Bharti retail is to roll out supermarkets of about 40,000 square feet to add to the already running convenience store business in Punjab.The company is not planning to open any more formats outside Punjab and Haryana this year and we will have to wait for its hypermarkets for the next year.
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Wal Mart has done away with its old logo and got a new fresh look. The sharp capital letters and pointed star have given way to softer rounded letters and a flower. The same flower can be seen in the Bharti Easy day's logo.The new logo was officially unveiled on June 30. It'll roll out across US in the fall. But it was already , in one way , launched in India with the launch of the easy day chain. This logo change is a part of the bigger exercise of the store's image revamp.The logo reminds you of flowers or sunshine. Is Wal Mart trying to portray the image of an environment friendly retailer?
Some branding design experts think the new logo is just a new logo and nothing more. "Will the logo help purge brand baggage? Will it make them cool? Not really," says Andrew Bogucki, principal at consulting company Corebrand in New York.
And this time, its Reliance Energy. They have a clever mechanism of making profits. They steal Re 1-2 from electricity bills, unimaginable!
I have credit card and bank account statements that depict discrepancies in my electricity bills payments. I pay the entire amount and still every month there is a positive net-previous balance of Re 1-2. Now for an individual, it is a petty amount. But in case they do that to all their 25 m consumers, they could easily be making a handsome profit of 50 m-all out of stealing the poor consumers' money who anyways is bogged by their sky-high prices.
Though this is a digression from the blog's theme, but its a matter I wanted to bring to everybody's attention . Its high time Reliance and the Ambani brothers start operating in professional manner. Being a TATA employee, one can understand my overt passion for ethics and CSR. But that doesn't discount Reliance's proven track record of cleverly stealing money from the consumer's pockets.Earlier it was with Reliance Mobile and now its Energy that I've noticed.
As we say...." With Reliance, experience (un)certainty!"
The aviation sector in India is growing at 35 per cent over a period of six years against the 9 per cent per annum growth witnessed globally. Latest entrant riding on the back of this growth is the retail sector.
Travel retail is the next wave of retail revolution in India. This is apart from the duty-free shops that have been present since long. Busy schedules, long waiting hours, increasing traffic, rising consumption levels, airport privatization and growing retail industry have led to several top retailers cashing on this market.
Nuance from Switzerland and UK's Alpha Retail have tied up with Shoppers' Stop and the Future group, for airport retailing in India. As airports have the advantage of 24-hour activity with very high people traffic, they are crucial locations for next generation retail and entertainment centers as well as business and hospitality zones.
Globally airports derive a large portion of their income from non-aeronautical revenue sources; Heathrow, San Francisco, Vancouver and Brisbane bring in as much as 50 per cent of their revenues from retail and other non-aeronautical resources. Airports in India today sell everything from pen to hair dryers , from flowers to PC.
According to Cushman & Wakefield, Airport Realty Report, approximately 78 million square feet of real estate space, across retail, commercial and hospitality, can be expected in the country by 2015 with the modernisation and upgradation of the 47 airport projects. These projects cover a total of approximately 40,000 acres of airport area, including 40 brownfield and 7 greenfield projects across tier I, II and III locations of India.
Wonder what retailers benefit ?
- Opportunity for marketers to connect with the SEC-A crowd as they comprise a bulk of travelers.
- Opportunity to experience the brand.
- High visibility Customer profile
- Time spent at airport: 71% of travelers spend one hour or more in the airport complex prior to departure, while 75% or more spend at least 30 minutes post arrival.
- Purchase category: The IMRB study also says that 42% of airline travelers frequently make purchases at stores or restaurants within the airport.
- Segment characteristics: 99% of airport travelers own mobile phones, 71% own credit cards, 42% own home audio systems, 41% own automobiles and 32% own diamond jewellery.
- Advertising response: 75% of travelers look at advertising displays at airports, and 73% of travelers can be reached at least once during a three-month airport advertising campaign.
- Advertising media: The study also reveals that the kind of advertising likely to catch attention are back-lit displays (up to 68%), TV (up to 56%), scrollers (up to 40%), trivisions (up to 26%) and kiosks (up to 24%).
- Airport revenue split: food & beverages (40%) and merchandised retail (57%) contribute the bulk of non-aeronautical revenues at Mumbai airport.
With expected traffic to increase to 40 million by 2012-13 at Mumbai airport and country’s total international passenger boarding to increase to 45 million by 2010, airport retail is here to say for sure.
