50 years of Eno in India - From antigas to dhokhla

50 years of ENO in India - A tale of Acidity & Dhokla!

#ENO antacid dates back to the 19th Century, when James Crossley Eno first introduced it as a “fruit salt” to help sailors stay healthy on long journeys.

The pharmacy from where it was sold was situated on a seaport with a lot of sea traffic. This was a boon for ENO as sailors used to eat large quantities of food on return and faced acidity issues.

India is the largest market for ENO. We know it as the no 1 remedy for acidity issues thanks to its ‘fastest acidity solve’ claim, hammered over the years into consumer psyche via brilliant #advertising. Lines like -

ENO ON, Acidity Gone.

ENO gets to work in 6 seconds.

ENO ON, gadbad Gone.

show that the consistency on #positioning and great creative executions have ensured that consumers can’t think anything else. 

Do you remember the no 2 brand in quick relief antacid salts?

Its a great legacy brand known worldwide for its 100+ years of history and its focus on consumers acidity issues.

But if you dive deep in India, the kicker is the use of ‘lemon’ ENO in a dish called dhokla. As per popular recipes for the dish, one can use lemon ENO in place of baking soda + citric acid for this popular dish. Not sure how much sales it commands for this end use; but YouTube is replete with recipes of eno Khama dhokla. Statewise per capita sales share might validate whether in states where the dish is popular, is there any correlation or not. 

As a composite result of all, it commands ~45-50% market share, with ~600-700 cr sales and is now celebrating 50 years in India!

#marketing #brand 

Pic credits - tastecooking.com

New Modern Sarees from Tata, Birla & Ambani

Indian modern Sarees - now from Tata, Birla and Ambanis!

India sells ~50000 cr worth of Sarees annually. Out of which ~27% was organized market in FY20, which is slated to grow to 40% by FY25.

New cool brands have been growing with modernised play on sarees. Taniera by Tata, Navyasa by Birla and Avantea by Ambanis are some those new brand launched in last 5 years. 

The erstwhile biggies - Nallis, Kalyan Silks, Pothys, Chennai Silks have been there since ages selling buildings full of traditional sarees.

Interesting play in retail with again expansion of exclusive stores by each of the new brands. 

Definitely, there is a gap in the market with the dearth of modern sari specific brands, contrasting to plethora of western wear brands. 

W and Biba capitalised on this gap earlier in non-saree ethnic market earlier.

Interesting to see, how things pan out.

Where do you buy your sarees from?

#fashion #retail #brand #sarees 

Is your product a must-have?

Picked up a book recently - 'Hacking Growth' by Morgan Brown & Sean Ellis to decode this popular term. The book explains it as 'Creative growth strategies executed at low budgets to acquire or retain consumers, applied with a multi-functional lens - marketing, product, tech and what not'; rather than just plain hashtag#Jugaad'. The book explains various steps on how to get started on GH. One of the steps which is peculiar and important in today's times of hashtag#covid19 (when a lot of services are under lockdown), is to assess whether your product or app is a MUST-HAVE. What is a hashtag#musthave hashtag#product? A product that brings an AHA moment for hashtag#consumers; the moment where utility of the product really clicks. For eg, for Uber it is 'the cab reaching you at a click of a button' or 'finding friends' photos and updates instantly' for Fb. So, how to find that your product is must have? Do a MUST-HAVE Survey with your customers & ask - How disappointed would you be if this product no longer existed tomorrow? 1 Very disappointed 2 Somewhat disappointed 3 Not disappointed 4 N/A—I no longer use it. If 40 percent or more of responses are very disappointed, then the product is a must-have! Its an interesting read and i recommend it. Which hashtag#book on hashtag#Marketing do you recommend?

Beards and Acquisitions

Colgate-Palmolive buys 14% stake in Bombay Shaving Company

This news caught my eyes, as why #Colgate is taking over a company with 16 cr of annual sales; that too in a company called Bombay Shaving Company. I mean, i see most people sporting beards these days; who shaves?

