Comparative Study 2.rtf

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON OF D-MART AND BIG BAZAAR

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It is said that customer is THE KING and the king always wants to win in every circumstances, Retail sector is one of the most promising and growing sector in India, every company is trying to win the heart of the customer (their kings) and building their trust in every possible way. However there is always a 'first mover advantage' which goes in the favor of D-Mart and Big Bazaar these two are the companies which has been doing phenomenal in the retail sector since their establishment. It has brought about many changes to the buying pattern of the people, it has created the formats which provides all the items under one roof at the cheapest rate. The project title "COMPARATIVE STUDY ON OF D-MART AND BIG BAZAAR" helps us to understand the marketing mix of the two big retail companies of India and their growth their strategy and how did they do all the promotional activities to enter the market and why these two are the strong competitors for each other further we study about their future growth and some of plans.

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COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

CHAPTER 1:-INTRODUCTION ON D-MART AND BAZAR

1. INTRODUCTION Retail: Retail is the process of selling consumer goods or services to customers through multiple channels of distribution to earn a profit. Retailers satisfy demand identified through a supply chain. The term "retailer" is typically applied where a service provider fills the small orders of a large number of individuals, who are end-users, rather than large orders of a small number of wholesale, corporate or government clientele. Shopping generally refers to the act of buying products. Sometimes this is done to obtain final goods, including necessities such as food and clothing; sometimes it takes place as a recreational activity. Recreational shopping often involves window shopping and browsing: it does not always result in a purchase. Retail markets and shops have a very ancient history, dating back to antiquity. Some of the earliest retailers were itinerant peddlers. Over the centuries, retail shops were transformed from little more than "rude booths" to the sophisticated shopping malls of the modern era. Most modern retailers typically make a variety of strategic level decisions including the type of store, the market to be served, the optimal product assortment, customer service, supporting services and the store's overall market positioning. Once the strategic retail plan is in place, retailers devise the retail mix which includes product, price, place, promotion, personnel and presentation. In the digital age, an increasing number of retailers are seeking to reach broader markets by selling through multiple channels, including both bricks and mortar and online retailing. Digital technologies are also changing the way that consumers pay for goods and services. Retailing support services may also include the provision of credit, delivery services, advisory services, stylist services and a range of other supporting services. Retail shops occur in a diverse range of types and in many different contexts – from strip shopping centers in residential streets through to large, indoor shopping malls. Shopping streets may restrict traffic to pedestrians only. Sometimes a shopping street has a partial or full roof to create a more comfortable shopping environment – protecting customers from various types of weather conditions such as extreme temperatures, winds or precipitation. Forms of non-shop retailing include online retailing (a type of electronic-commerce used for business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions) and mail order. 

HISTORY OF RETAILING

Since independence, barter is considered to be the oldest form of retail trade. In India, retail has evolved to support the unique needs of our country given its size and complexity. Haats, Mandis and Melas have always been a part of the Indian landscape. They will continue to be present in most parts of the country and form an essential part of life and trade in various 2

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

areas. The single largest retail chain existing in the country is the Public Distribution System (PDS). The evolution of the public distribution of 5 Indian Retail Market Embracing a new trajectory grains in India has its origin in the ‘rationing’ system introduced by the British during the World War II. The System was started in 1939 in Bombay and subsequently extended to other cities and towns. By the year 1946, as many as 771 cities/towns were covered. The system was abolished post war, however, on attaining Independence, India was forced to reintroduce it in 1950 in the face of renewed inflationary pressures in the economy. The evolution of Indian retail would be incomplete without point out the Canteen Stores Department and the Post Offices in India. The Khadi & Village Industries (KVIC) was also set up post-independence. Today, there are more than 7,050 KVIC stores across the country. The Cooperative movement was again championed by the government which set up Kendriya Bhandras in 1963. In Maharashtra, Bombay Bazaar, which stores under the label Sahakari Bhandar, and Apna Bazaars run a large chain of Co-operative stores. In the past decade, the Indian marketplace has transformed dramatically. However from the 1950’s to the 80’s investments in various industries was a limit due to the low purchasing power in the hands of the consumer and the Government’s policies favoring the small- scale sector. It was at this time that many steps towards liberalization were taken in the period of 1985-90. It was at this time many restrictions on private companies were lifted, and in the 1990’s the Indian economy slowly progressed from state led to becoming ‘market friendly’. While independent retail stores chain like Akbarally’s, Vivek’s and Nalli’s have existed in India for a long time, the first attempt at organized retailing was noticed in the textiles sector. One of the pioneers in this field was Raymond’s which set up stores to retail fabric. It also developed a dealer network to retail its fabric. These dealers sold a mix of fabrics of various textile companies. The Raymond’s distribution network today of 20,000 retailers and over 429 showrooms across the country. Other textile manufacturers who also set up their own retail chains were reliance – which set up Vimal Showrooms – and Garden Silk Mills with Garden Vareli. It was but natural that with the growth of textile retail, readymade branded apparel could not be far behind and the next wave of organized retail in India saw the likes of Madura Garments, Arvind Mills, etc, set up showrooms for branded men’s wear. With the success of the branded men’s wear store, the new age departmental store arrived in India in the early nineties. This was the beginning of new retail era in India. The fact that post liberalization, the economy had opened up and a new large middle class with spending power had emerged, helped shape this sector. The vast middle class market demanded value for money products, a better shopping ambience, more convenience and one stop shopping. This has fuelled the growth of departmental stores, supermarkets and other specialty stores. The concept of retail as entertainment came to India with the advent of malls. The development of malls is now visible not only in the major metros but also in the other parts of the country. 

