By Gouri Shah LIVEMINT.com (A Wall Street Journal Partner) Fri, Jul 24 2009 After making their debut on television ads during the Indian Premier League earlier this year, the lovable egg-headed Zoozoos quickly made their way onto comic strips, newspaper mastheads, birthday cakes, wedding cards, shoes, T-shirts, key chains and even rakhis, as clever local and Chinese marketeers cashed in on their popularity with fans. Now, creator Vodafone Essar Ltd is planning to launch official Zoozoo merchandise with retail chain Shopper’s Stop Ltd. “We are in discussions and are very close to signing the deal,” said a senior official from…
By Sruthijith K K, ET Bureau THE ECONOMIC TIMES New Delhi 23 July, 2009 Wadhawan Retail has decided to shut its Spinach food and grocery stores, multiple people familiar with the development, including one senior executive of the group, said. Most of the 45 Spinach outlets will down shutters by the end of this month and many suppliers have snapped their relationship with the company because of huge outstanding bills, several current and former company executives said. About 600 employees are likely to be affected by the development, they said. Spinach has some 35 stores in Mumbai and about 10…
By Priya Kapoor MoneyToday July 20, 2009 Convenience and low prices are spurring an increasing number of Indians to purchase goods and services through the Internet. The innovations in securing online transactions are also fuelling the trend . Sandhya Kaushik, a 32- year- old healthcare professional, bought a kitchen appliance online and saved nearly Rs 800. It wasn’t a one- off purchase, or the first time she had done so. Kaushik has been a regular on the online circuit for the past two years. Her purchases range from kitchen items and educational toys for her children to books and flowers.…
By Diwakar Kumar indiaretailing.com 20, July 2009 The primary challenge in food retail, no doubt, is its supply chain, which is making things difficult for retailers and food processors to procure quality produce at competitive costs directly from farmers in India. Last year at the India Retail Forum held in Mumbai, this prime challenge was centrestage for retailers to sidestep efficiency bottlenecks of the modern marketplace. The Indian supply chain for fresh and processed food is extremely poor and characterised by panoptic wastage and poor handling. A food retailer's supply chain must be short and tightened by professionally-drawn efficient practices…
The grocery market is loud. From the times when food markets were in streets and town squares, hawkers have cried out their wares, and the freshness or newness of everything made evident to the customers passing by. So, I guess, it is no surprise that today’s FMCG and food market is also tuned to high-decibel promotion. You don’t need to search too long for the reason - margins are generally thin on these frequent-use products and inventories need to move fast. And what you don’t make a noise about may not be visible to the customer and may remain unsold.…
Geopolitical friction has again sparked renewed concerns over inflation and rising input costs for FMCG companies as @itmeansjustice @whysnavi write. @devangshu commented.