And then i realized from stats that its true. That the trend of beards is here, the shaving razors vol is growing by 6% vs 18% a few years ago. Though, a new category of beard care products like wax, oils etc is growing by 16%. I guess, even trimmers industry must be growing exponentially.

And that is the reason, most of men FMCG companies are buying or developing porfolio in this space. Be it #Marico buying stake in #Beardo or #Wipro consumer investing in Happily Unmarried (#Ustara).

And why not. Most of popular men in india are in the beard club. Be it Men in blue lead by #kohli (i guess 80%, follow the captain and have beards), bollywood actors (#Ranveer Singh)and models in advertising, all are in sync with this trend. And social media throws at you enough content on beard care, styling and so on.

Its been more than 1.5 yrs now, i havent shaved as well!

#consumer #trends

Artificial Intelligence going Fashion Street

Watched a movie recently, MoneyBall wherein a baseball manager starts picking his team basis results of a computer algorithm created by a geek. And then the team wins successive matches and sets a record for successive wins in the history. And its a true story.

I wondered how come computer algorithms can predict success so much that coaches/selectors who have played the game for years start becoming irrelevant. People who have been there and have gathered that knack of identifying the hidden potential, can be replaced for the better, efficient and faster Artificial Intelligence driven programs.

However, this is getting real and real today. In my industry of fashion too. Yes, an industry which runs on WGSN trends and worldwide fashion walks trends with hordes of designers and fashion pundits and critics giving thier magical crystal ball predictions of future trends and fads. And all the fashion magazine editors, and retailer feedbacks and planners' output will get replaced with what a piece of code can do. And its here. Now. I digged a little on this and found its happening in India as well.

Closer to home in India, ecommerce companies are having a huge gold mine of data of consumer purchase as well as browsing before purchase. Myntra for example has launched multiple brands like Moda Rapido and Here&Now where the design are predicted basis software's suggestions after mining thier database (together as Myntra, Jabong & Flipkart, they claim 70% online fashion market share) as well as crwaling some thousands of fashion blogs and feeds of social media platforms like instagram. Called as Rapid, this technology would come up with a list of attributes: types of collars, sleeves, cuts, colours and other features currently popular with customers and suggest designs to make.

And they claim huge improvements in sell thru(s), so much so that bulk of thier private labels will start working on AI based trends now.

And then there are global players like Amazon using AI-fashion integration by developing an AI fashion designer. The algorithm learns about a particular style of fashion from images, and can then generate new items in similar styles from scratch.

As per online news articles, i found that an Indian designer brand is using IBM’s cognitive tool Watson to map the future of Bollywood fashion by combining analysis of over 600,000 images of fashion runway shows and Indian couture.

In US, a fashion brand called StitchFix, is solely created out of AI predicted designs for different kinds of customer. The styling service has algorithms to predict what styles people of which profile prefer.

Wow! And imagine the impact in terms of how AI can help brands and retailers with predictive forecasting, capacity planning and merchandising. Issues of unsold inventories, deep discounting, 4-6 months of design to inventory cycle, all getting solved by AI.

How paradoxical it is now. Something as creative as fashion is now predicted by a machine! Is it like a victory of geeks over the fashion pundits? Time will tell.

I am an engineer by the way!

Sources - https://www.livemint.com/AI/tdxtlGYRklB16h8rWj7A2H/How-Artificial-Intelligence-is-empowering-designers-in-India.html

https://www.livemint.com/Companies/tchtq74FOkMM43szMIHh0M/At-Myntra-machines-tell-designers-how-to-make-clothes.html

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/how-algorithms-are-threatening-fashions-white-collar-jobs

Mobile Wallets - A source of valuable data for e-Retailers

Movement towards Mobile #wallets and complete digitization is on its way. Post #Demonetization, now there is month on month drop in ATM transactions and cash withdrawl while usage of wallets and card transactions are growing.

