By Vishal Krishna Businessworld, January 23, 2010 An upwardly mobile population makes Bangalore's suburb Jaya-nagar a lip-smacking catchment area for organised retailers. The significance of this 'must-have' location was not lost on Indian retail's biggies Reliance Retail, Big Bazaar, Aditya Birla Group and Spencer's Retail. By 2007, all four had already set up 5,000-6,000 sq. ft supermarkets in the area. But the stores were still to break even when they had to deal with a new contender. Dubai-based Micky Jagtiani's Landmark Group started its 70,000 sq. ft hypermarket in collaboration with Dutch retail chain Spar in the locality in 2007.…
A recent experience with one of the quick service restaurants took me back to my post-graduate class of Consumer Service Standards. We studied five essential elements of service standards, which are: A Charter of Service, including a description of the service the retailer intends to provide and, where applicable, the benefits customers are entitled to receive; Service Pledges, focusing on such elements as openness, fairness, courtesy, professionalism, etc.; Specific Delivery Targets for key aspects such as timeliness, access and accuracy; The Delivery Costs; and Redressal Mechanisms that customers can use when they feel standards have not been met. The last,…
By Tarang Gautam Saxena, Chandni Jain and Neha Singhal In Retrospect While India was a promising market to many international brands, it was not completely immune from the global economic flu. More than its primary impact on the economy, the global downturn sobered the mood in the consumer market. Even the core target group for international brands, that had just begun to splurge apparently without guilt, tightened their purse strings and either down-traded or postponed their purchases. In 2008 in the midst of economic downturn, skepticism and uncertainty, the international fashion brands had continued to enter India at nearly the…
If we were to look at phrases that have cropped up during the recent recessionary times in the consumer goods sector, “private label” has to be among those at the top of the list. From clothing to cereals, toothpaste to televisions, there is hardly a category that has not seen retailers trying their hand at creating own labelled products. The first motivation for most retailers to move into private label is margin. On first analysis, it appears that the branded suppliers are making tons of extra money by being out there in front of the consumer with a specific named…
Prompted by an article in the New York Times, Bernice Hurst, Contributing Editor of RetailWire, brought up an interesting subject to discuss - the tradition of small, independent retailers on Manhattan's Lower east side, their survival despite the recession, and their determination to thrive. One of the retailers interviewed for the article said that the business was "so much fun". In referring to the kind of products she was developing said, "there are no boundaries to these things". Imagination may have no boundaries, but markets always do. When you're small fry the pond seems limitless. And if all is in harmony (no…
Geopolitical friction has again sparked renewed concerns over inflation and rising input costs for FMCG companies as @itmeansjustice @whysnavi write. @devangshu commented.
