Hypermarkets–The latest poster boy of Modern Retail

The first thought that came to my mind was – “Will this store be THE game changer for this Mall?” Not that it had weak anchors otherwise, but somehow this store, I believe would attract most number of footfalls. Time will prove, and I hope my assessment would be correct in this case too. I am referring to HyperCITY from the K Raheja Group which opened a few weeks back at Royal Meenakshi Mall - Hulimavu, a lesser known suburb in South-East Bangalore which houses one of the largest new-age residential settlements of those who are employed in IT, ITES and the BPO Industries, mainly due to the cost effective availability of housing requirements as well as reasonable accessibility in terms of time and distance to their respective workplaces. A maiden attempt by a group of enterprising entrepreneurs, I would say this is another brilliant model for Neighbourhood malls – self sustained with most aspects of modern retail within its precincts. Other anchors include Cineapolis, the Mexico based multiplex chain with its first cinema in South India, CROMA – the electronics store from Tata Retail (TRENT) and many others.

The store is located on the upper ground floor facing the main entrance and the lower ground floor of the mall with direct access to the basement parking areas – a smart move by the Retailer to encourage shoppers to enter the store directly after they park their vehicles.  However, after finishing their shopping from the Upper ground floor, one would have to pass through the lower floor to access their cars – a bit of walking around the store though, which could be inconvenient during peak shopping hours. The store is well laid out – the lower ground floor offers Grocery and other Home needs while the upper ground floor with all other categories including Electronics, Toys, Apparel, Furniture, even Bicycles and many more. My guess is that the lower ground would remain more crowded – for two reasons; one that it has brilliant view from outside and would naturally attract mall visitors, and two that it houses the core categories which shoppers would come looking to save for – grocery, fruits and vegetables and household items. What I liked the most was the “fresh section” – Maybe it was the first day and hence everything looked very nicely displayed but still, the way the categories were planned was commendable. Also, they are located deep within the store, another smart idea to pull customers inside and thereby making them walk through the store. Meat & Poultry located close by could prove to be a disadvantage if the exhausts and HVAC are not maintained well – an issue that many retailers are trying to grope with.

The store interiors are typical of a Hyper – no false roofing, basic tiles on the floor, tube-lights running through the length and breadth of the store and focus lights on merchandise that’s on offer. While it does reduce the Capex to a large extent, it also showcases the store as being simple and straightforward – a stark contrast to the luxury stores at high-end malls that sometimes stink of grandeur and austerity! After all, hypermarkets should also look what they profess – savings, savings and savings. And HyperCITY is indeed very good at it. On the store launch, Mark Ashman, CEO, HyperCity Retail (India) Ltd, told the media, “HyperCity is committed to fulfilling the aspirations of the local people by providing them a world-class shopping experience. Our customers will enjoy the convenience of international shopping from over 44,000 products at great value under one roof.” And all this over a mere 60,000 sft.!

With their continued focus on convenience, experience, quality and savings, there is something that this Retailer has been doing right. Apart from stacking the right merchandise, I guess its the speed at which they have been growing. Often accused (not in a real sense though) of being slow in terms of store expansion and growth, HyperCITY has got its act right. With only 10 stores across the country, the group has managed to understand the business well – they have opened at interesting catchments across cities to ensure that they are not just in the race to grab market share but also to make money at the store level. With an investment of upto INR 2 Crores per store, the Retailer has been cautious about its overall Operational profitability which seems to be getting better by the day. Specific to this Mall, none other than the Hyper is going to be the the main anchor that would attract thousands of shoppers every month! Those who come to shop would indeed pass through the other Retail stores, Food Courts & Restaurants and m\Movies would complete the entertainment bit as well. This store is not an exception, but Hypers would become the Poster boy of Modern Retail and the Darling of Mall Developers soon.