Consolidation is on cards in wallets space as biggies jostle for acquistions of fintech players. From #paytm, #freecharge, #mobiqwik to #amazonpay and #phonepe. Post consumer acquistion thru cashbacks, now players are pumping money into offline retail space where paytm's reach is unmatchable.

And to acquire large number of merchant POS to enable forced adoption of a wallet; there will be more partnerships of the likes of #zopper. May be partnerships in space of loyalty aggreggators like capillary, quicksilver, easyrewards which have large POS reach with these wallet players will pave the way for next chunk of transactions acquisition.

And its evident with monies being  pumped in India by likes of #Flipkart/#Amazon. Why not? #Payment is key to #Purchase as well as #POSdata leading to insights in buying behaviour and patterns to create better #selection making the commerce efficient and profitable.

No wonder why wallets space is so hot; and ATMs are dying. See all 3 news in one place; telling the #story of #money getting #digital.

Xiaomi - Marching from pockets to rooms

From small screen to large screens, from pockets to rooms.

The battle to woo the masses with super specs at affordable prices has shifted from mobiles to TVs. Chinese players are all on with #Xiaomi leading the battle after being labled as No 1 #smartphone brand.

The koreans, be it #Samsung or #LG are more alert on this turf, dropping prices to hold one. Xiaomi is calling it the '#jio' disruption they want to do in TV space, can they?

Here is the landscape. 22,000 cr TV market. Mostly bought #offline. #Replacement frequncy much lower than a mobile. #Aftersales service a key cog. #Status symbol category more than a mobile. #Specs matter the most (Smart, light, big screen..); the old line hold the most - "Bada hai toh behtar hai".

All that jazz means, 1. its a massive game of #distribution as online TV buying would be lesser compared to phones. 2. The #ritual matters as in u go and checkout the TV in store before u finalise. 3. #Aftersales service can be a pain. 4. #Brandawareness with positive ego attributes matter! (Onida's punchline)

Thats where koreans score vs new entrants. But indian '#value' heritage of good brand at affordable prices with a sweetner for distribution might just what the doctor ordered!

#marketing #tech #disruption #consumer

Marketing Principles at Home

This post is going to throw a lot of insight into our households; the most neglected parts of all our marketers/sales guys who are outside in field or in offices making strategies to wow our consumers. We can rather learn a lot and apply most of consumer behavior/marketing principles at home only! This post is going to be a revelation of sorts..

Consumer is the King  - Be it your wife or your kid; this is a golden principle for them. Thou shall not follow it shall run great risks. Be it a trip to market or watching a particular channel; your wife and kids are like 'the consumer' and shall be treated like kings and be followed all times for better household hours :)

Customer Service is the key to success and peace - For couple who have just turned parents; they will agree to this principle with respect to their new-borns! Your kid, if not given service at 24 by 7; it will give you nightmares even during the days. Whether having food in the wee hours of the night or trying every trick to entertain the chap is what tells all newly become parents - that Supreme Customer Service for their kids is a MUST.

Customer is always right! - I am sure, all married men shall agree that this principle is the golden principle of marriage. Wife is always right. Thou shall not follow it shall suffer!

Why suddenly everybody is interested in delivering #Milk at ur doorstep?

Why suddenly everybody is interested in delivering #Milk at ur doorstep? There are plethora of milk apps (#milkbasket), #grocery #ecommerce players and #offline neighborhood retailers joining the milk-wagon! Why, so much fuss about a low margin, near commodity category like milk?

As indian consumers, we have grown up with #Amul as the only dominant voice in the category. A huge traditional distribution does the trick to make it reach our doorstep every morning. Whats the need to change ?

As a #consumer, its the Power to choose. The night before! When u install that app, because of a tech backed up supply chain, u can decide the night before, what u want to add to that milk? Eggs, Bread, Biscuits? Thats a common problem. U seem to run out of these daily needs and have to run to the kirana guy in the morning.

But what about #retailers? Because, they need a foot in the door. Its an opportunity to change ur #habit, and find a consumer who will buy higher margin categories. And its all stocked up near a big box or small shop near u.

