Sales & MarketZing !

What's on your consumers mind is it on your shelf ? is a good question to always ask both at a marketing front and on the operations front in retail , or any other consumer product business . Brands spend crores in driving awareness and desire , when the consumers come seeking in for the product , its a sheer waste when they dont find what they have come looking for .This is what the blog would term as "mind1 shelf0 "(tm) phenomenon ( where on the mind gets 1 , not on your shelf gets 0 ) So why does this happen always , yes its a historical issue but never is addressed ...here is this blogs take on the why piece i) Too many variants ::most of the problems occur due to the brand's great desire to satisfy everyone , thus the great urge for more skus 'which could take the shape of too many colors ,sizes , contents etc , so more the variants more the chance of "mind 1 shelf 0 " phenomenon ,take a max of two winning variants , with proper demand forecasting

Here is the Latest Update on Indian Retail ....... Parliamentary panel also studying retail biz - Livemint Organised retail can be an ally in promoting food security for the - Hindu Business Line Subhiksha is India's most Trusted Retail Brand for 2008 - Moneycontrol.com (press release) Videocon plans major global retail foray under `VC` brand - Business Standard Reliance Retail close to break-even !- Livemint Indian retail market to be 6th largest by 2012 - Merinews Tata, HUL battle for branded tea mkt leadership - Financial Express Lee Cooper mulls 24 new stores - Financial Express Westside hums franchisee tune for stores expansion - Financial Express Reading the fine print of retail boom in India - Financial Express VF Corp not to buy out Arvind's stake in joint venture - Hindu Business Line Rel Retail in talks with food MNCs - Economic Times Enjoy !

.....how many times have you been attracted to your neighbourhood retail store and ended up buying extra or MORE than what you had planned for , you walk in for a cold drink , you get a couple of chips packets ,get a shaving razor , get attracted to the latest deo , so a 50 Rs bill would have touched 200+ ,or maybe more if the shaving razor is Gillete Mach 3 ! What was a very organised phenomenon , wherein our mothers would plan and do the monthly buy , the only other major shopping occasions were festival led ,has all changed to random and on demand shopping , thanks to our friendly neighbourhood retail outlet, our purses are surely getting lighter each time we make a visit .Organised retail in one way is surely increasing consumption Don't think Brands are cribbing , for if someone has walked in for cold drinks and bought a shaving razor or vice versa ,as long things sell it should be ok ! so how does this work , here is my take on why are we going thru this , ie on WHY DO

Of late , we have seen a flurry of launches in the e retail space , so why are businesses gungho about web space ? Context ! Post the dotcom bust , yes u are left wondering how did people dream of dotcom 6 years back with such poor Internet backbone available in the country . The estimated broadband figures in the country is just at 3+ million ,ie reported , this number would be slightly higher if you were to add the cable Internet , and operators that take bandwidth from others and bill subs etc , the numbers reported of broadband subsrcibers addition last month was at close 3.5 lakhs , which is insignificant when compared to Mobile subs additions , however it will not be long with the advent of Wimax in certain markets the numbers would swell ,soon ,well almost everything cud get done thru the net ! isn't that good news for lazy bums ,like me ! So you see with the future looking exciting , and with PC prices crashing , there is a flurry among business houses that have got into e

Have listed down some very interesting blogs & site , Enjoy ! http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/ http://www.marketingsherpa.com/ http://www.marketingprofs.com/ http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/ http://brandchannel.com/ http://www.indianstoryboard.blogspot.com/ http://brand-ad.blogspot.com/ http://indianbrands.blogspot.com/ small business blog Spotlight Ideas Stupid Marketing Super Brands http://www.ramabijapurkar.com/ http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ http://harishbijoor.blogspot.com/ http://marketinginindia.wordpress.com http://marketingchitchat.wordpress.com/ http://blog.searchenginewatch.com http://www.seobythesea.com http://adage.com/adages http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog http://wendy.kinesisinc.com http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog http://www.adage.com http://www.pronetadvertising.com http://www.adverblog.com http://www.toprankblog.com Retail Blogs :: http://survivingretailbook.blogspot.com/ http://retailstrategyblog.blogspot.com/ http://www.eindiaretail.blogspot.com/ http

Media is abuzz with the rebranding exercise by Shoppers ,a m not surprised with this , Shoppers has fast lost its sheen and direction , in an era that has seen a multitude of retailers enter the market ,Shoppers was neither able to position itself as a premium retailer or mass ,caught in between it was about to be crushed . The results of the last qtr that is q3( 07-08 ) was nothing short of a disaster , the writing was on the wall . Know it all Shoppers stop system had an element and continues to have an aura built around it , stemming from the fact that they were the pioneers in some way of the organised retail , MARKETING & OPERATIONS VACUUM ! This Retailer had some of the best Marketing and Operations brains working for them , people with excellent credentials , till say 2005 ,all have left for sure the vacuum is showing , haven't seen anything great on the marketing front , the loyalty program which was the strength , is another run of the mill program replicated by

Be it Lifestyle retail or non lifestyle retail , getting into the Women hearts and minds would be the key to a Retailer sucess story ! Maybe money is spent on researching this ,but my reading is as the follows as for the Indian She and Retailing ( without research ..but by observations ! ) She is not loyal on the store /retailer front, whoever gives her a good reason to visit ,they would find her there . Kids have major say in deciding where to spend and where to try .A Retailer with good toys section / plus say a Mcdonald s as an anchor should not have a problem ,ideally . She is still comfortable with her local small stores , organised retail or big hypermarket visits are looked as a family outing ie once in a while phenomenon , not even a monthly one . For them , the local store , like the foodworld /spencers /xyz store , still rules in the monthly visit cycle She , Would keep an eye for best offers which she will keep talking for some time , say if she has been given a rice cooker