14, 2011
Businessworld,
February 14, 2011
Vishal
Krishna
Shoppers Stop (SSL) has topped the list of the Most Respected Companies in the retail category for the third year in a row. The company, which started as a small retail outfit in 1991, now has 34 stores across 13 cities in the country. It has been rated No. 1 by its peers in all categories except one. While the rating on quality of its management, innovativeness, products and services, ethics, people management and global competitiveness are higher than all its competitors, it is second to Pantaloon Retail in financial performance.
“Shoppers Stop has been built brick by brick by passionate and committed people who have always gone one step forward in serving our customers,” says B.S. Nagesh, who spearheaded the company for 17 years and now continues to mentor the top management as the vice-chairman. The customer focus is reflected in its financial results. Though it suffered a loss of Rs 81 crore in 2008-09 due to low buyer sentiment thanks to the global recession, it turned around in 2010, ending the year with a profit of Rs 50 crore. “Our focus on systems, processes and best practices has helped us achieve the best results,” says Govind Shrikhande, managing director of Shoppers Stop. He says that differential positioning, good merchandise range, service and ambience have helped the company remain connected with customers. Adds Nagesh: “For me the test of what I have built over the years is customer satisfaction and the continuing performance in the current year.”
In the third quarter of 2010-11, SSL generated a turnover of Rs 515.9 crore and a net profit of Rs 27.9 crore, a 24 per cent and 45 per cent jump, respectively, over the third quarter figures of 2009-10. And in the nine months of the fiscal, revenues have risen 24 per cent to Rs 1,401.5 crore and net profits, 63 per cent to Rs 55.2 crore.
Shoppers Stop’s success can be partly credited to some key strategic decisions taken by the company, including its focus on sharing sales data with merchants and suppliers. Once this data was made available, merchants realised that since buying patterns were different across locations, they had to stock particular items at particular stores and locations, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and sales. Earlier, in the absence of robust data, buyer behaviour was unpredictable. But now, the number of members in its loyalty programme, First Citizen, has increased to over 1.8 million (and contributes 73 per cent to sales). With such data, SSL is able to understand what will sell where and what won’t. This has led to lower inventory and higher margins.
SSL works on two models. Under the buyout model, which contributes 60 per cent of revenues, apparel is bought from brand owners at factory price and the inventory is solely managed by SSL. Second model is the consignment model where the vendors themselves manage the inventory. This model is fast picking up.
“Retail as an industry has been recovering and this is partly related to reduced rentals and better inventory management,” says Devangshu Dutta, CEO of Third Eyesight, a retail consulting firm.
SSL has renegotiated rentals on all its properties and now the company follows a revenue sharing model with the builders.
Its EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) increased by 28 per cent to Rs 42.71 crore in the third quarter of 2010-11. “A fall in property prices was the key, and retail sentiment has also picked up,” says Shrikhande.
The company has several other points to its credit. In mid-2010, it acquired a 51 per cent stake in HyperCity, a food retail format. Currently, it has seven stores of this format and each is around 75,000 sq. ft. SSL plans to increase the number of HyperCity stores to 26 in the next four years. The current investment in this format is Rs 61 crore.
SSL also has different retail subsidiaries catering to various needs. There’s HomeStop, a home décor format with four stores in three cities, and Arcelia, another retail format with one store in Pune. The company has also moved into specialty retailing. Mothercare, a maternity, infant care store was started as an exclusive franchise agreement for departmental stores with Mothercare UK. Currently there are 28 stores of Mothercare (including eight standalone stores) across 11 cities. Then there’s Crossword, SSL’s bookstore, which has 33 outlets across the country. The company also set up MAC, a high-end cosmetics store, a couple of years ago in a retail agreement with Estee Lauder. At present there are 15 MAC stores in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Amritsar, Chennai and Hyderabad. Under cosmetics, SSL has also another brand called Clinique, which has seven stores at present.
SSL is also betting big on airport retailing. It has one store at Hyderabad’s domestic airport and two at Bangalore’s domestic airport. Besides, two duty free stores are run by the JV company Nuance Group at the Bangalore international airport. However, airport retailing is yet to break even.
Not all decisions made my SSL in the past have paid off. The company has made its share of mistakes. It introduced catalogue retailing through Argos and entered into a joint venture with the UK-based retailer. However, this did not succeed and SSL wrote off losses of Rs 35 crore. Then four of its small-format food retail stores, ExpressCity, shut down within months in 2007-08.
Currently, the challenge for SSL is to keep its rivals — Lifestyle and Pantaloon — at bay. These companies have a higher share of private labels, especially Pantaloon, which boasts a 75 per cent private label collection. Then there is Lifestyle, which follows a similar model as SSL but has been rapidly expanding and increasing its private label collection to more than 25 per cent. SSL, too, expects private label sales of more than 25 per cent this year. Shoppers Stop has positioned itself as a premium retailer and so is in direct competition with Lifestyle, which is a close second in the BW list.
SSL will need to draw on its 20 years of experience and continue to innovate to stay ahead.
No 2: Lifestyle International MD Kabir Lumba’s Lifestyle has a strong merchandising team and a great product range.