And worldwide #investors dont reward so much on ur revenues so much as ur potential revenue thru active customer count. And India is the biggest populated fastest growing economy. And they have #money!

https://lnkd.in/fUPwvCV

Customers would have wanted a faster horse! - Henry Ford

#Convenience is the biggest attribute of future. Saving #time is the noblest thing to do for consumers. #Brands who marry #technology with #creativity to solve consumer problems with these 2 built in purposes (Convenience & lightening fast) will be the biggest brands of the future.

If you see history with recent successes, its there. Whether it is #Apple bringing Ipods and Iphones with huge convenience offerings or #Facebook with faster way to connect with people or #Google with its fastest search or #Amazon with its fastest delivery, broadest selection & value (Convenience). Its whats that happened. Creating convenience thru technology with creativity in exploring the unknown. 

Why ecommerce players are obsessive about number of clicks? Because they take consumer convenience as obsession to work at breakneck speed to make it happen. From multiple it became 'one click purchase' which in itself was a milestone. But just for a while. Today, consumers we are moving from many clicks to one click to zero clicks. Thats where #AI takes over! And thats what devices/apps like #Alexa or #GoogleHome or #Siri or #GoogleAssistant are doing. Taking convenience to the #ZEROCLICK saving time for the consumers to get what they want at lightening speed!

Why Tech companies are burning midnight oil to create smart appliances via Internet of Things (IOT) that will obey voice commands? Sounds bizarre. Taking customer convenience to an extreme. But that is the future. 3D printing was like a fairy's magic in childhood stories. But thats a reality. Why? To make consumer able to dream and create things basis his imagination. And #Imagination is human being's greatest asset for progress.

And did consumer ask for AI enabled products? Or smart bands? Or Smart cars? Did they dream about it? Did any consumer researches told that they have this need? I doubt it. Its the companies with obsession for consumer, that think about it, put in effort and take risks & create such #innovations. And rule #future.

As Henry Ford puts it fantastically well - “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Retailing - Offline > Online (Part 2)

As explained in the first article, the premise here is that retailing basics dont change whether its online store or an offline store. In last article, 5 Key Areas of retail were described - Consumer Experience, People, Product, Topline & Bottomline. In this article, i would exhibit the linkages to online retailing, discuss key drivers & key actions/strategies enabling them.

1.Product/Service - For any business to succeed, the product/service which you are selling, has to be desirable for customers, offers a good quality experience on usage & adds to a consumer's life. However, before a consumer can experience the product post purchase, her attention has to be intercepted by your product/service for it to get sold.

This is where Visual Merchandising plays a role in offline retailing. From the window of the store talking about that 'stitchless shirt' which intrigues your mind & tickles you to enter the store; to attractive display of product with wonderful VM talking about the story behind say the ' no stitching' or 'anti-radiation mobile pocket' etc. You pickup the product & then interact with the customer associate & give it a shot. Boom. The sale is over.

However in online retailing, there is no intriguing window/VM to have product talk you into buying it? That gets replaced by the 'User Interface & Navigation' of the site enabling fastest discovery of such products. The window is the 'Home Page banner' wooing you to buy that stitchless shirt! VM is replaced by the 'quality of pictures/videos' shot in the studio with beautiful models to make you comfortable while making the buying decision.

Another barrier in online app/website is that you cant define a layout of the store to fix the category navigation the way it happens in offline retailing - putting the destination categories at the back of store & impulse next to cash counter, highlighting seasonal stories at the first fixture & basics at the back. In online retailing, its dependent on how the consumer uses the provided filters to lead to 'product discovery'. However, with #BIGDATA analytics, app should be able to provide varying UIs basis what a purchases. My home page banner on say an Amazon should vary from say yours; leading to bring in that personalized product discovery! Thats more power to online retailing if done well.

