Sales & MarketZing !

The total catchment area , of a store is an useful information to have before deciding a store location and post store opening marketing energies focus .The catchment analysis is usually done to study the profile of consumers likely to visit in terms of income profile , current shopping destinations and the likely visit to the new store , based on that make some sort of business predictions and also useful in the " yes " or " no " decision . Generally it could be considered that major retailers like department stores, furniture warehouses would be destination sites. These sites could attract people from greater distances because the items are not common purchases, are expensive or provide the opportunity where a number of purchases can be made from the one location. For these destination sites it is possible for consumers to travel 10 or more kilometers. The way to find the catchment spread is too have a robust loyalty program which captures the pin codes of consume

One way which many retailers have driven traffic into their stores is through the gift vouchers route , come to think of it ,this is a great tool .Gift vouchers play a good role in the gifting process first because one doesn't have to break their heads as to what to gift , which is the biggest disconnect mostly among consumers with the standard question "what do we give ". Gift vouchers come in various denominations and have a deadline for usage ,unfortunately one cant break it into smaller denominations and one has to use the entire value in one go , if you see the spends from gift vouchers , it would be higher than the value of the vouchers ,so its a good cash memo size driver as the users tend to spend more than the value . Plus like all vouchers , there cud be a size able number of vouchers that don't get redeemed even . Gift vouchers is a big business line , add an element of institutional sales team and you get going , so along with a walk in model that retail

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We have come across/suggest some interesting retail concepts which should go places ,here is our take :: i) The Brighter Side store at Bangalore( www.thebrightside.in ) : is all about ,very interesting lighting fittings for residential and commercial purpose , great concept ,backed with some amount of aggressive marketing , word of mouth backed with relevant architects and interior designers tie ups , should go places , watch this space for more developments . ii) the Great Indian Store : which aims at the catering to Indian artifacts and the Indian apparels backed with the right food ,backed at the right tourist destination should do well remember the dollars and the euros ! iii) The One stop home furnishing store : right from painting to furniture to lighting to interiors store which would work on an outsourcing model of the respective vendors iv ) Fast food Indian food joints :: Eating out would be big in India how about an Indian variety of fried chicken that can take on a KF

L ike we had mentioned earlier in this blog sunrise industries like telecom , insurance , airlines , and retail have the same environment in terms of the work , the big low penetration story in the market :) ,the future is bright ,market is big , haven't we heard all this ! But one common factor which is bleeding all of these sectors is the low price play being ventured into by some of the players ( 1 rs travel , lowest prices , lowest premium but highest insurance ), the latest to join in this play is the telecom sector( 1/2paisa per sec ) , so how long would this continue ? Low price has helped in building in volumes and - Buying- customer market share ,and also opening up the market by getting at the " non users " all this doesn't seem to be sustainable for long --as even in retail- low cost -high volumes -doesn't mean PROFITS , so it would be a careful MIX or category play to compensate the low margins , its here that private labels come to play . Its also

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Talk to any marketers in India they would talk about the great Indian penetration story cutting across categories ,sounds like a bit of a paradox .. i) the great middle class debate :: India has an x % of middle class population which is greater than the population off certain countries , thus the potential is big , but you correlate this to the tax payers list then there is a gap , so where is the Indian middle class? remember black money :) ii ) The great telecom penetration story , everyone says that its low and the only way it can go is UP , but what abt the denominator , is it the total population , or just the affordable population base , then the opportunity size wuld come come down for sure , for the time being this is low penetration story is getting more players and the market is expanding for sure but maybe the revenues wud not soon ! iii) The Great Indian retail penteration story :: people throw that 5 % of Indian retail is organised etc , so organised retail has its op