India's retail industry: Subhiksha

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.

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.