Retail Insight on September 25th 2009

Sep 25, 2009

News and Analysis for the retail industry

News

Aditya Birla Retail aims to open 3 hypermarkets by March, a dozen every year after that NASDAQ He said the company had initially been conservative in opening new outlets because of high rentals. However, a fall in rentals by as much as 50%-60% from the peaks seen in 2007 and the first few months of 2008 has accelerated the retail chain's rollout plans, Berman added.

Gucci exits JV with Murjanis Economic Times Luxury brand Gucci has parted ways with its Indian franchisee Vijay Murjani, which is also the distributor of premium brands Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and French Connection in India.

Subhiksha seeks another chance at compromise Livemint The shuttered retail chain Subhiksha Trading Services Ltd, which is facing winding-up petitions, has appealed to the Madras high court seeking another chance to reach a compromise with creditors.

Retail Trends

The rising chorus against MRP Business Standard K Radhakrishnan, CEO (value format) at Reliance, believes that the time has come to do away with the MRP for retailers. If that happens, he says, it would usher in the concept of portfolio pricing. That means charging more (than the MRP) for products that customers are willing to pay more for and less for goods that are at lower price points but typically sell in bigger volumes.

German players keen to foray into Indian retail sector fnbnews.com Many German companies including food & beverage are gathering information of the Indian market and planning foray into the country's multi-million retail sector. According to the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, in the last few years many Germany-based players who are worldwide leaders in technology, machines and tools were asking about the Indian retail market.

Retail Insight

Sale the seven Cs: Teaching/training aid for the (e-)retail mix International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management The 4Ps of the marketing mix have long been popular with students, tutors, trainers and practitioners as a learning and teaching aid. The purpose of this paper is to present an equivalent tool for retail and e-retail: Sale the 7Cs. The approach is by reference to other authors' versions of the marketing, retail and e-retail mixes, distilled into a simplified framework: C1 Convenience; C2 Customer value and benefit; C3 Cost to the customer; C4 Computing and category management; C5 Customer franchise; C6 Customer care and service; C7 Communication and customer relationships. This simplified mnemonic is new for (e-)retail. Mini case examples are used to illustrate the applicability. These have a practical value for trainers and educators as specimen answers to activity exercises. Retailers may find the convenient 7Cs structure useful when planning strategies and tactics.