Retailers and Social Media – setting new trends

Everybody who is somebody in Marketing is today craving about the power of Social Media on consumers. I have been hooked onto this upcoming (or is it already there) medium for over two years now, but am yet to tap the full potential, both in terms of knowledge gain as well as ways of improving business. While most of the self-claimed Social Media Gurus believe that usage of a social platform such as Twitter or Facebook itself is Social Media marketing, it really isn't. At least for Retailers and Brands. Its about how the medium is used to connect to consumers and to receive feedback from them, rather than passing communication / message such as promotions and offers. While I have been thinking of writing a column on this topic for quite long (apologies to followers of this column and even those who don’t, for not being around for more than eight weeks due to other predicaments) I read something a while ago which prompted me to discuss this topic. Feedback, as always most welcome.

Ralph Lauren, the marquee Luxury brand in all senses has launched a heavily interactive iPad app to promote its RLX (Ralph Lauren Extreme) sportswear line. The photo and animation-rich app, the first the publicly-traded fashion company has created for the iPad, invites users to perform different actions that underline the apparel line’s various properties. Users can use their fingers to paint in color on a black-and-white photograph (highlighting the collection’s colorful palette), tap to freeze model-athletes in various acrobatic poses (conveying agility) and blow into their iPad’s microphone to demonstrate the “light-as-air” fabrics, among other things. It utilizes much of what the device has to offer: its built-in accelerometer, digital compass, assisted GPS and multi-touch capabilities. Users can shop the collection within the app, share images via Facebook and e-mail, and save images to their photo library. Like most fashion apps, the vast majority of users will open it once and never again — but that appears to serve Ralph Lauren’s purposes well enough, given that the app promotes a single collection.

What started more as a mere communication (internet advertising followed by emailers a decade ago) evolved into a multi-million audience with the social media networks springing up by the day. Facebook, (valued at $82.9 Billion) one of the earliest entrants in the social networking space and a darling of the masses seems to lead the pack with tons of brands vying for mind space on the digital platform. It changed the way brands communicated – from one-way “take-it or ignore” communication to two way "compulsive interactivity". Brands are not just telling about themselves to their audience but also listening - started asking them what they wanted, what they liked and didn't. Specific to India, Shoppers Stop, Pantaloons, Wills Lifestyle, Vero Moda, Adidas & Nike are prominent in the apparel space; Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Hard Rock Café, Dominos and Taco Bell in the QSR space; Café Coffee Day & Barista as the two prominent café chains; and there are even malls such as Inorbit and Phoenix Mills that have their own community space! All these pages are updated frequently, ranging from twice a week to thrice a day, depending on the level of engagement that a brand wants to have.

Then came Twitter –a social networking and microblogging site where the user can post messages upto 140 characters (only), has followers and can follow other users as well. While this is mainly considered for personal networking and news updates due to the frequency of postings every day (over 65 million tweets a day according to Wiki), brands are vying to be heard in this space too. Many of them who are on Facebook double up their efforts to communicate through Twitter, while the popularity of it is not even half of that of Facebook which has over 500 million users!

Another big trend these days is the emergence of Foursquare, a location based social networking tool that allows the user to invite his or her friends; once connected, the user needs to check-in using the app (available for Android devices, iPhone, Symbian and even Blackberry). Users virtually check-in to locations that are listed everytime the app is refreshed. The network of friends would get to know the whereabouts of each other, except that one should be careful in his or her judgment before inviting the Spouse or Boss into the network, for they may want to keep them away from such coveted information! Globally, many brands have tagged themselves with Foursquare and offer specials to “Mayors” (a user becomes a Mayor with maximum check-ins in the past 60 days; and there can be only one user as Mayor everyday), ranging from a dollar off on a Frappucino at Starbucks to getting free bread sticks at participating Pizza Hut outlets in the US. “We want to give our customers an incentive to return to their favourite Pizza Hut as often as possible,” says Chris Fuller, Director of social media at Pizza Hut, Dallas. “This is a fun, interactive way to fuel customer loyalty.  “Mobile tools and social media have become part of the daily routines of our customers,” he said. “They get their news, share their stories and, yes, order pizza from their phones without ever placing a call.  

