Mar 29, 2007 01:50 PM
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History says that when Reliance does something, it does it in a big way that it changes the rules of the game altogether. Going by this word, since the time Mukesh Ambani headed Reliance Retail declared that they are going to enter the Indian Retail Market, there was quite a lot of hullabaloo around it. The Indian Retail Market which was largely unorganized went into frenzy.
A lot of mergers and acquisitions happened. Media was resplendent with stories on how the future of Indian Retail is going to change. Experts opined that the friendly neighborhood Grocery Stores are going to perish. Finally one fine day, Reliance opened its first store “Reliance Fresh” in Hyderabad. It was followed by some more stores being opened largely in the South, including the one I visited in Vijayawada. My Experience after visiting the store can be said to be not much satisfactory. After this entire buzz it seemed to be a damp squib to me.
Choice and Range. Reliance Retail is primarily a super market store. So, one expects a wide range of goods available across various categories, brands and price ranges. Hardly there is any range available. Not even, any categories of goods. Just one or two we can easily live without.
Super Markets like Nilgiris, Trinethra (recently bought by Birlas), Subhiksha, and Modern Market especially the last one has a superb range and Reliance Fresh is no where in comparison to them.
The Ambiance in the shop is good, but as I said nothing much different from the other super market chains.
The staff is cordial and friendly very much eagerly looking forward to help. After I made the payment, the staff greeting me by saying a namaste. This I liked a lot. Especially after horrible experiences of visiting shops in Kolkata. I do not know why but shop keepers in Salt Lake have this tendency of looking at you as if why do these customers keep bothering us, when u visits them.
They accept card payment even for payments less than a hundred rupees.
They have this membership card option with a free insurance thrown in, just to ensure that you show loyalty to them.
As I go through the reviews by the members, I observe that the same points I have quoted above are bothering them too. Some more reading, browsing and research made me understand some of the aspects related to it, which I want to share with you.
Customer is the last person in the minds of these supermarket chains. Though it might be surprising, that’s the fact straightly put. What matters the most is the number. The more the number of stores opened, the more is the number of people visiting them, the more the chances of success.
The commission they get for selling a product. They are least bothered about providing a range of goods and brands to the Customer. In contrary, the companies that pay them the highest commission get to sell their goods from them. When they have the numbers, companies cannot afford to ignore them courtesy, the large number of customers visiting them. But why are the Customers visiting them, when they are not getting what they want?
The feelgood factor. The goods we buy here can be easily bought at any other grocery store round the corner. Then why do we flock to them? Just because, we feel good. We feel happy becoming a part of another India, which looks great much unlike the India we have grown in. We love the ambience. We like being greeted.
By making a right balance between the numbers and the feel good factor, they achieve their targets some times much beyond the expectations they have set. We are just part of the market grind that is happening right now!