2.People - In offline retailing, the omnipresent 'human touch' is what at times makes you discover a new category or brand you would never buy. Thats the power of human interaction. It delivers variable and personalized and live-dynamic delivery of knowledge & product experience. Thats why good brands invest in training their sales people. A product/Brands gets alive in the way creator has conceptualized only when a person gives that product presentation making the story complete. That, 'Joe' in your favourite high street store calls you when your desired product arrives, wishes you on your birthday & invites you to the store, helps you get benefited by the steal deals, customizes your clothes as per your taste/measurements, and once in a while lets you have your ego massaged; is something! Something, that a fixed computer screen cant match!

In online retailing, this important bit gets replaced by the Product Presentation(Picture/Video, Copy, size chart, reviews, ratings, etc). Now, basis all this information, one can take the decision; and as these factors are incomplete vs a human presentation; thats why ecommerce companies offer liberal return policy & faster delivery mechanisms trying to make up for this void & making is easier for consumer to shop. However, with advanced AI & bots; this is getting better to give that human touch to ecommerce.

3.Customer Experience - If the consumer walks into your store & gets presented by the sales person; but doesn't get serviced properly or the store experience is not good given sloppy display or no cooling or rude behavior; everything goes for a toss. A bad consumer experience is like a camphor catching fire; it burns & burns the entire neighborhood of customers. Thus, offline art of retaining is all about consumer experience, the capital factor.

In offline, the experience is elongated. From website experience to the product delivery. The app wasnt loading or the filters were going wonky or the payment gateway wasnt working; all kills the experience. But so does late delivery of goods or rude behavior of delivery boy or wrong delivery of product in the box. Online retailing has its own challenges to ensure a great consumer experience. Most of the ecommerce players have been able to fix the technology side; however most of the issues crop up on the logistics/warehousing errors.

4.Top-line - As discussed in Part 1, Topline being the objective No 2; there needs to be clear understanding on drivers of topline & relationship in between to revenue. As in offline, online retail has similar relationship -

Offline Sales = Footfalls (No of Customers * Freq) X Conversion X Basket Size X Average Sales Value

Online Sales = No of hits (No of unique visitors * visits) X Conversion (Sales Transactions/visits) X Cart items X Average Sales Value

Now the drivers in online piece, are obviously -

A. No of hits or Traffic to the site driven by lead generation out of various campaigns (SEO, SMM, ATL, BTL etc);

B. Conversion on the site driven by 1. Ease of product discovery & transaction on website (User Interface & Steps to transaction completion) 2. Product Presentation (Pics/vids/info/reviews/Pricing) enabling users to make a buying decision 3. Transaction completion net of returns (Lot of transactions get cancelled post conversion/post delivery due to poor acceptance or impulse) which needs to be controlled with better product quality checks/ product presentation & efficiency in logistics & delivery.

C. Basket Size on the eCommerce website can be boosted by running campaigns of cross promotion (shop across shirts & trousers & get extra discount), shipping free (order > Rs 1000 get shipping free) and so on. Cart can also be boosted with recommendations showing users who bought A also bought this book. Basically giving a benefit (discount, freebie) on increased basket.

D. Average Sales Value is the last factor on the topline; which is driven by premium assortment, branded merchandise, better quality and so on. Sell more suits and blazers than shirts & your average sales value sky rockets! How can a website influence you to up-trade your ASP? Using recommendations tickling the ego (Consumers choosing an apple iphone have bought apple branded accessories only); highlighting high priced products basis shopping history; or plain and simple 'personalized pricing' within an app (Same hotel room to Mr X is $1000 while Mr Y is $1200).

5. Bottom-line - Obviously, this is the No 1 objective for which businesses exist. One needs to drive all revenue factors up and all costs factors down without dropping consumer experience, product quality & people standards in offline retail. Same factors apply here in online retail - One needs to boost margins by arm-twisting vendors, ask minimum guarantees, increase #private #labels, boost traffic at lowest cash burn, drop costs of logistics & warehousing, and reduce discounts and so on. Make unit economics work!

I think the basics remain the same; be it online or offline; its the passion that drives the business ahead to serve consumers! I hope this 2 part article; was a good read. If yes, please drop in your valuable comments & lets strike a conversation around retailing - Offline or Online!