Cafe Coffee Day is the first Indian brand to go live on Foursquare. On your third check-in at CCD (applicable only for Bangalore for now), you will get a 15% discount. And if you are the Mayor, CCD will serve you a free coffee and a 20% discount on every 3rd check-in. Aside, Cafe Coffee Day is the first Indian brand on Foursquare to have their own Brand Page. With 7 out of 10 phones being sold in metros already being smartphones and getting less expensive (I wouldn’t say cheaper!) by the day, between Rs. 7,000 – Rs. 9,000 for a decent entry level one all the way upto super smartphones and tablets averaging Rs. 30,000, these apps will only become more popular and user friendly. Its up to the Retailers and Brands, how much they would like to involve themselves in this new media. After all, it doesn’t come easy and cheap – either it needs a dedicated in-house team or an outsourced one, either way requiring an in-depth knowledge about the medium. Time will tell, how well this media is used. Until then, stay connected with your favorite brands and ofcourse, your's truly.

http://foursquare.com/shri611

http://twitter.com/shri611

http://www.facebook.com/TheShriram 

A Retailer cannot be everything for everyone!

“I was an eternal optimist, now I am a cautious optimist” thus remarked Kishore Biyani, considered to be the most revered Retail face in India at the concluding day of India Retail Forum 2010 recently held at Mumbai. Not surprising, as he should know better than anyone else, for he leads the Indian Retail Industry with the highest recorded turnover of over USD 2 Billion in Sales from The Future Group that has various formats such as Big Bazaar (Hypermarkets), Central Malls, Home Town, Pantaloon Department stores, Food Bazaar (Supermarkets) and many other formats with over 800 stores across the country. Many other CEOs and leaders from within the Indian Retail Industry echoed the same feeling – things are much better than 2008 / 2009 but we should tread with caution. Consumer confidence is on the high, but that doesn’t mean we can open stores left & right, one needs to move ahead with all the learning over the past 24 months according to the Head of Operations of one of the leading apparel brands in India.

India Retail Forum (IRF) is the annual extravaganza organized by the Images Group that publishes various magazines such as Images Retail, Images Fashion, F, and many other collaborative efforts with leading international publications. Apart from IRF, they also conduct Images Fashion Forum and Images Food Forum every year. These Forums are not mere conferences but a place of congregation where some of the brightest minds participate, share and learn over each other’s experiences. The two day events are busy days, with back-to-back & parallel panel discussions and presentations from eminent speakers and delegates trying to network with their peers across businesses for professional as well as personal purposes. This year saw over 2,000 participants – not bad for an event that charges an entry fee of Rs. 25,000 per person which includes lunch and dinner with cocktails on both days along with an entry invitation to the Images Retail Awards – the most sought after respectable awards that recognize the efforts of Retailers.

The agenda this year too was chock-a-block. Over the years, the event has evolved and now follows international conventions where three things happen in parallel – the main conference hall with its speakers, the retail theatre and the ball rooms with their sessions and workshops and the all day exhibition stalls where various retailers and real estate companies showcase their latest offering. The Forum was chaired this year by Mr. Biju Kurien, Chief Execuitive – Lifestyle, Reliance Retail along with the Chairman of the previous year, Mr. B.S.Nagesh, Vice Chairman of Shoppers Stop Ltd. In his opening remarks, Mr. Kurien said that India is expected to contribute 7.5% of world GDP (PPP) and stressed on the need for increased investments within the sector to foster growth. Mr. Nagesh reiterated that it was important to focus on the product offering rather than showering discounts while also informing that controlling attrition would be one of the key tasks for Retailers. Mr. Vikram Bakshi, CEO – Mc Donalds India (North & East) shared his thoughts on the current trends in food retail during his opening remarks. This was followed by a detailed presentation by Ms. Ireena Vittal, Principal, McKinsey India in which she shared statistics about the current trends and opportunities in Indian Retail with lots of comparison to similar markets such as Brazil and China. This was followed by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) panel discussion on “Permitting FDI in Indian multi-brand Retail” led by its Chairman, Mr. Thomas Verghese, Chief Executive – Aditya Birla Retail which had the most looked up names within the industry – Mr. Kishore Biyani, CEO – The Future Group, Mr. Raj Jain, President – Walmart India & MD & CEO, Bharti Walmart, S. Sivakumar, Chief Executive – ITC Rural Retail, Ireena Vittal, Vikram Bakshi and BS Nagesh. With various thoughts being expressed by speakers, the unanimous view was clear and forthcoming – India needed investments urgently to support the backend and frontend of our Retail businesses and the color of the money (Read FDI or FII or any other) really didn’t matter.