GROWTH OVER 1997-2010

India in 1997 allowed foreign direct investment (FDI) in cash and carry wholesale. Then, it 3

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

required government approval. The approval requirement was relaxed, and automatic permission was granted in 2006. Between 2000 to 2010, Indian retail attracted about $1.8 billion in foreign direct investment, representing a very small 1.5% of total investment flow into India. Single brand retailing attracted 94 proposals between 2006 and 2010, of which 57 were approved and implemented. For a country of 1.2 billion people, this is a very small number. Some claim one of the primary restraint inhibiting better participation was that India required single brand retailers to limit their ownership in Indian outlets to 51%. China in contrast allows 100% ownership by foreign companies in both single brand and multi-brand retail presence. Indian retail has experienced limited growth, and its spoilage of food harvest is amongst the highest in the world, because of very limited integrated cold-chain and other infrastructure. India has only 5386 stand-alone cold storages, having a total capacity of 23.6 million metric tons. However, 80 percent of this storage is used only for potatoes. The remaining infrastructure capacity is less than 1% of the annual farm output of India, and grossly inadequate during peak harvest seasons. This leads to about 30% losses in certain perishable agricultural output in India, on average, every year. Indian laws already allow foreign direct investment in cold-chain infrastructure to the extent of 100 percent. There has been no interest in foreign direct investment in cold storage infrastructure build out. Experts claim that cold storage infrastructure will become economically viable only when there is strong and contractually binding demand from organized retail. The risk of cold storing perishable food, without an assured way to move and sell it, puts the economic viability of expensive cold storage in doubt. In the absence of organized retail competition and with a ban on foreign direct investment in multi-brand retailers, foreign direct investments are unlikely to begin in cold storage and farm logistics infrastructure. Until 2010, intermediaries and middlemen in India have dominated the value chain. Due to a number of intermediaries involved in the traditional Indian retail chain, norms are flouted and pricing lacks transparency. Small Indian farmers realize only 1/3rd of the total price paid by the final Indian consumer, as against 2/3rd by farmers in nations with a higher share of organized retail. The 60%+ margins for middlemen and traditional retail shops have limited growth and prevented innovation in Indian retail industry. India has had years of debate and discussions on the risks and prudence of allowing innovation and competition within its retail industry. Numerous economists repeatedly recommended to the Government of India that legal restrictions on organized retail must be removed, and the retail industry in India must be opened to competition. For example, in an invited address to the Indian parliament in December 2010, Jagdish bhagwti Professor of Economics and Law at the Columbia University analyzed the relationship between growth and poverty reduction, then urged the Indian parliament to extend economic reforms by freeing up of the retail sector, further liberalization of trade in all sectors, and introducing 4

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

labor market reforms. Such reforms Professor Bhagwati argued will accelerate economic growth and make a sustainable difference in the life of India's poorest., A 2007 report noted that an increasing number of people in India are turning to the services sector for employment due to the relative low compensation offered by the traditional agriculture and manufacturing sectors. The organized retail market is growing at 35 percent annually while growth of unorganized retail sector is pegged at 6 percent. The Retail Business in India is currently at the point of inflection. As of 2008, rapid change with investments to the tune of US$25 billion were being planned by several Indian and multinational companies in the next 5 years. It is a huge industry in terms of size and according to India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), it is valued at about US$395.96 billion. Organized retail is expected to garner about 16-18 percent of the total retail market (US$65– 75 billion) in the next 5 years. India has topped the A.T kearney's annual Global Retail Development Index (GRDI) for the third consecutive year, maintaining its position as the most attractive market for retail investment. The Indian economy has registered a growth of 8% for 2007. The predictions for 2008 is 7.9%. The enormous growth of the retail industry has created a huge demand for real estate. Property developers are creating retail real estate at an aggressive pace and by 2010, 300 malls are estimated to be operational in the country. 

GROWTH AFTER 2011

Before 2011, India had prevented innovation and organized competition in its consumer retail industry. Several studies claim that the lack of infrastructure and competitive retail industry is a key cause of India's persistently high inflation. Furthermore, because of unorganized retail, in a nation where malnutrition remains a serious problem, food waste is rife. Well over 30% of food staples and perishable goods produced in India spoils because poor infrastructure and small retail outlets prevent hygienic storage and movement of the goods from the farmer to the consumer. One report estimates the 2011 Indian retail market as generating sales of about $470 billion a year, of which a minuscule $27 billion comes from organized retail such as supermarkets, chain stores with centralized operations and shops in malls. The opening of retail industry to free market competition, some claim will enable rapid growth in retail sector of Indian economy. Others believe the growth of Indian retail industry will take time, with organized retail possibly needing a decade to grow to a 25% share. A 25% market share, given the expected growth of Indian retail industry through 2021, is estimated to be over $250 billion a year: a revenue equal to the 2009 revenue share from Japan for the world's 250 largest retailers., The Economist forecasts that Indian retail will nearly double in economic value, expanding by about $850 billion by 2020. The projected increase alone is equivalent to the current retail market size of France. 5

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

In 2011, food accounted for 70% of Indian retail, but was under-represented by organized retail. A.T Kearney estimates India's organized retail had a 31% share in clothing and apparel, while the home supplies retail was growing between 20% to 30% per year. These data correspond to retail prospects prior to November announcement of the retail reform. It might be true that India has the largest number of shops per inhabitant. However, there are detailed figures for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg. In Belgium, the number of outlets is approximately 8 per 1,000 and in the Netherlands it is 6. So the Indian number must be far higher. 

INDIAN RETAIL INDUSTRY

India today is a dynamic combination of demanding consumers, rising levels of consumption and a growing population base. As the corporate – the Piramals, the Tatas, the Rahejas, ITC, S.Kumar’s, RPG Enterprises, and mega retailers – Crosswords, Shopper’s Stop, and Pantaloons race to revolutionize the retailing sector, retail as an industry in India is coming alive. Retail Sales in India amounted to about Rs.7400 billion in 2002, expanded at an average annual rate of 7% during 1999-2002. With the upturn in economic growth during 2003, retail sales are also expected to expand at a higher pace of nearly 10%. Across the country, retail sales in real terms are predicted to rise more rapidly than consumer expenditure during 2003-08. The forecast growth in real retail sales during 2003-2008 is 8.3% per year, compared with 7.1% for consumer expenditure. Modernization of the Indian retail sector will be reflected in rapid growth in sales of supermarkets, departmental stores and hypermarkets. Sales from these large format stores are to expand at growth rates ranging from 24% to 49% per year during 2003-2008, according to a latest report by Euro monitor International, a leading provider of global consumer-market intelligence. A.T. Kearney Inc. places India 6th on the (GRDI) global retail development index. The country has the highest per capita outlets in the world – 5.5 outlets per 1000 population. Around 7% of the population in India is engaged in retailing, as compared to 20% in the USA. India has emerged as a fourth largest economy in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). Retailing in India is one of the pillars of its economy and accounts for about 10 percent of its GDP. The Indian retail market is estimated to be US$ 600 billion and one of the top five retail markets in the world by economic value. India is one of the fastest growing retail markets in the world, with 1.2 billion people. As of 2003, India's retailing industry was essentially owner manned small shops. In 2010, larger format convenience stores and supermarkets accounted for about 4 percent of the industry, and these were present only in large urban centers. India's retail and logistics industry employs about 40 million Indians (3.3% of Indian population). Until 2011, Indian central government denied foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, forbidding foreign groups from any ownership in supermarkets, convenience stores or any retail outlets. Even single-brand retail was limited to 51% ownership and a bureaucratic process. 6

