From the past 2 years we have
seen a phenomenal growth of retail sector in India, with many foreign player
raring to participate in the retail growth story of our country. Numbers and
statistics would play important role for few years for retail sector’s growth,
but who is watching the consumer loyalty.
I appreciate the workaround
done by Kishore Biyani for the future group touching multiple points of sectors
associated and related to fuelling of retail sector’s growth. He has created
multiple mall brands to suit needs and requirements of different economical
sections of the society, has tied up with banking groups to bring up co-branded
cards and now even a future group card for the consumers, he also has leveraged
future finance division to support growth of future group brands.
A lot also has being talked
about the slow but gradual loss of business for “Kirana wala”, your friendly
neighborhood supply store, it’s true that he may lose out to bargains and discounts
offered by departmental stores capable of doing so due to economy of bulk
buying, but that’s not the end for him, he can still score on consumer loyalty.
I share my personal
experience here just to check the reality with the retail sector, which spans
across departmental store which I visit for my daily supplies, also my
purchasing experience with few well known mall brands. I had bought a wardrobe
and a wall unit from a local furniture vendor, who delivered the goods the very
next day, and no hassles experienced, so a year later I decided to buy a bed
from Home Town, which happens to be a Future Group venture and they had a sale
going on, so I checked out few bed models and finally choose one with mattress,
made the payment and was given a time frame of 10 days for delivery, I was okay
with it because I had some guest arriving at my place and had to get the bed
before they arrive, so a delivery guy came to my place while I was in office
and he delivered the bed unit dismantled and had 3-4 boxes, so my wife asked
him is the mattress also along with it, he said yes and collected the original
bill for bed and mattress and then we realized post the carpenter from home
town came to assemble the bed that the mattress was missing.
Here started my series of
calls and visit to the malls where I kept following up with a godown receipt
that the delivery guy left and the staff at mall was not able to locate
separate entry of payment for mattress, I had to walk up with my bank statement
to show them the collective payment made for bed and mattress, still they were
not budging, they took their own sweet time and kept evading my calls as I was
furious since the purpose for which I booked the bed in advance was defied and
I was left feeling helpless, and I got my mattress on the day the guests left.
The second incident occurred
again after a 10-15 days when I booked a dining table from lifestyle store,
Home Center at Kalyani Nagar in Pune, here again I was hassled with delay in
delivery time because they did not have any stock here locally in Pune and
their nearest stock base was at Kalamboli in Navi Mumbai, that’s really
surprising, setting up a grand store in Pune without any local storage facility
nearby the city.
We shop our daily grocery and
veggies from departmental store, earlier Tru Mart, now India Bulls Mart, I
wonder how the takeover has benefited Pyramid Retail selling off retail
business to a group having core experience in financial sector. The store
management has gone haywire the time India bulls has overtaken the departmental
store, vegetables are not always fresh, flies hovering on fruits and veggies,
cooling area for beverage and cold storage products is switched off?, I have
to look at the expiry date on products because they keep stocking food items
over expiry dates, the store manager is missing and they operate one payment
terminal where you don’t get any receipt, in case other terminals are having
big queue?
Also at malls, I find the
staff at counters or assistance staff least bothered to guide customers, they
stand there expressionless, either chit-chatting or loitering around, till date
I have found assistance for my apparel shopping and personally feel shopping at
malls for apparels make sense rather than extending your shopping to other
requirements.
Such instances make me feel
skeptical as to how far the retail sector can go to retain customer loyalty,
because for me I’m going back to my local roadside vegetable stall vendor to
buy the veggies and call the kirana shop to order groceries which they deliver
at my home for free, even a single bread packet at times.