The piper at the gates of dawn

Couple of weeks back, news flashed on my PC "Public issue of Vishal Retail has received tremendous response from investors. Overall, the issue oversubscribed 81 times."
And few months back, when Vishal Retail issued details about its IPO it made no news. People still did not know about the company and only few had seen its stores. But it pulled-off beautifully in the end and now its 81 times oversubscribed.
Sir Terry Leah, TESCO's chief executive once said " In retailing, there aren't huge barriers to entry. That's one of the reasons you cant hang around and trial this thing. You have to launch & go". Same was the case with Vishal. With one store in mid 1980s, now it has grown into 51 stores in 39 different cities. And good to see them launch at right time and so going will be good. There is a saying wrt war- If you are not on table, then you are on menu. I see that Vishal did not want to be in menu.It wanted to be in war and so it's battlefield response was a smooth display of combined operation - good development in recent years, open minded,took risks.

I had a chance to visit one of its stores in Pune. The store needs lot of improvement in its clothing section. The last floor was one of the best I have ever seen in any store.

Coming soon : SD's retail tale for Vishal megamart(VM)

The grass is greener, the light is brighter - Part II

Its been raining cat / dogs / elephants in Pune. So magazines and books are best way to spend time. I did not get chance to go out and visit any retail store this weekend. But will continue on Big Bazaar(BB) and its tale.
BB's tale:
BB looks strongly positioned in war. Uncertainty over how long it can last as king will depend on its efforts in near future. But for now it's overall rating stands at 8 out of 10. As doctors say "when weakness attacks the body, it goes to the weakest part", BB should try and work on it's non-profitable sections and turn it into most profitable section. And I believe, its clothing section is pretty useless. Wasting an entire floor on its own brand of clothes(very cheap quality) seems confusing. So guys, get it out !

The grass is greener, the light is brighter

Floyd's song 'High Hopes' has these wonderful lines :

The grass was greener

The light was brighter

The taste was sweeter

The nights of wonder

With friends surrounded

The dawn mist glowing

The water flowing

The endless river

Forever and ever

The song is all about things one may have gained and lost in life. All the lines just hit the right chord when one thinks of his/her own past. Same is the case with Big Bazaar(BB) and in the past it has done all right things. For it, grass "was" greener and still continues to be. Its the way the store is designed and managed , which attracts people.

BB was among the firsts to enter India's retail war . I haven't done any R&D to explain what BB might have done to do so well, but I believe it carries out an immense amount of market research, so that it gets under the skin of its customers. If that is the case, I think BB is winning the war .Also if it goes where others have been sorry to have trodden and test some new paths which Indian consumers like, then we surely have the winner in form of BB.

The song ,HIGH HOPES' best lines are

Encumbered forever by desire and ambition

There's a hunger still unsatisfied

Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon

Though down this road we've been so many times

BB is encumbered by desire and ambition to be the leader and though it is now, its hunger is still unsatisfied.

SD's retail tale for BB looks good but as always it has its own good/bad/ugly areas.

Wearing the inside out

"Wearing the inside out" is song from Pink Floyd's album "The division bell".
The best lines of the song are
Look at him now
He's paler somehow
But he's coming round
He's starting to choke
It's been so long since he spoke
Well he can have the words right from my mouth

This blog is inspired by Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". It was screened yesterday in my office and I just loved it. As the floyd lines tell about a person, even the situation of the earth can be expressed in similar words : Pale and choke. Its wearing inside and outside with condition worsening day by day.
So just a simple funda to follow in life : SAVE EARTH !

The show must go on

From today onwards, the title of my blogs will be based on songs of Pink Floyd. I just love the band !
The song 'the show must go on' has an extra verse that was cut from the studio album, but nevertheless appears on its sleeve.
"Do I have to stand up
Wild eyed in the spotlight
What a nightmare Why!
Don't I turn and run"
[The song is about the control the managers and record companies have on the band.]

Nevertheless, the war of retails must also go on. Some one has to stand up in the spotlight and catch the blurred eyes of Indian consumers. And I believe, Big Bazaar is doing that. If you spend some time in the store,you will acknowledge that.