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

In November 2011, India's central government announced retail reforms for both multi-brand stores and single-brand stores. These market reforms paved the way for retail innovation and competition with multi-brand retailers such as Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco, as well single brand majors such as IKEA, Nike, and Apple. The announcement sparked intense activism, both in opposition and in support of the reforms. In December 2011, under pressure from the opposition, Indian government placed the retail reforms on hold till it reaches a consensus. In January 2012, India approved reforms for single-brand stores welcoming anyone in the world to innovate in Indian retail market with 100% ownership, but imposed the requirement that the single brand retailer source 30 percent of its goods from India. Indian government continues the hold on retail reforms for multi-brand stores. In June 2012, IKEA announced it had applied for permission to invest $1.9 billion in India and set up 25 retail stores. An analyst from Fitch Group stated that the 30 percent requirement was likely to significantly delay if not prevent most single brand majors from Europe, USA and Japan from opening stores and creating associated jobs in India. On 14 September 2012, the government of India announced the opening of FDI in multibrand retail, subject to approvals by individual states. This decision was welcomed by economists and the markets, but caused protests and an upheaval in India's central government's political coalition structure. On 20 September 2012, the Government of India formally notified the FDI reforms for single and multi-brand retail, thereby making it effective under Indian law. On 7 December 2012, the Federal Government of India allowed 51% FDI in multi-brand retail in India. The government managed to get the approval of multi-brand retail in the parliament despite heavy uproar from the opposition (the NDA and leftist parties). Some states will allow foreign supermarkets like Walmart, Tesco and Carrefour to open while other states will not. Organized sector is a sector consisting of all incorporated enterprises which are engaged in the sales or production of goods and services operated as private limited or limited organizations governed by Companies act and having more than ten total workers.

 

ORGANIZED RETAIL:

'Company owned retail setups'



'Part of the employees are on the direct payroll of the company (some may be on the contract also)' 

'Employees will be governed by minimum wages act'



'These outlets can be “standalone company owned showroom” or “The retail space” 7

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in any of the super market or mall etc.' 

Practically there may be less than ten worker though

Organized retailing, in India, refers to trading activities undertaken by licensed retailers, that is, those who are registered for sales tax, income tax, etc. These include the publicly traded supermarkets, corporate-backed hypermarkets and retail chains, and also the privately owned large retail businesses. Unorganized retailing, on the other hand, refers to the traditional formats of low-cost retailing, for example, the local corner shops, owner manned general stores, paan/beedi shops, convenience stores, hand cart and pavement vendors, etc Organized retailing was absent in most rural and small towns of India in 2010. Supermarkets and similar organized retail accounted for just 4% of the market. Most Indian shopping happens in open markets or numerous small grocery and retail shops. Shoppers typically wait outside the shop, ask for what they want, and can not pick or examine a product from the shelf. Access to the shelf or product storage area is limited. Once the shopper requests the food staple or household product they are looking for, the shopkeeper goes to the container or shelf or to the back of the store, brings it out and offers it for sale to the shopper. Often the shopkeeper may substitute the product, claiming that it is similar or equivalent to the product the consumer is asking for. The product typically has no price label in these small retail shops; all packaged products must display the maximum retail price (MRP) above which the product cannot be sold. It is a criminal offence to sell a product beyond the MRP of a product. The shopkeeper can price the food staple and household products arbitrarily, and two consumers may pay different prices for the same product on the same day but never will those price be above the maximum retail price. Price is rarely negotiated between the shopper and shopkeeper. The shoppers usually do not have time to examine the product label, and do not have a choice to make an informed decision between competitive products. India's retail and logistics industry, organized and unorganized in combination, employs about 40 million Indians (3.3% of Indian population). The typical Indian retail shops are very small. Over 14 million outlets operate in the country and only 4% of them being larger than 500 sq ft (46 m2) in size. India has about 11 shop outlets for every 1000 people. Vast majority of the unorganized retail shops in India employ family members, do not have the scale to procure or transport products at high volume wholesale level, have limited to no quality control or fake-versus-authentic product screening technology and have no training on safe and hygienic storage, packaging or logistics. The unorganized retail shops source their products from a chain of middlemen who mark up the product as it moves from farmer or producer to the consumer. The unorganized retail shops typically offer no after-sales support or service. Finally, most transactions at unorganized retail shops are done with cash, with all sales being final. 8

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

Until the 1990s, regulations prevented innovation and entrepreneurship in Indian retailing. Some retails faced complying with over thirty regulations such as "signboard licenses" and "anti-hoarding measures" before they could open doors. There are taxes for moving goods to states, from states, and even within states in some cases. Farmers and producers had to go through middlemen monopolies. The logistics and infrastructure was very poor, with losses exceeding 30 percent. Through the 1990s, India introduced widespread free market reforms, including some related to retail. Between 2000 and 2010, consumers in select Indian cities have gradually begun to experience the quality, choice, convenience and benefits of organized retail industry.

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RETAIL MARKETING

Definition of Retail Marketing Retail is the sale of goods and services from businesses to an end user (called a customer). Retail marketing is the process by which retailers promote awareness and interest of their goods and services in an effort to generate sales from their consumers. There are many different approaches and strategies retailers can use to market their goods and services (see below). Retail marketing comprises the activities related to selling products to the consumers through channels such as stores, malls, kiosks, vending machines, or other fixed locations. In contrast, direct marketing to consumers attempts to complete a sale through phone, mail, or web site sales. Retailing occupies a key role in the world of economy. Retailing involves all the activities incidental to selling to ultimate consumers for their personal, family, and household use. It does this by organizing their availability on a relatively large scale and supplying them to the customers on a relatively small scale. A retailer is any person/organization instrumental in reaching the goods, or merchandise, or services to the end users. A retailer is a must and cannot be eliminated. Retail marketing comprises the activities related to selling products to the consumers through channels such as stores, malls, kiosks, vending machines, or other fixed locations. In contrast, direct marketing to consumers attempts to complete a sale through phone, mail, or web site sites.