The rest of the day and the second day had various sessions by leaders within the Retail industry and community and delegates were seen sharing an easy camaraderie with one another, be it over coffee or beer. I was part of one of the Panel Discussions on Multi channel Retailing, hosted by vCustomer which has been a support partner to companies across multiple retail channels. With a 4000+ global workforce deployed at its managed centers from multiple locations worldwide, they deliver 24x7 services to more than 75 global clients including 20 Fortune 500 brands and more than 30 retailers. My co-panellists were Mr. Sanjay Gupta, COO – vCustomer, Mr. Ashish Madhav, Director Retail CoE, vCustomer, Mr. Rajiv Prakash, CEO – Future Ecommerce, Mr. Manoj Chandra, VP Marketing - Bata India, Mr. Sundeep Malhotra, CEO – HomeShop18 and Mr. Neeraj Bhalla, Director – Whirlpool. The speakers shared their perspectives on multi-channel use for better reach towards their own consumers. My view was similar too, that Cafe Coffee Day was always at the reach of its consumers be it shopping high streets or malls, transit points or other non-traditional locations such as Hospitals, Colleges, Hotels and Clubs.

The most awaited session happened to be an interview with Mr. Kishore Biyani by none other than Mr. Shivnath Thukral, Group President, Corporate Branding & Strategic Initiatives – Essar Group, more famous in his previous avatar as the former Group Business Editor at NDTV, India’s leading News channel.  The session was indeed candid and Mr. Biyani was at his transparent best, sharing some of the very rarely heard stuff – that the group has made a few mistakes, learned from them and hence moved on, that he shops only at his own group stores and doesn’t shop at fellow retailers such as Shoppers Stop. He also admitted that the group doesn’t anymore continue its approach on being “everything to everyone”. We are no more so, he said while answering a question specifically and advised fellow retailers to think about it. This was followed by an interesting session led by Mr. Vikram Bakshi and Mr. BS Nagesh where selected delegates had an opportunity to grill eminent Retail executives including Mr. Kishore Biyani, Mr. Thomas Verghese, Mr. Ajit Joshi, CEO – Croma Retail and Ms. Vibha Rishi Paul of the Future Group. At the end of the session, each winner won an hour over lunch or dinner or drink with Mr. Biyani, Mr. Nagesh and Mr. Kurien to be mentored about the business.

The Grand finale was the Images Retail Awards – a much looked up event in the business of Indian Retail. The award ceremony, besides honouring the most deserving companies and people in the Retail Industry, had scintillating performances by singer Leslie Lewis and stand-up comedian Ash Chandler. The event was anchored by Mandira Bedi and Anish Trivedi. The IMAGES Retail Awards 2010 followed strict international benchmarks in deciding the top honours, with IRIS Retail Intelligences Knowledge Partner and global consulting firm AT Kearney as the Process Approver. The selection process involved self-nominations as well as a countrywide poll to short-list nominees. Over 11,000 consumers and about 1,000 professionals voted for their most admired retailers across formats and categories. The list of categories, awardees and nominees are as below.

1. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Fashion & Lifestyle - Benetton
Nominees: Bata, Titan, Levi's, Van Heusen, Tanishq, Louis Philippe, Benetton, Reebok
2. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Food & Grocery – Food Bazaar
Nominees: More, Easyday, Food Bazaar, Reliance Fresh, Spencer's
3. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Foodservice – KFC
Nominees: Café Coffee Day, Mainland China, Haldiram's, McDonald's, Domino's Pizza, Pizza Hut, KFC
4. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Consumer Electronics  - Croma
Nominees: Croma, Next, Reliance Digital, eZone, Reliance iStore
5. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Leisure - Crossword
Nominees: Crossword, Reliance Timeout, Odyssey, Landmark, Planet M
6. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Multiplex - PVR
Nominees: Big Cinemas, INOX, PVR, Fun Multiplex, Cinemax, Fame Cinemas
7. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Mobile & Telecom  - The Mobile Store
Nominees: Uninor, Spice Hotspot, Reliance Webstore, The Mobile Store
8. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Beauty & Wellness - The Body Shop
Nominees: VLCC, Kaya Skin Clinic, The Body Shop, NewU, M.A.C
9. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Pharmacy & Healthcare - Guardian
Nominees: Apollo Pharmacy, Guardian, Religare Wellness, 98.4
10. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Home & Interiors - Home Centre
Nominees: Home Centre , TTK Prestige, Rosebys, Home Town, @home, Home Stop
11. Most Admired Regional Retailer of the Year – Kapsons, RMKV
Nominees: Kapsons, Ritu Wears, Jade Blue, Sohum Shoppe, Total, Le Marche, RMKV, MK Retail

12. Most Admired Retail Launch of the Year - Cinepolis, Editions by Odyssey
Nominees: Sports XS, Titan GoldPlus, Golfworx, Head Quarters, Cinepolis, Editions  13. Most Admired Innovative Concept of the Year - Cinediner - Big Cinemas
Nominees: Moms Lounge, Spencer's Patisserie, Cinediner - Big Cinemas, Colours, The Collective, William Penn, Presto Wonders

14. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Department Store - Shoppers Stop
Nominees: Lifestyle, Pantaloons, Shoppers Stop, Reliance Trends, Westside, Central
15. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Hypermarket - Big Bazaar
Nominees: Spencer's Hyper, Hypercity, MORE Megastore, SPAR Hypermarket, Big Bazaar, Reliance Mart, Star Bazaar
16. Most Admired Retailer of the Year: Customer Relations - Shoppers Stop
Nominees: Lifestyle, Shoppers Stop, Van Heusen, SPAR, Apollo, Guardian, Pantaloons
17. Most Admired Retail Face of the Year - Thomas Varghese
Nominees: Raj Jain, Kabir Lumba, Bijou Kurien, Thomas Varghese, Govind Shrikhande, Rakesh Biyani, Vineet Kapila
18. Most Admired Retail Group of the Year - Future Group
Nominees: Future Group, Landmark Group, Reliance Retail , K Raheja Corp, RPG Group, Tata Group, Aditya Birla Group

19. IMAGES Award for Excellence in Retailing – KISAN SEVA KENDRA, HOME SHOP 18

Overall, the India Retail Forum 2010 came to an end with optimism coupled with caution among participants while hoping for a better times to come. Here's wishing all of us a great festive season ahead.

Creating categories – Way forward for successful Retailing

Looking at the eagerness of a family to see how a Compact Disc works was amazing – this was in the year 2001 at the Musicworld store at Park Street in Kolkata. The middle-class Bengali family was a regular at the then largest MW Store in India, spread all of 8,000 sft and among the first Retail Stores in India to be designed in bright yellow and blue by Fitch PLC. After all, RPG Management had wanted none other than among the best in the world to design their first and the largest music store in the city. Over to the family – they were wondering how a small CD with a diameter of 10 cm could play music with such clarity while the erstwhile vinyl records that used to be played on the gramophones were thicker, heavier and the voice clarity not as clear as this one. I remember chatting with my colleagues about this insight – that it is as much the responsibility of Retailers to create newer categories to grow the pie and what I was referring in this case was that the market needed more CD players, affordable and better quality, so more consumers could buy them and in times to come, would buy or should I say invest on CDs. Who would know that 10 years later not only my words would come true (in terms of cheaper options of CD players) but we would also have alternate forms of listening to music – internet, mobile phones, mp3 players, iPods and most recently I read Apple is planning to launch Watches!

