Shopping is Fun, Paying is not...

For each of us, Shopping is fun, we spend hours and hours going from one shop to another, and in a mall, from one side of the huge floor to another, un and down the esclators, even spending hours at the food court or the new restaurants that are starting up all the time ..

Yet, after all the hours of shopping, trying on, deciding etc etc, we then head to the check out counter and guess what we see ! A long line of shoppers just like you and with loads and loads of shopping !

This is when, you have to decide whether you will wait in the queue for the next 5 or 10 minutes and just leave all the shopping in the bag and just make a quick exit ....

Most prefer to wait ( after all you have taken so much time deciding ) and watch what all the others have shopped !

Increasingly, some shoppers seem to decide that the wait is not worth it and abandon the shopping trolley and go out..

What are the learnings for retailers?
If the queues are moving, then the shopper is more likely to stay and get the billing done...

But

If the transactions are not crisp, if they cannot see an organized checkout, they are very likely to not end up buying. Some people just turn around and leave as soon as they see a busy checkout.

It is the responsibility of the store staff, to check if the queue is getting to be too long and arrange to get new billing counters opened .. A sign that we are opening new counters or moving customers to counters in another area / floor where the queues are less can help break the queues..

Have you seen any such pro active stores  ? Share them with us ...

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Welcome - a simple hand gesture.

With petrol prices same at all petrol pumps, whether you fill petrol at a BP or a HP or an IOC pump is actually a matter of just who is most conveniently located.Very rarely do we give much thought to the fact that how a simple WELCOME can make a difference to your day and an increase to a petrol pump's business.

I cross 12 petrol pumps from my home to my office every day, yet, I plan and fill petrol only at a Bharat Petrol Pump, just near my workplace only because the attendent there guides you to the empty space, where you can fill petrol easiest.

In fact, this particular pump VM and Sons, on Old Airport Road, Opp Manipal Hospital, does a few other simple things .

1 . You will find all the staff neatly dressed,

2 .The supervisor even with a white coat,

3. The place very clean ,

4. An attendant comes to wipe your car windshield 

5. The air filling pump for the tyre always manned and the attendant does not look for tips !

6. Has his own lorry, to ensure unadulterated petrol comes from the company !

7. Has the filter paper petrol test filled with filter paper ! Even though I have not used it, I know, his petrol is pure and un adulterated.

A good combination of many things. How much does all this cost, compared to increase in the business from customers like me ! It is

nothing.

Oh , one more thing. This is also the only pump,which continues to stock SPEED, the high end petrol from BP, when most others have just stopped stocking it.

Learning :-

All it needs is  attention to the customer requirements and the business even in a commodity space like petrol is can be significantly increased !!!

Do you know of any other such "superior service" retailer. SMS us with your name, and we will feature both of you here.

More features like this on a daily basis...

www.retailgurukul.com

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Are your Air Conditioning your city, with your A/C unit .

This is the picture of a window that is open in a "up market air conditioned gymnasium" in an upmarket locality in Bangalore.This particular chain has over 30 gys all over South India . Can you imagine the air conditioning bill when the gym is running from 6.30 am till 10.30 Pm every day, 7 days a week and windows are kept open because the A/cs are not efficient and the gym feels stuffy inside. And this must be the practice in other branches also...

As organisations become bigger and bigger, more and more offices, retail stores, malls etc are increasingly run by employees and the "Owner" of the business is not in the picture at all.

While there are electricity shortages in the country due to high summer demand, "professional" businesses, offices, malls depend on diesel run generators to make up for the extra demand, when there is a power cut.

Who is responsible anyway ?

While the functional responsibility is for example, in the case of this gym, is with the Gym Manager, the habit that the wastage is impacting every one, must be felt by every employee and customer too. Because, wastage impacts every one, and especially in a item like electricity which is facing a country wide shortage and diesel generated electricity is about 3 times more  expensive.

Solution ?

The maintainence people are the best ones to take care of the building, but control of costs on power and diesel bills are never in their KRAs. It should be and portion of the cost cutting benefits come back to employees as better pay, customers as lower price increases and national benefits due to less air and noise pollution due to diesel generators .

Different temperatures for summer and winter !

Again, in large companies, standard operating procedures even specifiy that the temperature must be at 23 Deg Centigrade. Most places can actually do with two levels of standardisation a. one for summer and b. one for winter, when the ambient temp can be lower.

Guess, who has two types of temp settings as a standard procedure ?