No 3: Pantaloon Retail Kishore Biyani, MD, will focus on the aspiring Indian rather than the Indian who has higher income
(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 14-02-2011.)
admin
January 27, 2011
Business
Standard, Mumbai January 27, 2011
Raghavendra
Kamath
Star Bazaar, the chain run by Tata-owned Trent Hypermarket, says it used the economic slowdown to book properties when prices were down, allowing it now to open more stores.
Rentals of retail properties were 30-35 per cent lower than their
peak during the economic slowdown of 2008-09, as retailers shut
stores and scaled back their expansion due to lower footfalls.
Starting the first store in Ahmedabad in 2004, Trent Hypermarket
runs 10 Star Bazaar stores and plans to double the count by the
end of 2011. Hypermarkets are larger versions of supermarkets,
mostly stocking food and grocery, apparel and general merchandise,
among other products.
“We have a good property team. Our team quickly went and seized the opportunities during the slowdown,” said Jamshed Daboo, chief executive officer of Trent Hypermarket.
Trent Hypermarket did a turnover of Rs 289.7 crore in 2009-10, with a net loss of Rs 29.1 crore. Last year, on the sidelines of Trent’s annual general meeting, chief financial officer P Venkatesalu said the company expected a break-even for Star Bazaar at the company level after it attained a critical mass of 25 stores.
The late hypermarket entrants such as Reliance Retail and Aditya Birla Retail came much later but have opened a similar number, or more, of stores. Aditya Birla, which opened its first megastore in 2009, in Aurangabad, today runs nine hypermarkets. It wants to open seven-eight new stores every year. Reliance Retail, which opened first hypermarket in 2007 in Ahmedabad, today operates 18, under the Reliance Mart label.
In 2008, Noel Tata, the then managing director of Trent, the parent of Trent Hypermarkets, said the company planned to invest Rs 2,000 crore to set up 50 hypermarkets in five years. The same year, Trent entered into an exclusive franchise agreement with UK’s retail giant, Tesco, to access the latter’s expertise in supply chain, marketing, stock management and retail information, among others.
“Our essential game plan is to be the best hypermarket chain, not the largest. All our efforts are to simplify operations and make it foolproof to improve profitability," Daboo said at the Retail Leadership Summit organised by Retailers Association of India last week in Mumbai.
Star Bazaar stores are about 70,000 sq ft each. Other retailers such as Hypercity are also planning to open stores in that range to optimise space utilisation.
Retail consultant Devangshu Dutta, who works with many national and international retailers, does not think Star Bazaar’s slower pace of growth is an issue. “Every business has its own logic and plans. As long as they achieve their targets, they are a success. In the retail business you can pump a lot of money; stores can bleed for years. In the last five years, many retailers have lost money and have had to scale back," Dutta says.
An executive from Trent said the company’s conservative strategy paid off, as it remained profitable during the slowdown and did not close a single store. Others — Reliance Retail, Aditya Birla, Spencer’s, etc closed over 300 stores, mostly supermarkets, to stem losses during the slowdown.
“We were fortunate in the first cycle and have learnt our
lessons. We have calibrated our growth,” Daboo said at the
summit. Apart from introducing a live kitchen in its stores, the
chain has introduced Tesco’s store brands in personal care, health
and beauty and food in its stores. Star Bazaar will launch more
products of Tesco, Daboo said.
admin
January 14, 2011
Bangalore,14 January, 2011, The Times of India
Shilpa Phadnis
FMCG major Britannia Industries on Thursday entered the Rs 500-crore (Rupees 5 billion) branded breakfast space dominated by players like MTR Foods, Kellogg India, PepsiCo and Marico. The company has launched Britannia Healthy Start, a range of ready-to-cook breakfast mixes consisting of upmas, pohas, porridges and oats.
The company said the breakfast range is fortified with multi-grains, vegetables, pulses and nuts and takes only 5 minutes to cook. It is priced between Rs 33 and Rs 45 for 150-170 gm packets.
Britannia is focused on healthy snacking options, and the company sees this move as a natural extension of its biscuits and bakery product line. "Our research showed that Indian consumers wanted breakfast solutions that combined convenience, health and taste," said Vinita Bali, MD of Britannia Industries.
Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of retail consultancy firm Third Eyesight, said changing lifestyles and eating habits was creating an opportunity for ready-to-eat/cook players. "This space is seeing a lot of action because of the migrant working population. There is room to supplement the breakfast solution segment," he said.
Breakfast mixes are seen to fit into the consumer’s aspiration as an enabler. Vikran Sabherwal, VP-marketing in MTR Foods, said, "Customers want valued-added solutions in the kitchen. For instance, a housewife doesn’t want ready-to-eats as a solution. She wants that headroom to add value to the dish." MTR offers six varieties of breakfast mixes, including uttappam, rava dosa, rava idly and upma.
Pinakiranjan Mishra, who leads Ernst & Young’s retail & consumer product practice, pointed out that Western breakfast foods like cereals and oat meal took time to penetrate the Indian market, but are now well established. "Homegrown companies are now differentiating in this segment with tasty and no cholesterol or preservative offerings," he said.
Marico recently entered the branded breakfast space with Saffola
Oats and cereal maker Kellogg India launched Heart to Heart oats.