Types of Major Retail Outlets: 1.

Departmental Stores:

A departmental store offers several product lines such as clothing, home furnishing and household goods under one roof. Each line operates as a separate department. For example, Akbarallys. 9

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

2.

Speciality Stores:

A specialty store concentrates on a narrow product line or a specialized product line; for example, footwear and jewellery. 3.

Supermarket:

A supermarket provides relatively large low-cost, low-margin, high-volume, selfservice operation; for example. Big Bazar. 4.

Convenience Stores:

A convenience store is conveniently located in suburban areas and charges a slightly higher price and provides groceries and non-food items. 5.

Discount Stores:

A discount store offers standard merchandise at low price with low margin and high volume.

6.

Factory Outlets:

A factory outlet is opened and operated by manufacturers, and sells surplus or discounted goods. 7.

Shopping Malls:

Shopping malls are the new format of retail outlets. They provide several products under one roof .They also provide means of entertainment such as mini theatre and food courts. 8.

Hypermarket:

A "hypermarket" (sometimes called a "supercenter" or "superstore") is a big-box store combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including full groceries lines and general merchandise. In theory, hypermarkets allow customers to satisfy all their routine shopping needs in one trip. 

RETAIL MARKETING MIX:

The 4Ps of Retail Marketing Retailers use various advertising and communication tools to grow awareness and considerations with future customers. Finding the right marketing mix can lead to a profitable growth and a higher return on investment. By considering the right advertising strategy retailers can persuade consumers to choose to do business with their retail brand. The fundamental approach used my modern retailers in marketing their products is the Four Ps of 10

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

Retail Marketing. Product: There are two primary types of merchandise. Hard or durable goods like appliances, electronics, and sporting equipment. And soft goods like clothing, household items, cosmetics, and paper products. Some retailers carry a range of hard and soft items like a supermarket or a major retail chain while many smaller retailers only carry one category of goods, like a boutique clothing store. i.

The basic components of product mix are:

ii.

Services

iii.

Packaging

iv.

Brand

v.

Product item

vi.

Product line

The various product mix strategies are: i.

Launching new products from time to time

ii.

Alteration of Existing Products

iii.

Eliminate an entire line or reduce assortment within it

iv.

Trading up

v.

Trading Down

vi.

Product life cycle management

The retail product mix is device so as to develop an appropriate promotion strategy for the store depending on the target market to be reached. Once the target market is identified and positioning strategy defined, the retailers employ various tools of product mix to reach out to consumers. These efforts also aim at building store image. Retailers usually employ a combination of various elements of product mix to achieve promotional and business objectives. The degree and the nature of usage of each of the promotion methods depend on the objectives of the retail firm, product, market profile, and availability of resources. Price: Pricing is a key element to any retail strategy. The retail price needs to cover the cost of goods as well as additional overhead costs. There are four primary pricing strategies used by retailers: Everyday low pricing: The retailer operates in thin margins and attracts customers interested 11

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

in the lowest possible price. This strategy is used by big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target. High/low pricing: The retailer starts with a high price and later reduces the price when the item’s popularity fades. This strategy is mainly used by small to mid-sized retailers. Competitive pricing: The retailer bases the price on what their competition is charging. This strategy is often used after the retailer has exhausted the higher pricing strategy (high/low pricing). Psychological pricing: The retailer sets the price of items with odd numbers that consumers perceive as being lower than they actually are. For example, a list price of $1.95 is associated with spending $1 rather than $2 in the customers mind. This strategy is also called pricing ending or charm pricing.

The components of price mix are: i.

Organizational objectives

ii.

Competition

iii.

Cost and profit

iv.

Credit terms

v.

Discount etc.

vi.

Fixed and variable costs

vii.

Pricing options

viii.

Pricing policies

ix.

Proposed positioning strategies

x.

Target group and willingness to pay

Place: The place is where the retailer conducts business with its customers. The place can be a physical retail location or a non-physical space like a catalog company or an e-store. While most retailers are small, independently owned operations (over 90%), over 50% of retail sales are generated by major retailers often called “big box retailers” (see the list of the top 20 big box retailers below). Following are the components of a retail place mix: i.

Distribution channels 12

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

ii.

Intermediary

iii.

Distance Factor

iv.

Inventory Level

v.

Transportation

vi.

Warehousing and Storage

Promotion: Promotion is the final marketing mix elements. Promotions include personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity. A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each tactic, and how much money to budget for each. A promotion can have a wide range of objectives, including increasing sales, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations, or the creation of a corporate image. The component of promotion mix are as follows: i.

Cost of the method

ii.

Its reach

iii.

Degree of flexibility

iv.

Credibility

v.

Control over media

The 4Ps Revisited: Customer-Oriented Retail Marketing In recent years, to address the need of taking a more customer-oriented approach to marketing, the 4 Ps of Retail Marketing have been revised and replaced by the 4 Cs: Consumer, Cost, Communication, and Convenience. Consumer (versus Product): Instead of focusing on the product the retailer wants to sell, a smart retailer studies the wants and needs of its consumers before going to market. The more clearly a retailer understand the wants and needs of its customer base, the greater chance it will have of attracting customers and increasing sales. Cost (versus Price): In retail a cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something. Factors that influence cost include the customer’s cost to change to a new product and the customer’s cost for not selecting a competitor’s product. Convenience (versus Place): The Internet has made Place less of a factor in consumer purchasing decisions. Convenience addresses the ease of completing a transaction including the ease of finding information about a product, finding the right product, and purchasing a product. Communication (versus Promotion): Communications including a range of efforts 13

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including advertising, public relations, grassroots efforts, social media, and any other form of communication between the company and the consumer. Becoming aware of the fundamentals of retail marketing (the four Ps and the four Cs) is critical to becoming a best-in-class retailer.