For going to part 1 of this article, please click here. 

Retailing - Offline > Online?

With so much happening in the retail industry in India; Online Vs Offline is a topic touching emotions anytime in a room. There has been huge hue & cry about how online retailing is changing the way consumer shop or how it is killing the offline retailing or how offline retailing is under pressure from Mall rentals or how offline retailing's touch n feel cant be replaced by online and offline retailing understands economics while e-commerce players don't. I am penning my thoughts around something called retailing as i learned it from my childhood days in a family owned retail business to organized retailing work experience in offline/online world.

Selling a product/service to an end-consumer is primarily retailing. Does its principles change when the mode of transaction with end consumer is immediate (offline) or distant (online)? Are these so different that people who run these businesses apply different skills to run them? Does the consumer of the two modes of retailing different? Answer is No. Lets start from basics.

What are the key focus areas of a retail business? I call them as BIG 5 Pillars of Retail -

1. Product/Service - These are the "goodies" you are selling to the consumer. These are goodies as they are supposed to be 'good', making a consumer happy after purchase. If you sell them well, it becomes a part of life of consumers adding value to them. If you dont sell them, they remain part of your inventory adding to your costs. Its important to keep the product at its best levels & measure the indicators through various activities.

• Customer Feedback/Satisfaction - Work on the goodies basis consumer feedback. Consumer knows on what she like about you and also wants to tell you on what can make it better.
• Competition Bench-marking - Work on keep improving the goodies Vs competition.
• Product Performance - What are the various indicator's of its performance -
• a) Inventory Sell Through - If the goodies are good, then how fast are you selling them? What are the activities which can speed things up?
• b) What is selling better? - Out of an assortment of goods kept in store, what is selling better, so that you can change the mix accordingly? What categories give you better profits (margins)? (Category Performance)

2. People - These are the "human beings" that advocate your goodies to end consumer and sell to them. If these are good/well-trained/motivated sales force, they ensure fast selling of goodies and ensure consumer keeps coming back basis the last interaction (Customer Service). If they are'nt happy/not trained; it shows on customer experience and consumers wouldnt connect with your goodies & lead to poor sales/repeat sales.

• People Competence - Is my staff trained & competent on giving your desired customer service? What are the drivers? Invest in right talent & training. Are they clear on what they are selling? Are they sold on the product themselves to sell it to consumers?
• People Satisfaction - Is my staff happy/motivated so that they can wow the consumer? What are the drivers? Keep them engaged, make work a fun place, recognize their performance, reward them with commensurate rewards/benefits,
• People Performance - Is their performance evaluated at periodic times so that they can make changes to improve? Are there simple monitoring systems & improvement methods known to them?

3. Consumer Experience - This is the ultimate driver of a retail business which leads to sales & growth of a company. A good consumer experience entails everything - From the kind of ambeince in which goodies were delivered, from the kind of interaction with the salesperson that added value to the consumer's life, the kind of after sales journey consumer goes through; all add to the chances of her coming back to the company for more!

• Consumer Satisfaction Scores & Feedback - Keep working on understanding levels of satisfaction and what they are saying about your products. This helps in improving again and again.
• Consumer experience is an amalgamation of everything and you need to understand exactly whats going wrong. It could be any cog in the wheel, that might derail you - Store ambience (was it lit enough? Was it clean?), Product/Assortment (Product quality wasnt good? I couldn't find the product? (Supply Chain/Layout), It wasnt appealing? (Quality/Visual Merchandising), Customer Service was not good? (Training/Motivation), Price wasn't right and so on..