Successful Retailers worldwide have created newer categories and introduced them to their core customers – usually first timers within the spectrum who could spread the good word around. Central Malls, a division of The Future Group that operates over a dozen malls in India has been the pioneer in seamless retailing in the country since their launch of Bangalore Central in 2004 (of which I was lucky to be an integral part of) is doing exactly the same. One of their recent campaigns is the “Kurti Festival”. Keeping the most popular trend, Central has launched a festival that focuses on the theme – Kurtis. As part of this festival, Central will have a mix and match section where customers could experience interesting pairing which would be displayed at the Malls. Kurti is a form of apparel – a mix of western-styled Indian-design tops mainly focussed on women. The basic difference between a Kurti and a Salwar or Churidhar is that the length in the former is shorter and the core audience are the teens and tweens (those in their twenties). While the Kurtis have been made popular thanks to our beautiful heroines in Bollywood and other Indian languages, the more popular ambassadors are the customers themselves. It’s quite common to see the college goers wearing such clothing as it is comfortable for their daily routine – travelling by public transport, self-drive in two-wheelers, attending many other chores during the day such as college sessions and mall-hopping, etc. A versatile garment, kurtis are an essential part of every woman’s wardrobe and they can create the latest fashion statement with funky styles like bohemian, bling, graphic, festive, floral, tribal, jig saw & many more. Women shoppers can create these styles by mixing and matching with different bottoms like leggings, capris, denims, shorts, short skirts and harem pants. Customers can twist their style at Central’s Kurti festival for a brand new fashion statement.

This is expected to attract more footfalls into their Malls and while the incremental conversions are high single-digit, the time spent by the clientele and their word-of mouth is as important. Many a time, these festivals indeed pull in additional footfalls and benefit other retailers within the Mall such as Cafe Coffee Day, McDonalds, Food Courts, etc. While many retailers keep experimenting with such ideas, very few succeed in pulling them off well and needless to say, Central Malls is one of them indeed. So, visit the near Central close to your and enjoy the surprises!

Show-stopper - Shoppers Stop!

There used to be a time during the late 80s and even early 90s when this part of Bangalore was the most preferred area to settle down for the older generation, mainly due to the lush greenery and minimal traffic. After all, why would any one pass through Koramangla – an erstwhile nondescript part of south Bangalore that connects the city towards Hosur, Chennai. Etc. However, all this changed, thanks to the IT revolution and what followed was concrete invasion. Large tracts of empty lands gave way to huge constructions – corporate offices, residential block and of course, Retail stores. In India, one thing is peculiar, if not common. It’s always the unorganized retailers who enter a locality sensing consumption opportunities. The Kirana stores that sell everything from tooth paste to grocery, the Hardware stores that sell all that one would need in their homes, from door handles to curtain rods and the ubiquitous furniture stores – large shell shops that stock cots and mattresses, dining tables and other loose furniture. After a few months, if not a few years of the area settling down with people, the Organized Retailers start swamping the localities. What’s natural is that when a locality is on the verge of getting popular (from a consumption perspective), most of the big players enter together, if not in shorter bursts, thus unsettling the small kiranas.

And the same happened to Koramangla as well. After a lull for many years, organized players started penetrating this area – RPG Foodworld (now Spencer’s), Monday to Sunday (from Jubilant Retail), Viveks – the Electronics store, MegaMart (from the house of Arvind) and most notably, Big Bazaar (BB), a Future Group concept. Interestingly, this was one of the earliest outlets for the now ubiquitous value-retailer in India, a mere 35,000 sft store that was supposed to be a Pantaloon Fashion Store! There was a last minute change in the concept and thus was born BB. The store is located in a building that also houses many corporate offices and hence parking for 2/4 wheelers weren’t too many. Anyway, value-retail stores were expected to bring their shoppers by Bus and thankfully, there was a Bus-stand just outside the store. Rest as they say, is history. This BB store attracts as many people driving their own fancy 4 wheelers as much as those coming by buses and autos and is supposedly the highest in terms of returns per sft, a key metric for Retailers.