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FUTURE GROUP Future Group Pantaloon Retail is the flagship enterprise of the Future Group, which is positioned to cater to the entire Indian consumption space. The Future Group operates through six verticals: Future Retail (encompassing all retail businesses), Future Capital (financial products and services), and Future Brands (management of all brands owned or managed by group companies), Future Space (management of retail real estate), Future Logistics (management of supply chain and distribution) and Future Media (development and management of retail media). Future Capital Holdings, the group's financial arm, focuses on asset management and consumer finance. It manages two real estate investment funds (Horizon and Kshitij) and consumer-related private equity fund, Indecision. It also plans to get into insurance, consumer credit and other consumer-related financial products and services in the near future. Future Group's vision is to, "Deliver Everything, Everywhere, Every time to Every Indian Consumer in the most profitable manner." One of the core values at Future Group is, 'Indian‘s' and its corporate credo is - Rewrite rules, Retain values.

Future Group Manifesto ―Future‖ – the word which signifies optimism, growth, achievement, strength, beauty, rewards and perfection. Future encourages us to explore areas yet unexplored, write rules yet unwritten; create new opportunities and new successes. To strive for a glorious future brings to us our strength, our ability to learn, unlearn and re-learn our ability to evolve. We, in Future Group, will not wait for the Future to unfold itself but create future scenarios in the consumer space and facilitate consumption because consumption is development. Thereby, we will effect socio-economic development for our customers, employees, shareholders, associates and partners. Our customers will not just get what they need, but also get them where, how and when they need. We will not just post satisfactory results, we will write success stories. We will not just operate efficiently in the Indian economy, we will evolve it. We will not just spot trends; we will set trends by marrying our understanding of the Indian consumer to their needs of tomorrow. It is this understanding that has helped us succeed. And it is this that will help us succeed in the Future. We shall keep relearning. And in this process, do just one thing. Big Bazaar is a chain of shopping malls in India currently with 29 outlets, owned by the Pantaloon Group. It works on same the economy model as Wal-Mart and has had considerable success in many Indian cities and small towns. The idea was pioneered by entrepreneur Kishore Biyani, the head of Pantaloon Retail India Ltd. Big Bazaar stores in Metros have a gaming area and kids play area for entertainment. Cities where stores are located are, Agra, Ahmadabad, Allahabad, Ambala, Asansol, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Palakkad, Kolkata, Delhi, Durgapur, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Indore, Lucknow, Kanpur, Mangalore, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nasik, Panipat, Pune, Rajkot, Surat, Thane, Thiruvananthapuram, Vishakhapatnam. Big Bazaar is not just another hypermarket. It caters to every need of customer‘s family. Where Big Bazaar scores over other stores is its value for money proposition for the Indian customers. At Big Bazaar, customer will definitely get the best products at the best prices -that‘s what Big Bazaar guarantee. With the ever increasing array of private labels, it has opened the doors into the world of fashion and general merchandise including home furnishings, utensils, crockery, cutlery, sports goods and much more at prices that will 15

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

surprise customer. And this is just the beginning. Big Bazaar plans to add much more to complete customers shopping experience

Departments with their Products 1) Men‟s Department Formals (Shirts & Pants) Jeans T-Shirts Major brands in this department Pantaloon 2) Furniture Department Dining Table Bedroom Accessories Hall accessories (Sofa sets, Chairs, Computer table etc) Mattresses 3) Home Decor Flower vase Artificial Flowers Religious gifts Candle stand Umbrellas Photo Frames Assorted color Stones Frame Paintings Water falls (artificial) Birthday items

Chronology 2001 Three Big Bazaar stores launched within a span of 22 days in Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad 2002 Big Bazaar - ICICI Bank Card is launched. Food Bazaar becomes part of Big Bazaar with the launch of the first store in Mumbai at High Street Phoenix 2005 Launches a unique shopping program: the Big Bazaar Exchange Offer, inviting customers to exchange household junk at Big Bazaar 2007 The 50th Big Bazaar store is launched in Kanpur Big Bazaar partners with Futurebazaar.com to launch India's most popular shopping portal 2008 Big Bazaar becomes the fastest growing hypermarket format in the world with the launch of its 101st store within 7 years of launch Big Bazaar joins the league of India‘s Business Super brands. It is voted among the top ten service brands in the country in the latest Pitch-IMRB international survey 2010 Big Bazaar wins CNBC Awaaz Consumer Awards for the third consecutive year. Adjudged the most preferred Most Preferred Multi Brand Food & Beverage Chain, Most Preferred Multi Brand Retail Outlet and Most Preferred Multi Brand One Stop Shop Big Bazaar connects over 30,000 small and medium Indian manufacturers and entrepreneurs with around 200 million customers visiting its stores.

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BIG BAZAAR is a name renowned in Retail. It is now a brand image in private retail sector. Wal-Mart is the retail stores of USA and is known all over the world for its fashionable and affordable materials and is known as one of the best in its field, big bazaar can be said as the Wal-Mart of India running a chain of more than 100 retail stores in India.

People around the country thinks that big bazaar is inspired from Wal-Mart and it is quite obvious to think as Wal-Mart is world leading chain of retail shopping but actually the idea of big bazaar came to the CEO Kishore Biyanifrom a 25 years old store “Saravana” which was owned by a family and worked on the philosophy of “low margin high turnover”.

Following its slogan of “isse sasta or achha kahin nahi”(Meaning cannot find cheaper and better than this anywhere) it provides the consumer with the best of the materials at a rate less than rest of the market.

Big bazaar is the subsidiary of Future Group, Pantaloons Retail India ltd. The brain behind big bazaar is the CEO of Future Group Mr. Kishore Biyani Future group is has various brands like Pantaloons, F123, Copper Chimney, Etam, Staples, One Mobile, Urbana, Brand Factory, LootMart, HomeTown and Central. Big bazaar covers all parts of India including the metro cities Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, and Mumbai. Big bazaar started with its first store in Kolkata, west Bengal in 2001 and now owns more than 100 stores all over India making itself the fastest growing retail chain in India and leaving all its competitors behind.

