Sales & MarketZing !

After the last few years of being gungho , Modern trade has also seen its fair share of trouble in these times of slowdown ,already reports indicate that there is poor off takes by big retailers as their sell outs itself is low , to add to this is the perennial payment delay problem from the retailer side . So how do brands operate in such a situation ,here are some blog suggestions : Pls note that these are not a straight fit recommendation , as it would depend upon the contribution Modern trade has to your business , higher the contribution higher the need to dance to the tunes of retailers ! i) The retailer would ask for a big piece :In these tough times retailers would know how to arm twist brands ,say by asking for a margin increase : if you have no way to go! then tie it to an off take Volume increase ,or the elusive prime space deal that you couldn't crack earlier or say a polite NO .Also remember word spreads too ,give it to one retailer ,others would ask for it soon . ...

Suddenly Modern trade has become a buzz among most b2 c businesses , no firm that wants to grow big can ignore this segment , so you have fmcg majors , apparel firms , consumer durables , and even Telecom majors focussing on Modern Trade ! So what is Modern Trade ? for starters this is the terminology given to the new day giant retail organisations that have become the new day market place for the Indian consumers , so for example for a brand like Levis , Shoppers stop would be part of the Modern trade account list as Levis retails out of it and contributes a % of its turnover which might be equal to its turnover from say 1000 MBO's ( multi brand outlets ) or more ! The best case study of Modern trade is the P&G and Walmart partnership , which of course has grown to mammoth proposition , at one moment it was known that 30 % of P&G worldwide turnover came from one single entity Walmart ! P&G had its own share of woes with this overdependence , we will discuss that later...