Features

Value for money Vs Value in-store
Retailers are on a constant lookout for newer and better ways to attract potential customers, to increase their existing footfalls and to convert visitors into customers. But, do retailers realise wha...

Width or depth: A critical choice
Customers visiting a store are looking for either the width of merchandise – the variety of product lines offered – or the depth – the number of each item or particular style of a pr...

It's all about the format
It is an every day challenge for a retailer to satisfy the diversified demands of discerning customers. The further challenges are to reel in more customers, assure their loyalty, drive in more footfa...

Customer-centric retailers roll the dice
“Rather than trying to fit the world to our business model, we need to fit the business model to the real world that exists,” comments Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight. At present, i...

Promises to keep
Real estate is the largest component of cost for a modern retailer in India. At an average of 15 per cent of sales being paid out as rentals – compared to 2-3 per cent of sales in developed markets – ...

Social Circuitry
The fast growth of digital media has amplified the potential of modern retailers to gain momentum in pushing brand building and consumption of their respective products among younger consumers. Opport...

Gross Margin: How reflective is it?
It is being said that it might be easy to turn cash into inventory but the main challenge is to turn the inventory back into more cash. According to researchers and analysts, many retailers fail to ma...

WOW! The element of [pleasant] surprises
There is a compelling argument for retail theatrics. At a time when the four Ps of marketing – Product, Price, Placement and Promotion – seem inadequate in influencing an increasing demanding customer...

Union Budget 2009-10 to boost rural consumption
In his Union Budget presentation earlier this month, India’s Union Finance Minister (FM) Pranab Mukherjee underscored the urgency of reviving growth, by identifying that the country’s immediate econom...

Modern Food Retail: A tough balancing act
The primary challenge in food retail, no doubt, is its supply chain, which is making things difficult for retailers and food processors to procure quality produce at competitive costs directly from fa...