WHY BIG BAZAAR? Indian retail sector is witnessing one of the most hectic Marketing activities of all times. The companies are fighting to win the hearts of customer. There is always a ‘first mover advantage’ in an upcoming sector. This advantage goes to “BIG BAZAAR” in India. It has brought about many changes in the buying behavior of people as Big Bazaar provides all items in one roof at low rates. The consumer’s preferences are changing & they are moving from shops stores to Modern Retail outlet. It’s the main challenge to the Modern retail outlets to attract the customers towards them from that of competitors. To attract more customers companies have to carry out the promotional activities in unique way. BIG BAZAAR has maintained that uniqueness & has succeeded in attracting customers. 17

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

The promotional activity of the company, which famous as Less Price than others as it says’Nobody Sells Cheaper and Better!’is made its place in minds of customer. As the competition is becoming stiff in the market the activities conducted by the company are unique, that have brought fruitful result to the company. Among them sales Promotions is one of the leading activity or unique among all other activities & has high influence on the customer walk-in.

OBJECTIVES: 

To know the effective marketing strategy which influence customer to purchase a product of Big Bazaar. 

To know the marketing and promotional strategy of big bazaar.



How Big Bazaar Establish and maintain its position in retailing through promotion.

Building brand through challenge: In 2001, PRIL opened its first ‘Big Bazaar,’ a 30,000 square feet store in Kolkata. The major USP of the ‘Big Bazaar,’ store was low pricing. These stores offered the best price proposition to customers. As part of this, the stores focused less on branded items and more on unbranded products with the same quality as branded ones, at a much cheaper rate. Commenting on this, Biyani said, “We are not in the business of selling ambience, but in the business of giving the best possible deals to our consumers.”…

The first Food Bazaar was set up in Lower Parel in suburban Mumbai in 2001. Food Bazaars represent PRIL’s foray into yet another value retailing business, focusing on food and grocery products. These stores were designed based on PRIL’s understanding of the emotional and rational needs of Indian housewives…

The tremendous success of the ‘Pantaloons,’ ‘Big Bazaar’ and ‘Food Bazaar’ retailing formats, easily made PRIL, the #1 retailer in India by the early 2004, in terms of turnover and retail area occupied by its outlets.

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In the fiscal year ended June 30, 2003, PRIL increased its retail area by 66% to 586,000 sq. ft and reported revenues of Rs 4.45 billion, a 56% increase over fiscal 2002. Its net profits rose by 63% to Rs. 114.1 million in fiscal 2002-03, over the previous year.

Big Bazaar has positioned itself as a ‘value for money proposition for Indian family’ retail store. They wanted to promote Big Bazaar as a retail store which gives its customers maximum advantage over other retail stores by catering to all their needs budget wise and income level wise.

‘Sabse Saste 3 Din'(the cheapest 3 days) brain child ofMr. Sadashiv Nayak, President Big Bazaar and Rajan Malhotra, President – Strategy and Convergence, Big Bazaar, believe that ‘Consumers are always looking for best value for their money. Big Bazaar’s Sabse Saste 3 Din is a great opportunity for them to save money and gets best products at the best possible prices. These three days have come to truly signify freedom from high prices for consumers in the country.’

‘Maha Bachat’ ( save money) was introduced five years back ( in the year 2006 ) and it is still running very successfully. It is known as one of India’s mega shopping campaign.

Continuing its efforts to provide the best shopping deals and savings to Indian consumers, Big Bazaar is always set to make Republic Day and Independence Day’s shopping, truly memorable, with rock bottom prices, best possible discounts and mega offers.

Apart from the flagship Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar stores, other future group retail formats like Furniture Bazaar, Electronic Bazaar, Depot, and Home Bazaar stores are also a part of this mega campaign. From daily household needs of food and grocery to apparels,

CURRENT POSITIONING STRATEGY OF BIG BAZAAR:

Big Bazaar is holding a strong position in the market and is growing very fast. It captures the maximum Indian market and with a strong financial background and it has to go a long way through. 19

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The low price strategy it is successfully running its business all over India and is still growing bigger and bigger. The following graph shows the Product Life Cycle of Big Bazaar which is currently at the growth stage.

BIG BAZAAR’S NEW MARKETING STRATEGY:

Big Bazaar has launched new marketing strategy which is based on Guerrilla Marketing. Guerrilla marketing warfare strategies are a type of marketing warfare strategy designed to wear-down the enemy by a long series of minor attacks, using principles of surprise and hitand-run tactics. Attack, retreat, hide, then do it again and again, until the competitor moves on to other markets. Guerrilla force is divided into small groups that selectively attack the target at its weak points. In the world of cut throat competition, corporate use extension of the same strategy in marketing. Corporate like Pepsi, Coke etc have been using the same for quite some time now and the latest entrant is our very own ‘Future Group’- Big Bazaar, Future Bazaar, Pantaloons, e Zone are all part of this group and they are taking on the biggies like Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, and Tata’s Westside. In order to do the same, Future Group have come up with 3 catchy and cheeky ad campaigns which surely do catch our eyes and surely one can’t resist appreciating the same.

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Strengths in the SWOT analysis of D mart : Strengths are defined as what each business does best in its gamut of operationswhich can give it an upper hand over its competitors. The following are the strengths of DMart :  Focus

on long-term: Damani, the founder of D Mart is an investor and thus the

company has been focused entirely on long-term gains. This has made the company maximise its returns through a value is driven pricing strategy.  Slow

scaling up : D Mart started off on a very low key note and slowly took its time to move up the ladder. This gave the company a better control and deeper understanding of its supply chain and also helped them manage the bottom line better.  People-centric

management style : D Mart has a very good employee policy

in place and is very transparent in its employee relations. They also have a good relationship with vendors and suppliers and the stakeholders are happy.  Discount Policy: One factor that delineates D Mart from its competitor is its huge

discount policy. The retailer sells essential goods at a flat discount price which most competitors cannot match and this helped them penetrate the market.  Clear

price based differentiation : D Mart never followed the trends set by

other competing retail brands but believed in setting their own trends. They captured the market through a clear price based differentiation and priced their goods at significantly lower prices than competitors.