Ever checked a 2nd class A/c compartment "setting board " in the Indian Railways near the door. The two standard temperatures are mentioned one each for the summer and winter seasons. We often blame the government for inefficiencies. but in this case atleast, they are way ahead of private entreprises.

One more idea for saving electricity :-

In one instance, in a factory the ambient temperature was increased from 23 to 24 degrees without much discomfort and lakhs and lakhs of rupees was saved, because the maintainence manager thought it would be a good way to cut costs, especially when the savings were so huge.

Do share photos of any such instances of "wastage" when the industry growth is seeing challenges and remember to tell any store or mall owners if you see any wastage, and also ask them to log on to this blog for more such cost reduction ideas..

Pl forward this to your friends in the retail business , they will be thankfull to you ! Save this website name in your contact list for any reference !

shivaram

http://www.retailgurukul.com

followus on faceboo, twitter :-retailgurukul.com

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Welcoming customers with a store signage

Mr. Akbar was the newly appointed store manager for Tanishq, the jewellery store from Titan,  which had just opened in Koramangala, Bangalore. He and his team had gone around the predominently residential area personally inviting customers to the opening of the store.

Soon after the store opened, new customers started coming but what surprised Akbar and his team was, customers were walking into the store for the first time, even after one year, even though they were living in the neighbourhood and must be passing the store frequently.

When asked, why they did not come earlier, the typcial answer was, they knew the store was there, but they had no requirement to buy jewellery at that time, and when they found the need, they had come in now. Customers keep watching the store, before a need arises.!

Truth be told...
The first "Welcome" sign for a customer to come into the store is really the "SIGNAGE". Let us look at the "signages " of two stores on the same building in Koramangala, Bangalore.

Top one for Cure and Care, looks like it needs some cure and care itself. The lighting is fused in many places, the signage does not attract adequate attention to itself. But the signage for Nike is beautiful, attracts attention and says welcome !. That is the way.

Similarly, look at another example, across the road from a newly opened store.

"P" is missing in the Hush Puppies signage. This is one of the only 4 high end Hush Puppies stores from the Bata stable in the country .

Solution :-

It is all part of a simple SOP for the store staff. Even the security guard can be made for follow the SOP. Every evening, the light is switched on at a fixed time say 6 PM by the security guard, so that the signage becomes visible at night. After switching on, the guard has to walk across the road and observe all the lights are working and nothing has got fused. And inform the store manager.

The manager should take a 5 minute break from his daily routine inside the store and come out , walk across the road, and observe, what potential customers are doing while crossing the store. Are they looking at the store, is a car parked in front of the porch obstructing the view to the store, what are the store staff doing when not attending customers, etc etc. All this information gives a good "5 minute health check" for the store.

Additional benefits :-
Any deviations can easily be rectified. Unlike during the day, when the workings inside the store is not visible from across the road, it is important that "store gives a professional welcome look "not just from the signage but also customer service inside. 

After investing close to a crore of rupees or more in advance, rentals, interiors, inventory, staff, the responsibility of the store upkeep is important.  Even in corporate setups, where it might take a few more days to get repairs done, the damage done by a faulty signage is too high to be left ignored for too long.

Let us hope the store repairs the signage, after reading this blog atleast.:)


Welcome to our RetailGurukul
Website :-http:www.retailgurukul.com
Blog :- http://www.retailgurukul.blogspot.com
Twitter and facebook handle :- RetailGurukul.
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Phone :- 90360 36524.

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A social media face for your retail store

Retailers where are you ?

Youngsters are your market :- Do they really know, where are you , when they are searching for products to shop ? Many of them are new to your city !

As  youngsters become the main stay for many retail businessess, it is no longer enough to just advertise in your favourite newspaper and hope it will attract your customers to your store. Bangalore's MG Road, Brigade Road and Commercial Street are no longer the attractive places to shop ! Who has the time to travel to them on the only sunday they get ?

More and more young people work more than just the normal 9 to 6 now a days  5 to 6 days a week and then take home to work on their laptops . We see less and less of them reading news papers, including those using company buses. Considering that many of them are staying all alone or with friends or even having small families, the habit of reading newspapers is coming down amongst this as a source of information about brands, offers etc.