The year 2004 saw the opening up of Forum Mall, the most notable Retail landmark in Bangalore till date and rightly so, located adjacent to Prestige Acropolis, a residential dwelling that houses the crème de la crème of Bangalore. The Mall has such a unprecedented opening that the U-turn on this road had to be removed, thankfully! The first outlet for McDonalds in South India opened here and without exaggeration, there were queues waiting outside the store just to get in and have a grub. I was among the last to enjoy the frenzy, when I first entered the store almost three months after they opened. The Mall had many other firsts as well, the largest stores for Fashion Brands such as Benetton and Tommy Hillfiger, the first Apple store through its distributor aptly named “Imagine”, the largest (then) foodcourt in town with over a dozen different cuisines, and the first and among the largest cinemas in Bangalore operated by PVR. The retail chain from the house of Tatas, Westside was the anchor and Landmark Books & Leisure (which was also bought out by Tatas) was another anchor. There wasn’t a multi-brand Department store and thus all the Mono Brands present in the mall perform very well. There wasn’t anything that wasn’t amiss and the Mall ably run by a professional team from the Prestige Group went to win accolades for their achievements, in design, tenant mix, zoning and most importantly managing the multi-level car parking, among the largest & the first in the city.

The area started getting a lot of attention from construction companies as this was the closest locality for those who were working in Bangalore’s own Silicon Valley area – The Electronics City. Real estate prices of land holding soared so high that the area was and still among the most premium residential areas in the city. Almost every Retailer has a presence in this area and the only brand to have multiple locations due to its business model is Cafe Coffee Day – yes, there are five cafes within a three km radius and there are two more in the offing. Recent retail concepts such as E-Zone (also from the Future Group) and Star Bazaar (a hyper-store from Tatas) have found their own spaces and are serving their customers quite well. The one Retail concept that was conspicuously missing was Shoppers Stop (SS), India’s largest multi-brand Department Store chain. And that too was fulfilled recently. While operating three other locations in the city and one at the Bangalore International Airport, the retailer took over the same location earlier occupied by fellow retailer and similar business house “Globus”. There were many reasons why Globus wasn’t doing well; many experts felt it was the location that was the main one at fault apart from the depressing merchandising at the store level. In Retail, there are three main factors to consider before opening a store – Location, Location and Location. And that’s exactly what SS has tried to revisit. They have chosen one of the most complicated locations ever possible for a Retailer but I am sure the decision was conscious and would prove to work to their advantage. After all, who knows this business as well as they do. The store is located in one of the busiest stretches in Bangalore, just ahead of an important traffic signal where the waiting time could range from 10-30 minutes during peak hours to crawl through a 300 meter stretch. Entering and Exiting the store is not just difficult but would need sharp driving skills. The store, which is spread across 40,000 sft is self-sufficient to that catchment since most of the brands have their own stores independently or within the mall close by. The well-maintained and well-merchandised store has almost everything that a harried customer needs, but for a cafe which I guess should soon be there too.

But why one more Retail concept for a locality that already has a substantial penetration of retail formats? Well, one reason is that there is no Shoppers Stop! The unique shopping experience that the Retailer provides is not just consistent across the country but also amongst the most superior in its own form. Secondly, when an area has as many shopping formats, it becomes a natural destination for shoppers. It’s not just the Retailers who benefit due to the presence of a large number of consumers but also the shoppers – they benefit from the wider offering that they are offered and not to mention the innumerous promotions and special offers through the year. So, lets hope this outlet of Shoppers Stop is indeed going to become a show-stopper!