Inflation Virus

Inflation must be one of the most discussed word in the recent times , suddenly its become a like a virus that's slowly but surely eating into our wallet ,with some of us realising it some not realising it !

Most premium retailers had just recovered from the great IPL cricket led footfall crunch , now comes in the Inflation virus ,these are really testing time for retail brands and retailers,there are reports of a 40 % drop in sales in some premium brand over the last year , as everything in retail starts with the footfalls and if that starts drying up ,the cost of retailing can Kill you soon .

The Blog believes that retailers who have built their models with every day essentials ( the rice /vegetables /groceries ) , need not have sleepless nights as consumers would anyway need them in spite of the inflation or not ! as a retailer into essentials retailing said "consumers cant stop eating due to inflation ,so will continue to sell vegetables " ,the key is that consumers would seek Value deals and so the COMBO ( say a kurkure along with 1.5 ltrs Pepsi ) deals that this blog has talked abt in length would be in fashion again , but all exotic purchases would be down !

The formats that would hit most would be the premium , the non essential retailers , say the apparels plus the non apparel alone skewed ones ,customer sentiment that was so buoyant is suddenly a limp , inflation is up but the stock markets are down ! customer are more & more putting off high end purchases .

So how does a retailer in this( non essential ) segment survive : here are the blogs recommendation : --i) Maximisation of conversion percentage ( bills cut /number of footfalls ) , ii)sell more per customers so as to increase upt ( units per transactions ) , iii) all leading to the cash memo size increase per customer , which should take care of the footfall drop % ! basically saying that each customer walking in is a BIG opportunity .

The 3 programs enlisted above as easier said than done as it requires a great degree of operations led rigour in monitoring and incentivising the front end team to deliver these .

As they say inflation is cyclical or becomes the bench mark soon as you start adjusting to this ,retailers have to constantly think thru the ways to get out of the woods ,especially the non essential retailers ,who have a constant battle with other viruses too !