Initiatives
A new format, Croma Zip, a smaller footprint of 2500 to 4000 square feet that houses all the digital categories, has been launched; categories like healthcare, kitchens, photo printing, etc has been introduced in the stores; exclusive presence of some really good brands like Bose, Miele Kitchen, etc; the exclusive launch partners for many leading brands like Olive for their tablet device, Wink
for their e-readers, Asus for their netbooks, etc.
Marketing initiatives
The tonality of the communication and messages that it carries is carefully designed to build on the consumer promise of “We help you buy”. Consumer communication has driven the belief that at Croma, the staff will always make the effort to give that one extra demo or will ask that one extra question to assess the consumers’ need.
Brand proposition
Not all consumers were technically inclined. Therefore, Croma came in with a strong intent to help consumers in this buying process. This is aptly expressed in the brand’s tagline— “We help you buy”.
The challenges overcome
- High rental costs are dealt with revenue share deals as well by re-negotiating rentals.
- CDIT retail is a low margin category so progress has been made by improving product mix and also by introducing a wide portfolio of own label products
- Retail requires a large fleet of knowledgeable and sales-driven staff. With better recruitment and training of sales staff, the stores now offer a much better consumer experience.
Expansion plan
Croma has 58 stores in 11 cities. By the end of this financial year, Croma expects to have 70 stores, and is looking to geographically expand into Punjab and Tamil Nadu beyond Chennai. It is going to have 100 stores by April 2012.
His understanding of the retail business and his learning in this process
“Retail is a business that requires a great attention to detail. It also requires superior consumer understanding and very high speed of response. As the field gets cluttered with multiple players, it’s critically important for a company to have a differentiated and meaningful consumer proposition in order to succeed. Costs across the value chain need to be constantly monitored and managed.”