Only the logo has. Out of curiosity to check out the changes as per the new campaign, I visited the store at Inorbit , Malad. The logo has definitely become bolder and the campaign has got some attention back to the retailer. But the exercise doesn’t seem to have delivered anything more. Nothing else in the store appeared to have changed. The target audience was still the same, though I saw a couple of kids there, but they all were Singaporean tourists. Nor did anything bring out the kid in me. The only change I found was one small cool summer campaign where coconut water was served to every customer who purchased a pair of sunglasses.
is now 
Shoppers Stop undoubtedly is one of the leading retailers and the most successful department store in India. Now they have entered a major re-branding exercise . Will the logo change do wonders for them.? BSN , the CEO wants to target the Indian youth and change the image of SS as a mom n dad's store. Well personally i never felt it was a mom-dad store.. but then I reminded myself..I am not the youth he probably wants to target.
I liked the earlier logo much more..but till the time shopping_experience @SS doesn't detiorate , I dont mind any changes. Will the youth be impressed? We'll have to wait -n-watch.
Some ideas for global retailers to tackle competition in India -
1. Partner mom – n pop stores – retailers can offer franchise rights to local retailers for operating neighbourhood markets. This has a dual advantage –
a. In this scheme the local retailers retain their jobs and hence do not object to the international retailers’ entry.
b. This provides the retailers access to mass markets at faster pace and lesser cost.
The international players can take reap the benefits of the expertise, knowledge and experience of the local retailers in operating in that market.
2. Strategies to combat political opposition – to avoid fuelling the ongoing furor over FDI in retail, international players must -
b. Avoid violating laws and regulations
c. Practice CSR- international retailers are already under clout for tweaking the FDI norms to find enter the Indian market. To gain the confidence of politicians and general public, these players must contribute to the society and practice social development.
d. Keep a low profile in the country and keep politicians at bay
3. Don’t exert margin pressures on suppliers – international retailers, especially Wal-Mart, are known for exerting excessive pressure on suppliers to provide goods at wafer-thin margins. Wal-Mart has already burnt hands with this policy in the U.S. It is much criticised for being responsible for losses to suppliers. If it does the same in India, it will face political opposition.
Retailers must find others ways like and lifestyle retailing to make up for the margin difference.
Global retailers looking to make a foray or already having a presence in India can find the below strategies useful to lure the Indian consumer
- Hypermarkets must target families: unlike US where individuals purchase from hypermarkets, in India a visit to the hypermarket is a family outing. Hence retailers must target families as a whole. Also by doing so the retailers would gain from more purchase per footfall (considering the family as one unit).
- Store accessibility: the nearer the store, better it is. Retailers must assure they are within convenient reach of the consumer. To better reach the customer they can open outlets in places where products can be picked on the way back home from offices. In fact stores can be opened in commercial complexes also to target the workingwomen. This is particularly necessary for grocery and general merchandise stores.
- Introduce international labels: the Indian consumer, especially the aspiring middle class; is obsessed with the western culture and brands. They would naturally expect the global retailers to bring in western products to the country. These international brands would differentiate the product offerings of the global and domestic players. They would also provide better margins to retailers.
- Keep them involved - keep the customers involved with the stores,increase the footfalls. When an Indian customer comes to the store, he generally ends up buying something or the other, more so if children accompany him. It is a general practice in India for parents to buy something (normally snacks and desserts) for their children. Even if they don’t purchase general merchandise, the kids will surely be tempted to buy some eatables. Also parents feel guilty when they eat out without their children. This shows the importance of attracting children or parents with young children to the store.
The retailers must keep the consumers highly involved with their stores. A case in point is the latest Big Bazaar exchange scheme. One can exchange any old thing for anything new from the store and get the difference waived off. Another case is of Wal-Mart’s in-store events like the teacher of the year award.
- Keep waiting time low – this is the chink in the armour of many supermarkets and hypermarket in the country. Time spent in taking the shopping cart and at billing counter must be reduced as far as possible.
- In-store events: Introduce innovative in-store events especially in hypermarkets. These though are not very commonplace in India but have a great potential of attracting customers, especially women and children.
- Provide modern store amenities and ambience: retailers must provide amenities likeescalators, lifts, clean and adequate restrooms, presence of information kiosks, entertainment facilities for children, good fire safety equipments, presence of bank ATMs, electronic communication facilities like internet café, telephone booths. The stores especially hypermarkets and supermarkets are crowded, congested and suffocating. Retailers must provide appropriate ambience especially in these formats.
- The right shopping experience: There is already a strong trend in favour of large format retail outlets, in both food and non-food sectors, as people are showing preference for one-stop shops. Customers are also looking for ambience and convenience in shopping. In the future, with more dual income families, the consumer ability to spend will increase, but at the same time, it is predicted that the time available for shopping will go down. In such a scenario, the retailers will have to increasingly develop shopping as an experience and at the same time, the more successful ones will be those that provide faster service.
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