Weaknesses in the SWOT analysis of D mart : Weaknesses are used to refer to areas where the business the brand needsimprovement. Some of the key weaknesses of D Mart are:

or

 Focus

on certain places: Quite unlike their competitors, who are present everywhere, D Mart has focused more on the Western States and has a very low presence in the South. This has restricted them from gaining market prominence.  Slow

growth : D Mart has established almost 16 years ago much before the retail

boom set a fire in India. However, it has not been able to capture the market even as much as many of the later entrants primarily because of its long-term focus. 21

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR  Sustainability

of low pricing: The company has a zero credit policy and thus

vendors and suppliers give them a much better price which is how the company is able to afford the low prices that the competitors cannot imagine.  No

frills : D Mart follows a no-frills approach where the focus in to cut costs wherever possible. Their facilities are basic and lack the frills of most upmarket retailers. The customers who come here essentially look at the low prices of products on offer. So thus the sustainability of this differentiator is questionable.

Opportunities in the SWOT analysis of D mart : Opportunities refer to those avenues in the environment that surrounds the business on which it can capitalize to increase its returns. Some of the opportunities include:  Technology: Technology has a lot to offer to retailers in terms of in-store

experiences and retailer can use IoT, artificial intelligence etc to create value-adding services to their customers for which a premium can be charged .  Personalization

of services: Customers are looking for personalized services for

which they are willing to pay extra. Retailers should capitalize on this propensity to pay more and increase the quality of their services.

Threats in the SWOT analysis of D mart : Threats are those factors in the environment which can be detrimental to the growth of the business. Some of the threats include:  Online

retailers: People in cities especially are highly lethargic about leaving their

homes and prefer to shop online today. Companies like Amazon and Flipkart thus become major threats to most retailers.  Online

Start-ups: The hottest trend in India is online start-ups. Many of them are

aggregators who bring together the supplier and the customer cost-effectively. These 22

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companies are the emerging threats more so because many new brands are cropping up in the aggregation market primarily because of lower barriers to entry. The story of DMart began almost 14 years ago in the dusty streets of Mumbai and upcountry Maharashtra where its promoters walked the supermarkets and co-operative stores of the time and observed the contents of the shopping trolleys to gain an understanding of what the customer bought and what she rejected. All operational wisdom was gleaned from the supermarket ‘street’, while philosophically, it was clear that the store must follow the principles laid down by Sam Walton. Wal-Mart had treated some fundamentals as gospel and if they could succeed with their simple approach to retail, there was no reason for a store in India not to do so. In a very basic way, therefore, all DMart did was to watch the customer trolley and read everything about Sam Walton and Wal-Mart. Nothing else was strategically important. The strategy paid off in spades. DMart’s ‘Give ‘em what they want’ approach to retailing has customers lining up at their doors.

Our work at understanding and decoding DMart led to some simple clues and points of view about each of the three constituencies of retail – the customers, the vendors and the employees.

DMart started in a very simple way in New Bombay. By supermarketstandards, the first store, which also acted as a pilot for the business, located in a 4,000 square feet premises, was tiny. But the principles it developed then have stood the test of both time and scale. The business was in no hurry to create behemoths. Instead it patiently went about laying down the first principles of this fledgling business, and creating the core DMart point of view about the three ‘constituencies’ of retail. Now the simple formula that makes DMart tick is shared and intuitively understood as invaluable in the large organisation. Probably this simplicity has helped it scale nicely while staying lean as an organisation. One of the cornerstones of DMart’s continued success is how it has retained its frugal outlook to retail through all market upheavals and internal changes over the years.

From his stock investor days, RK Damani, or RK, as he is popularly known, had the habit of forming strong, informed points of views about what mattered for success and singlemindedly pursuing the chosen path. He pursued the same mindset in the retail business. One of his biggest success sutras was that of prioritising with a vengeance. “If there are 10 principles or acts needed to run the business, I would pick the two or three that mattered the most and then drive them to be a market beater in those things. It is okay for me if I am even below average in the other seven things,” he says confidently. Running with what matters the most and staying the course has obviously been a winning strategy for DMart. It is therefore worth examining the most important components of each of the three constituencies, the customer, the employee and the vendor, for DMart. 23

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The D-Mart point of view for the three constituencies 1. The Indian customer, who shops at air-conditioned stores, does not run her family’s grocery needs on a tight budget. While supermarket customers are, by and large, well-to-do people, yet everyone wants to save money. People with money buy more, to achieve higher savings. DMart’s pricing is designed for the customers to save more across everything she buys. However, those who buy bigger packs save even more. It’s as simple as that! The merchandise department of DMart, its buyers, act more like agents of the customer and not of the company. This is in line with Sam Walton’s description of his merchandise department. If the buyers buy better, they can sell cheaper. The very fundamental principle of ‘what you receive, you pass on’ is almost biblical in its simplicity. If buyers negotiate a good price with vendors, DMart passes on the benefits to the customers, in the process communicating a message of care and protection. “Even when you are not looking, not careful, you’ll still save money with us” seems to be the unstated subtext in its communication. How can any customer resist such a message of genuine concern? It follows that the customer will let her guard down and fill her trolley with reckless abandon. After all, DMart has her back and she knows it. One of RK’s old beliefs is, if she saves well, she’ll overlook other flaws in the offering. There are many aspects to a customer facing business. A well-lit and designed shopfloor with smart adjacencies and category flows, polite staff, proper communication, attractive displays, weekly, monthly promotion cycles, so on and so forth. DMart could have tried to focus on all these and more. It didn’t because then it would have lost its edge. It only looked at how much the customer saves, and became a market leader in that, much to the shopper’s joy. She bought more. “Also, she’ll tell others about us and therefore we’ll not need any marketing!” chuckles RK. 2. Store employees or associates are first generation retail workers in India. Selfservice retail is still in its early stages of evolution. Combine this with the fact that culturally, in India, service and servitude have often been treated as one and the same, and it becomes obvious that introducing a service-oriented format in our country is a mammoth task. Workers and servers in all walks of life come from a different class and socio-economic background than the people they serve. They are largely untrained and often uneducated or first generation learners, their parents being employed in small factories or as work hands in small businesses. Nothing in the environment or upbringing of these new retail associates therefore prepares them for a customer facing service job. The service culture is entering our environment, but it will take a generation to become firmly entrenched as part of our society. Until that happens, what is it that a customer-facing business needs to do? Can it afford to depend on this class of workers to generate customer satisfaction? The obvious answer is no. From this point of view, DMart has built a cadre of simple, hardworking store people who ensure fully stocked shelves, clean price communication and efficient check-outs and not much beyond in customer service. Well, selling simple grocery items at fixed prices does not require much people-based service, in any case. The simplicity of the shopfloor associates is offset by state-of-the-art, global standard store equipment. Be it flooring, shelves, trolleys, scanners – all hardware and connectivity deployed at the stores is expensive, best in class. Not many things therefore need skilled, smart manpower. Equally significantly, the associates have no sales targets. Clearly, the organisation does not depend on its associates for its sales. It allows its systems and basic principle of simplicity to do that for it. DMart seems to live its ‘self-service’ dharna, diligently. While staff are amply trained and rewarded, this is not where the company has chosen to place its sales focus on. 25

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3.