Visit to Big Bazaar(BB) was a good way to spend my weekend. I bought nothing but shaver worth Rs14 and spent almost 3 hours in the store(The cameras might have caught me N times in those 3 hours) .Net-net I believe BB is just ahead in the show of retails. The store has everything - from Rs5 chocos to Rs.50K home theatres. Everywhere the store has big banners which highlight the offers and discounts available. And its all due to a simple premise of economics - when supply outpaces demand, prices go down ! But let me not predict that BB is the winner of the war. Great baseball-playing philosopher , Yogi Berra , said "It's tough to make predictions , especially about future". And so do I believe that future 'may' be bright for BB,but we cannot conclude that .
Business is stuffed full of bluffers and successful companies and financial institutions owe as much to chance as to skills. Couple of years down the line BB may not be even in the scene. On my part, I would love to see them in war all the time. Personally I don't follow statistics to predict and analyse the future of a company. And why should we ? Cos statistics tell us so little about what is to come ! So the criteria like products, ambiance, quality can be rationale to analyse but most important among all is the SERVICE. One who provides the best serive will lead the race.

The show will always go on. New participants will enter the show and will make it more interesting. One whose service is bad will be out of it and but the show will also give some hits. The blockbuster products have their roots in bright ideas, rigorous research and canny marketing rather than luck. So dont turn and run but stand and fight !

Some will win, some will lose

War games are commonly used by military to evaluate strategies, explore scenarios and reveal unexpected weakness. Some countries are always in war games in one or other part of the world. But checking the casualty numbers in Iraq's war, I don't think the war games truly test the soldiers.

Similarly in the war of retails, the war is yet to see it casualty. In India, the retailers go by their own strategies and never try to study the enemy. Buddhist saying is that "Your enemy is your best teacher". But for our retailers still the enemy is not so strong to teach !


In retail, as in war, outcome depends on what others do , as well as one's own action. For now the companies are busy with their own marketing strategies. Each is doing its best to create its own image in the society. They are wooing the customers in an unique way and that is good. Take the example of Subhiksha, it is targeting India's core population i.e. the middle class. With discounts on common commodities, the great Indian middle class rush to Subhiksha stores in large numbers.


These are the early days of war. Lot more has to be done to create a brand like WAL-MART or TESCO. In one way its good that India's investment policy keeps such big brands at bay from our volatile consumer market. But these barbarians at the gates are sometimes wiser than the gatekeepers. And this is proved from WAL-MART's partnership with Bharti. And how did they do it - continuous talks with our commerce minister. Interaction, not algebra, is the best way to win support for a new strategy and partnership. But at this given moment ,nothing can be predicted. Every group is spending in it's own way. As always, big spenders are risked of becoming "intoxicated with comfort" and sinking "into depravity". So the war may prove fatal for them. It may be that the simplest maxim works best. The small players can hit the dart . But nothing can be said of them as well. As a line in TIME by Pink Floyd goes "You run and you run , catch up with the sun as its sinking, racing home to come up behind you again". The small players of the war may try to follow the bigger ones and may soon die out. But as some Buddhists say change is an illusion ,no less than fixity : "By stating that there is neither motion nor rest , we follow the path of middle."So some in this war will win and some will not see the light again.

The simple Roman maxim - "if you want peace, prepare for war"- beholds the future of Indian retail war . Long live shopper's stop, reliance, birla, tata , subhiksha and vishal megamart !

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BarCamp @ Pune

Check the link http://barcamp.org/BlogCampPune
Barcamp is in Pune on 16th June, 2007. I am going to be part of it, will you? Register ASAP !

CRISIL : Organised food retailing can increase rural income, cut inflation

This is the press release by Crisil .