4. Topline (Sales Revenue) - This is objective No 2, out of investments in first 3 drivers to generate value for the business. One needs to understand various drivers and relationship leading to revenue. In retail, it is as simple as -

Sales = Footfalls X Conversion X Basket Size (BS) X Average Sales Price (ASP)

And then one just needs to work on the cause effect ladder for all the drivers to arrive at levers of these drivers & list down activities & indicators to create a plan. For eg -

• Footfalls = (Old customers coming back again & again) + New customers
• Retained Sales drivers = Activities for greater engagement leading to them coming to buy and coming back multiple times, usage of loyalty program benefits to bring them back, usage of sweeteners (points, points back, discounts), exclusive events.
• Acquisition Sales drivers = Activities to add new footfalls like trial generation activities, alliances with non-compete brands, attracting footfalls within catchment through an event or a mega broadcast through advertising.

Footfalls = (Retained customers X frequency) + (Acquisition of new customers)

• Conversion - This is the success factor in a retail store; how many footfalls get converted into buyers or invoices. In order to boost conversion; you work on training on selling skills or product knowledge (people cant sell properly), or discovery of desired products in store is an issue (layout change) or desired merchandise is missing (category mix issue or poor estimation of demand leading to stock outs) and so on. Activities can include a in store promotion/in-store communication/etc.

Conversion = # of Invoices/# of Footfalls

• Basket Size - BS or UPT(Units per Transaction) is no of items in a customer's basket. To boost BS, one needs to work on product knowledge of sales persons. One starts training people on cross-selling to educate customers to buy a matching trouser with a shirt. Or buy a shampoo, conditioner & serum of same variant. Apart from cross-selling, retailer work on basket building promotions like - Buy 3 get 2 Free, inducing the consumer to buy more items or bundled packs with a price off (Buy 3 soaps at price of 2).

Basket Size = Total items sold / # of invoices.

Average Sales Price (ASP) - Average Sales Price is nothing but the average selling price of a unit sold. To boost the ASP, one needs to work on the merchandise mix in a store. As retail space is expensive, one needs to stock & sell merchandise with higher ASP. In garments category, its about having a mix of merchandise at Entry, Mid & Premium price points. The retailer will always work to move the average to Mid & Premium price points. You also need to educate salesperson to "Up-sell", which means selling a Rs 2000 shirt instead of Rs 1500 by talking about the benefits of Rs 2000 one (a wrinkle free shirt Vs a normal cotton shirt). You need to highlight premium options in a store like a special section with inviting visual merchandising so that consumers get attracted, and so on.

Average Sales Price = Total Sales / # of items sold

• Average Transaction Value (ATV) - ATV is another factor important in retail; which is nothing but average sales value of a transaction. In order to boost ATV, one can boost Basket Size or one can boost Average Sales Price or both. A retailer running an offer of - Shop worth Rs 10,000 & get a duffle bag free; is trying to push the ATV to 10,000.

Average Transaction Value(ATV) = Total Sales / # of invoices

Also, ATV = BS X ASP

5. Bottomline (Profits) - This is No 1 objective for a business; and one uses the earlier 4 pillars in such a manner that you generate profits. When i look at bottomline as a key focus area; i look at various costs which impact the revenue generated leading to bottomline.

One needs to list all costs & work towards minimizing them (without impact on the earlier 4 pillar) and create positive bottomline. Again, you list all factors of costs & activities to boost bottomline. Eg -

Cost of Goods, Cost of Discount, Cost of Inventory, Rentals , People , Utilities

With all these 5 pillars well monitored & executed for perfection, one can expect a good return out of a retail business. There are surely many other factors or jargon you might find; but you can bucket them in these 5 pillars, thus bringing clarity of thought and focus. Just, keep these 5 pillars under your control like 5 fingers of your hand & you shall do well. In the next piece, I shall write about how the same 5 pillars matter in Online retail as well & the basics never change.

Patanjali & its captive consumer

With news of #Patanjali realizing its apparel dreams with 'Patanjali Paridhan' coming to fore, one can imagine what opportunity it is trying to tap in this category.

Its the big mass of loyal #customers who use patanjali ayurvedic medicines and FMCG products. Demographics - Everywhere, middle aged to old, across SECs. Psychographics - Faith in roots: be it ayurveda, swadeshi, religion, indigenous culture and so on.