New Media for advertising :-

Since many of them spend literally all their working time in front of computers, mobiles, and the now status symbol of a ipad ( I pad 3 has just been launched), it is important that retailers including the brands begin to embrace the social media world of http://www.facebook.com, http://www.twitter.com, http://www.linkedin.com, http://www.pininterest.com, etc and a host of new media. A website is almost like a phone no today. If you are not uptodate on your website, then you are seen as dated. In fact mobile websites are the order of the day.

Caution :-

Retail as an industry and more so, retailers and franchisees of brands have always been slow to get on to the technology bandwagon.

It is time that retailers not wait for the Brand Owners/ companies to give them a few lines under the address of dealers on their company websites, but start to experiment with various social media.

Like this blog on indi-blogger, it is even free and smarter young entrepreneurs are beginning to blog about their stores, their new introductions, their customer feedbacks etc . In the initial stage, it might be worth while to take the help of website and social media developers ( like a local advertisement agency) you are using for your local advertising and get a presence. One such company is http://www.jademagnet.com ( I  am using them for my own website http://www.retailgurukul.com )

Remember social media is now a 365 days 24 hours advertising and the earlier you adapt this, the better benefits you will get. All this can be done from the store, using your email and phone ! to get started.

Surprisingly, costs are much lower than a half page advertisement that your brand gives once in a way on your behalf, just before a big shopping season.

Retail Metrics :-
After publishing your advt in a newspaper, do you know how many actually saw it ? As a saying goes, 50 % of all advertising is a waste, but you dont know which one !

Is it different for online social media ? What do you think.. ?


Best of luck and share your experiences.

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An unrefusable offer for Bloggers ..

Background :-

We are all customers for a wide variety of products like daily grocery shopping, lifestyle products, consumer products, homes, etc etc. Many of us are regular bloggers on the indiblogger network and other networks as well. Currently we blog what is closest to our hearts and hope that it is of interest to others.

In another world, are the retailers like me representing 1000's of brands who spend their entire lifetime understanding customers like you. Some time successfully, many times failing badly.

Recall the number of times, we have made  you happy with your shopping and times we have upset you. We know we should do better. Your happiness is our survival after all.

Give us a chance to correct and improve ourselves... We have Crores of investment to take care .

The opportunity  :-

Retailers are always looking for honest, critical feedback on their business to help them improve.

The current methods of understanding customers , doing surveys, focus groups inside 5 star hotels or door to door surveys have their limitations.

For the 1000's of bloggers on the Indi Blogger network, I have an unrefusable offer :-

We are setting up India's first Online /Offline Retail Staff Training Portal called http://www.RetailGurukul.com

Unrefusable Offers :-

We are looking for authors to write on the entire shopping experience from the Customers perspective . What you liked , what you did not, what made you buy, what put you off , what can we do it make it better, make you happy :), how to solve a problem ?

We like authors, customers and anyone interested in providing feedback, suggestions and comments on the way Brands are retailed in India.

You have typically discussed your experience with your friends and family about your experiences, but rarely got in touch with the retailer or the Brand itself. Most often you have gone back to the store if you  had a good experience or voted with your feet, if it was bad.

Brands and Retailers are spending enormous amount of time and effort to understand the customers, often with mixed results.

Let us talk ? And make some decent money too.... Nothing is lose any way ! Everything to gain.

Call me Shivaram

90360 365 24.

www.retailgurukul.com

http://www.retailgurukul.blogspot.com for my blog

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Happy Customer Services to share ?

Once upon a time, we would go to the tailor first with the cloth, who would take the measurements, then go another day he told us would be ready and find it was not. Go back a few more times, curse your tailor and finally get it .

Now a days, we go to a branded ready made store in a mall, mostly on weekends and that too in the evenings ,  try out many many dresses and finally select a pant ! Only to find in the trial room, the length of the pant is too long, the ends are not stiched. You dont give it too much thought, you bill it and then you are asked to go to the alteration desk !

Frustration :-
This is where the frustration starts. After a long queue at the billing counter, there is a even longer queue at this alteration desk. And it is already 8 PM and you are in a hurry to go home ! You are now told that it will take one hour or you could come back after a day to collect.

You then feel helpless and since you cannot wait for one hour decide to come back the next week end only to collect.

Opportunity :-

Some brands have sensed this as an opportunity and have started door delivery of the altered pant to your door step, either the office or home address !

Customer Delight :) !

What a convenient way to service the customer.... some thing that could be a frustration has been turned into a delight !

Do you have any such stories to share ?

Do comment below or share with us at 090 360 365 24 or retailgurukul@gmail.com

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