Resultant increase in rural spending can boost GDP .
At an estimated Rs 12.8 trillion in 2006, India's retailing sector makes up close to forty per cent of the country's GDP. Of this, food and grocery (F&G) items account for a significant 74 per cent of total retail sales across both, the organised and unorganised sectors. Only 1% of the food items retailed in India flow through the organised retail channel.
An analysis done by CRISIL Research reveals that a robust, widespread and deeply penetrated organised food retailing network in India would address some key concerns facing the Indian economy today viz. limited rural prosperity and high food prices. Reduced supply chain costs arising out of lower wastage and storage costs can be shared between producers and consumers of food items as higher farm incomes and lower food prices.
The organised retail sector makes investments to reduce inefficiencies of the traditional multi-level F&G supply chain. These inefficiencies often arise out of restrictive procurement practices, and multi level storage and commissions. This pushes up the final retail prices paid by the Indian consumer to 2.6 times the prices paid to the Indian farmer. Better supply chain management implies disintermediation, an associated reduction in commissions and a far lower wastage of goods by enhancing transportation and storage facilities.
CRISIL Research has estimated the total avoidable supply chain costs in the F&G vertical in India at about Rs.1 trillion. About 57 per cent of this is due to avoidable wastage and about 43 per cent is due to avoidable costs of storage and commissions. Consequently, the average realisation of the farmer is only 35-40 per cent of the retail price. This is very low as compared with farm realisations of 60-65 per cent of the retail price in countries like the USA which have an organised retail penetration of about 80%.
Sudhir Nair, Head, CRISIL Research, says "If one-third of the above-mentioned savings (around Rs 335 billion) are passed on to the consumer in the form of lower costs, it amounts to more than 3.5 per cent of the country's spend on food items (Rs 9,510 billion); this can play a significant role in lowering food inflation."
Strengthening the case for organised food retailing in the country, Sudhir Nair further emphasises, "Realisations earned by farmers on food grains and fresh grocery, at current levels, are estimated at around Rs. 1.8 trillion. Assuming this segment shifts entirely to organised retailing, and two thirds of the savings from reduced supply chain inefficiencies are passed on to the farmer, farm incomes could grow by more than 37% to Rs. 2.47 trillion. With 60% of India's population employed in agriculture, this is very significant."
Further if farmers spend around 80 per cent of this incremental additional income, an incremental spending of upto Rs.536 billion would get added to the Indian economy. This is equivalent to nearly 1.7 per cent of India’s GDP.

SD's take on article : Though the figures look good, but converting them to reality is tough. But still it is good to shut the communists , the anti-retail kings of India, from making some bad decisions while in government.

Subhiksha - A True Desi store

After reading this blog, you might not feel like visiting the Subhiksha stores. But the observations and ratings are based on personal experience of author and his companion Jaydeep Rathore(JD). Reading a four page ad last Sunday did not change my attitude towards this store . The way it is managed is worse than pop&mom stores. As Floyd line goes "There is no dark side of moon, for the fact whole moon is dark", we can apply similar reworded line "There is no worst part of Subhikha, whole store is worst!". It is being managed in old Indian fashion and so requires a lift-over.





SD's retail tale for subhiksha goes like this :

I feel bad writing "the GOOD, the BAD, the UGLY" section for Subhiksha. But this is my passion. I write what I see. So Subhiksha fans/employees don't think that I work for any competitor. The blog is managed by a common man and a naive customers whose expectations match 60% of Indian population !

the GOOD:

• I spoke to few frequently visiting customers and the reason they visited the store was due to low pricing of some products.
• Another highlight of store was fresh idly / dosa dough at the location. I just LOVE it !
• The price was mentioned in form of 'MRP Price - 10 / Subhiskha Price - 9.12' . This is good for customer when she thinks of buying something .
• Subhiksha are fast moving into building a good customer database. The membership cards were available on-the-go and I am already a member. But the data was entered in a torn notepad and not in an online database - GUYS USE TECHNOLOGY !

the BAD & the UGLY:

• The store was too dirty and congested.
• Product variety was missing . We found tea box in toothpaste section
• Store is not at all managed and haplessly maintained.
• It is pretty small to be called a retail store. My local ma-pa store is bigger and cleaner.
• One of the sections where you get atta and dal is like a dungeon and you dont like revisiting it.

Net-net, Subhiksha is a old-styled, desi retail for which management and customer base is not the target. All it might be looking at is high sales growth and I believe the day is not far when you will hear the king of acquisitions, WAL-MART, acquiring Subhiksha.

Ticket to ride

TCS has recently launched its new marketing campaign and it says "Experience Certainity". You will find this ad in all the top magazines,magazines and newspapers of the world. But this has become motto for my new customer satisfaction index called SD's retail tale. Excited after seeing so many ads in TV and newspaper , I hit the road to find out if these retailers really mean what they show in ads !