What kind of #apparel will make sense? - All growing categories in apparel - Ethnic wear, athlesiure (read yoga wear), inner wear (closer to skin organics) and basic essentials in western wear.

#Brand Promise - Sasta, Shudh & Swadeshi.

"Clothing is Baba Ramdev's next big bet. His enterprise Patanjali — which has disrupted India's FMCG market — is set to enter the apparel business by May, The Ken reports (behind paywall). ‘Patanjali Paridhan’ will have 600-700 retail stores across the country in Tier 2 and 3 cities, though it has also partnered Big Bazaar’s fashion arm, FBB, for distribution. The products, priced at Rs 300-2,000, will compete with the likes of affordable fashion store V-Mart and FBB itself." - Linkedin News

Understanding Social Media and Donuts

Social Media decoded in one picture! Thats a fantastic way to explain #socialmedia platforms and thier usage by audiences!!

#Twitter is about immediate information and news while #Facebook is a richer way to exhibit your interests with your friends.

#Foursquare is locational vs #Instagram/#Pinterest is more about romancing the visual medium with filters and edits.

#YouTube obviously is about extremely rich audio visual content for storytelling while #LinkedIn is all about telling the world about your skills and experiences to add value to the network.

#Google plus's narrative is something which is not what i subscribe to, though it speaks of its least usage and fading away.

#Donuts for eating!!

However how #brands use it mostly? Same content (shots/vids/pics) on donuts replicated all across platforms!

What they get out of this lesson? Irrespective of nature of social media platform, just plug in the donuts!!

And show it bigger and better! Zoom on it, show it big size; anybody whether on twitter or facebook or Instagram should not miss my BIG DONUT!! Its all about the Donuts!!

Pic Credits - #MadOverMarketing.

Millenials behaviour and opportunities

#Millenials consuming behaviour and #privatelabels push of online retailers, is seriously cooking up a #retail #storm!!

Few key symptoms -

1 Millenials demand #performance vs #logo - Its not about flaunting a logo that labels them as connesieurs, its more about understanding what they possess. Its like apple vs nexus or one plus. Explains the rise of such brands.

2 Millenials seem #practical in price value equation - Marketing and Brands is about profits, doesnt appeal to them, they are ok with private labels with quality output. They read #reviews to trust a new brand and easy return policy makes it work.  Shows growing emergence of private labels like amazon basics.

3 Millenials #search #google or app for literally everything - Thats a big one! Thus, white dress shirt search will land them to more often than not to private labels rather than the white shirt from ralph!

Imperatives??

#Brands need to create an unmatchable offering mostly thru fantastic quality at the right price. And engage in whys of #storytelling of how the brand aligns to thier #pragmatism. Curate personalized collections via #VisualMerchandising in a physical store. Plan #human-interaction to aid in story-telling and #feedback so that u appear as a brand that cares.

Elephants can Dance! - From Maruti to Haldirams

Elephants can Dance!!

Haldiram & Maruti on the front page of The Economic Times Times today for positive reasons.

With 'natural', 'authentic' and 'indigenous' elements creating a new trend and increased demand, #Haldiram toppling #Pepsi from No 1 snacks player by turnover is a sign testifying the wave.
From humble beginnings in Bikaner to chance expansions in other parts and later managing the entrepreneurial spirit thru 4 generations; Haldiram story has its share of ups and downs, as mentioned in a book - Bhujia Baron. But today's news makes a new cover page!

#Maruti, from a brand that ran its 800 model for more than two decades with incremental changes; today is a model churning behemoth.
From mass to class, the brand has brought numerous car brands with 'ferrarian' speed to make it premium and yet with volume. From Swift to Dzire to Ciaz to Baleno to Grand vitara, it has some 6 cars in top 10 passenger car market by volume.
From a brand around value (kitna deti hai?) to premium appeal (Nexa experience) it has hit home run everywhere. No wonder the stock is pricier than #Ferrari.

Indian #Elephants are starting to #Dance, a properly  choreographed one!! #MakeinIndia

#consumer #businesses #india