Building the Future of Retail
The first trend highlighted by Krish Iyer, President and CEO, Walmart India, during the inaugural session underlined how customers are at the core of any business while offline, online or omnichannel retail are just the platforms for delivery. “Walmart has been in India for a while now and is completely committed to stretching its footprint in the country. Our mission right now is to empower small resellers or small kirana stores to serve their customers well and ultimately make them our ultimate consumers. Secondly, any retail company needs to find out what exactly the customer wants and then plan the retail strategy accordingly,” he said.
Replicate Successful Strategies
Samir Modi, Managing Director, Modi Enterprises, took the discussion forward. When Modi started Twenty Four Seven, India’s only organised retail chain in the ‘round-the-clock’ convenience store format, he went through a number of legal battles even after getting permission from the Delhi government. However, he maintained that the key to successful business is adapting to what’s best for the firm, even when it implies copying some strategies. “Be innovative, take risks, see what you like from other organisations and copy that blatantly. Invest in brick-and-mortar, forget e-commerce, challenge the norm, hire staffers who can smile rather than technology experts,” he advised.
Link Consumer Goods Companies and Retail
There are a few essentials that are important for linking consumer goods companies with the whole retailing space and the consumers. The next session, presided by Suresh Narayanan, Chairman and Managing Director, Nestle India Ltd., underlined the importance of human touch in maintaining relationship with consumers. “The primary goal for all of us is customer first. We have demanding shoppers who are knowledgeable about quality, brands, etc. Indian consumers do not care if the brand is Indian or foreign so long as the product is of value,” he said. Narayanan also emphasized the importance of traditional retail since “maximum sales in FMCG are derived from mom-and-pop stores of the country”.
Measuring the Value of Experiential
Experiential is a trend that continues to gain momentum and retailers are, very consciously, promoting in-store experiences to please their customers. Ashish Goel, Co-Founder, Urban Ladder, talked about how the home fashion brand has always tried to keep the brand imagery “drool worthy”. “We have two formats of stores – one is the lifestyle format where we show a room in its full glory and the other is the catalogue format where items from one category are placed next to each other. We definitely offer experience in our stores. Experiential retail is very important but you need to move away from making it gimmicky to actually making it relevant for the customer. It is essential to measure the value of experiential and keep it relative,” he said.
Moving Ahead with Blended Commerce
The omnichannel summit started with Bruce Stuart Harryman, Distribution Network Planning Head, John Lewis (UK), who talked about the integration of physical and digital commerce and “ultimately delivering an exceptional shopping experience to customers across all touch points”. John Lewis is a chain of high-end department stores operating throughout the United Kingdom. “Our customers don’t see any difference in shopping online or at our store since it is a seamless process for them. While 20% of our online orders are researched at John Lewis outlets, 75% of our online customers shop at the John Lewis stores. So they are shopping through all the channels,” said Harryman, who further underlined the fact that a retailer needs to keep investing in innovation in shops for better experience, etc. since this can ultimately lead to a successful omnichannel business.
Copyright © 2009 - 2024 Franchise India Holdings Ltd