Jaydeep Rathore alias JD(not any villain of Bolloywood) , a good friend at my workplace, is very excited on the idea of retailing and the way its making all the news. He thinks that after IT boom ,its gonna be a retail boom in India and he is not wrong. A fact about Indian retailing is that "8% of Indians are employed in retail segment". We visited MORE.'s store in Vimaan Nagar and spent almost an hour analysing it.

Following table shows MORE.'s SD retail tale

For each tale, I have decided to have a new section called "the GOOD, the BAD, the UGLY". This section explains the ideas which caught our eye during the visit.
the GOOD :

• It has a pretty catchy punchline "More. Quality / More. Variety / More. Convenience / More. Value "
• The ambiance of the store is very good with some cool saffron colors selected
• All the sales staff has a uniform
• The store has an in-built medical store to cater to required medicines.
• The variety of items is at its best. Atleast we were able to find some 50 different types of biscuits
• The billboards hang from the roof above each section. So its easy to find particular type of item
• The store is located on main road , so convenient to users.
• Own food items like atta, bread, cereals

the BAD:

• The store has just four counters. So during peak time, it may not be able to cater to customers in short time.
• Parking space is very less. On the weekends, when just 20 customers were visiting the store, the parking was full.
• Part of store is allocated to clothing, but the shelves were empty.
• Still empty space in shelf in other sections too.

the UGLY:

• The sales staff is not fully knowledgeable.
• On packed items, no discounts !
• Only one store in Pune. So when item is not available in that store, then no other option.

So net-net , MORE. gets 7 out of 10 in SD's retail tale .

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Local players in market

India is the land of opportunities. With 28 states and population of more than 100 Crores, the country has so much diversity in every walk of life. From early morning cup of tea to late night dinner, from hustling bustling life of Mumbai to silent by-lanes of Belagali [1]& Sansuddi[2](where my parents spend their childhood) and from kurtas to business formals , Indians enjoy them all. And I believe, we are still missing local retail barons in such a country. ASDA and Safeway of UK had started with developing their chains in fixed parts of UK. And when market grew, they had either acquired other local players or spent time developing by themselves.
But still I don't see such a beginning in India . Take any retail chain and it has opened or is trying to open store in each state with same format.

Its right time for someone to open a store in each district of a particular state and capture the market. When WALMART or any big giant plans to enter that district, it will surely think of acquiring the local chain rather than starting from ground zero. Also local traders know the taste of local people and this will help develop local economy. This reminds me of an interesting story my dad told me about a retailer in Belagali and story dates back to early 1960s. A local jobless person in Belagali started a shop which had every service in it : Snacks, tea, clothes,footwear and vegetables. C'mon I just love the way we Indians earn our bread and butter. This guy with no job, got some little space in village's prime locality(free of cost cos it was road side) and he had everything in it. When it started, people never liked the system cos food was kept in close quarters with footwear . But the guy earned well and his was a one stop shop in 1960 Belagali. Nothing has changed in retail since then but its just that people are investing crores in this business !

[1] : Belagali is a village in Bijapur district of Karnatak,India. It has a population of around 15000. It is known for famous poet Ranna.
[2] : Sansuddi is a village situated in Belgaum district of Karnataka, India. It has population of around 15000.

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Evolution of Indian retail

Current generation(age between 15-30) has seen a lot of transition in Indian market. If you have had chance to visit any village(some people dont like using this word and so they say' visited our farm house') for vacation then you might have come accross once a week melas or bazaars. This generation , while young,also had their grocery store in their neighbourhood and so frequent visits was the fact. But how far is this true now a days ? With so many shopping malls, exclusive branded showrooms and supermarkets coming up in vicinity , we dont have time and patience to do everyday shopping. So the shopping has become once in a week or month affair. While researching on retail, I hit up a wonderful presentation on FICCI site and it explains some finer points of Indian retail industry. Though the presentation is dated 2004 , which means the figures are older, but facts are still true.

Here is the slide of presentation which gives general description of Indian retail revolution . Oh wait , is it revolution ? Nope its evolution.

Ad powers suck up to Bharti

How frequent do you see ads of retail chains in any form of media ? Newpaper is the most used source of communication. But the war of retails has also moved to India's ad agencies. JWT,Leo Burnett and McCann are in fight . Like vultures eyeing carrion, they are salivating over Bharti retail's Rs.30 Crore ad. But this is not the end. Redifussion, which handles Bharti's Airtel had is out of pitch. Whats wrong with those ads ? One thing is for sure, Airtel ads are not better than ads of Hutch.
Trolley war has just begun. It is moving from retails to ads . No segment will be left untouched by this war. HALLA BOL !

SD Retail Tale

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider to our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so." --Gandhi

Customer is GOD ! This is 'the' punchline of Indian software industry. But is this true in Indian retail segment ? Much of it will depend on customer satisfaction index in this segment. So I have created following table and it is named as "SD's Retail Tale".

"MORE" - What is this ?

Joining Reliance, Bharti, Subhiksha and Pantaloon in India's nascent and high potential retail business is Aditya Birla group. Birla's recently started their first store in Viman Nagar,Pune(close to where I stay).
Birla's are planning to invest around Rs.9000 Crores in next three years . If we compare this with Reliance's Rs.5500 Crores and Bharti's Rs.2500 Crores, it was an unexpected entry by the Birla's. The plan is to open 1000 stores in next three years. "Our mission is to change the way people shop. We will give them more." says Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla
God ! I just love this competetion. Its getting hotter everyday :) . I am planning to visit the store and next week, I will be back with my observations !

Bachat Times

You might be wondering on the title of the blog . It was a long and boring weekend for me. No power at my place on saturday from 3PM to 8PM and life sucked. I was just sitting on edge of my 6th floor apartment and enjoying the cool blowing breeze. Also had time to visit "Pune Central", part of Pantloon group's supermakret. I love the place, it not just because of good babes in there, its just for the fact that its a ONE STOP SHOP for clothing .


Coming back to my title ,"Bachat Times" was a four page suppliment which every Puneite received with Sunday Times. It was an advertising gimmick by Subhiksha, India's retail/supermarket chain. There were about 12-15 articles and each targetted different domains or areas of retailing. I spent almost 2 hours to read between the lines , but for someone like me who knows in and out of retailing(thanks to Trolley Wars), there was nothing special. The pages have tried to hit on each segment of society and all the age levels.
Below are few of snippets from article(in italics) and each is followed by my comments.

• Subhiksha,now India's largest supermarket chain . It has over 650 stores spread across many cities(45 in Bangalore and 25 in Pune). I have travelled lenght and breadth of Pune in last 8 months and havent seen a single Subhiksha shop. Also was discussing with my brother yesterday about situation in Bangalore and he said the nearest one is like 5Kms from my house. I dont understand where are those 44 others located :) ! Most stores have opened in last few months and more opening every day.Most other supermarkets have less than 100 stores accross country. No matter where you are , Subhiksha store is close to you. I dont see any Subhiksha store close to me in 4Km radius. The next few months will see addition of 400 more stores accross country . Guys , do you have any plan for second rung cities ? It is where the retail gonna be a hit !


• Finest quality daals, rice and wheat . Subhiksha attempts to source the best quality of grains directly from where they are produced. What ! you do that everyday ? Our experienced buyers pick the best quality . Oops, experienced buyers ? I believe retailing is still naive in India. How come experienced buyers ? May be those from Kiraana stores ! Dont tell me that you have hired MBA grads to do that :)) .


• Lowest price, best quality . God ! I read these words 50 times in 4 pages. With no quality competition, they are in their honeymoon period. Let the game begin, you can wait and watch !


• Now no compromise when you buy . In recent survery in a few cities it was found that 90% local grocers cheated/misled customers. This is a dig at out neighbourhood stores. Hope they will learn some lesson and dont continue cheating !


• Aren't the ads of many supermarket misleading you ? The entire article targetted BIG BAZAAR. Cos once in a while we see full page ad,as also mentioned in article, of Big Bazaar mentioning some 50-60 items and discounts over them and other hooplah hullah .


• There were few good articles like "Low prices at subhiksha, the inside story". This explained more of reason why the products are at lower prices compared to other stores. Points like large volume purchase, no high street stores, no fancy building etc. I also like the way it is trying to getin more customers in other ways like - Unconditional cash refund, telephone orders, exchange any defective product etc.

Net-net, I believe that Subhiksha is trying to get a huge lead before the race begins. It wants to have more soldiers ready for war.

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