Vendors, who deliver goods and get paid by retailers, are small and medium traders,

micro-entrepreneurs, by a vast majority. Even when supermarkets buy goods made by reputed MNCs, the real last-mile seller is often a distributor named Agarwal & Sons, for example. Small traders in India, as a rule, are always short on capital and perpetually stressed about their working capital situation. DMart decided to be a market beater by paying faster than market norms to its vendors. Quickly, they became known as the best pay masters in town. In spite of being tough negotiators, every vendor wanted them to succeed, for this very reason. Vendors did many small things in their power to ensure DMart got the best availability and deals. Vendors are known to advise and tip off the buyer teams, often, with market intelligence. DMart has ensured an ecosystem that’s very helpful in winning the complexities of the supermarket business, with this simple vendor insight. It also helps to have a liberal stock holding policy the way DMart does, in a growing market like India.

The Indian customer is intuitively frugal and also traditionally underserved. When she sees a hardworking store like DMart that empowers her, saves money and has a no-nonsense outlook, she overlooks and forgives the no frills, often cheerless, warehouse like store setting.

Going forward, from being a regional retailer, as it expands into other parts of the country, DMart has to grapple with the fact that India is more like a continent than a homogeneous market. Food tastes and preferences and buying behaviour change every 100 kilometres. Assortments, work cultures and therefore overall management will need to get complex. A simple business model based on insights about the three constituencies of retail and a trusting, forgiving customer will stand in good stead when DMart begins to engage with greater complexity.

It is a well-known fact that in most large markets, the biggest retailer is the discount supermarket and in many cases, it is a local player and not a multinational. DMart with its stable fundamentals is well-placed to play for that spot, for now at least!

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CHAPTER 2:-LITRETURE REVIEW

1 BIG BAZAR

Big Bazaar is an Indian retail store that open by sarvesh a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. The retail chain was founded by Kishore Biyani under his parent organization Future Group,which is known for having a significant prominence in Indian retail and fashion sectors. Big Bazaar is also the parent chain of Food Bazaar, Fashion at Big Bazaar (fbb) and eZone where at locations it houses all under one roof, while it is sister chain of retail outlets like Brand Factory, Home Town, Central, eZone, etc. Founded in 2001, Big Bazaar is one of the oldest and the largest hypermarkets chain of India, housing about 250+ stores in over 120 cities and towns across the country. History Big Bazaar was founded in 2001 by Kishore, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the parent company, the Future Group. Indian actress Asin and the former Captain of Indian cricket team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni have previously endorsed for the fashion vertical of Big Bazaar. Controversy A tribal girl from Tripura, Barkathal was mentally harassed of being theft by Big Bazaar, Agartala in front of many people which led the girl to commit suicide at her home. Many 27

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Youth wings are protesting in front of the mall in Agartala demanding justice.

Competitors 

D-mart



Easyday



Foodworld



HyperCity



More.



Urban Ladder



Reliance Fresh



Spencer's

The Marketing Mix of Big Bazar (4Ps): Product: Big Bazar offers a wide range of products such as apparel, food, furniture, child care products, household products, toys, electronics, stationery, toiletry, beddings, farm products, etc. They offer a variety of well-known brands like Levis, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, P&G, LG, Samsung, Nokia, HP as well as its own house brand. Price: The objective is to maximize the market share. They follow three different techniques for pricing. The first is known as Value Pricing, through which Big Bazar offers everyday low pricing without any discount promotions or coupon clipping. The second is Promotional Pricing, where Big Bazar finances at low interest rates. Lastly, Differentiated Pricing, where Big Bazar differentiates the prices from peak to non-peak hours or days of shopping to attract more customers. They also use the concept of psychological discounting (Rs.99, Rs.199) which attracts more customers. Big Bazar uses the concept of Bundling where they make combo-packs and offer discounts to customers. This adds value to customers and increases sales thereby reducing their excess inventory. For example, 2 Pepsi 20L bottles for Rs.250 instead of buying them individually for Rs.175. Place: Big Bazar operates in most of the big cities and some small towns in India. They are normally located in high-traffic areas to attract mass population and in developing cities so that they have larger chance of attracting customers. Promotion: Big Bazar has an interesting way to promote its brand. They don’t need to put any holdings or advertisements all over the city to attract customers because people have generally set their alarms for the days and dates of big discounts beforehand. For example, 28

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“Saal ke sabse saste 3or 5 din”, are the 3 or 5 cheapest days of the year. “Hafte ka sabse sasta din Wednesday Bazaar” means that there are heavy discounts and bundles that occur every Wednesday. “Exchange Offers, Junk swap offer” are days when new or used products can be swapped for a new product for a small premium. Their Future Card also offers a 3% discount. Brand endorsements by famous celebrities or sport stars also hit at the psychology of young customers because then they think if this famous personality is using it, we should try this too. Click Here to watch an example of one of their sale advertisements. All these promotions attract most of the population to Big Bazar. Recently they have started a new offer titled “T24-Shop More, Talk More”, where customers are given talk-time benefits. Shopping and talking on the phone is what Indians love the most and Big Bazaar has targeted both of them together. Therefore, a large majority of the youth and the servant class has become attracted to and remained loyal to Big Bazaar. Big Bazaar has many strengths and opportunities to expand their market and brand but they have to remove certain weaknesses they possess and fight against threats they may face in the future. Some of these include,  Overcrowding: Because of over population in India most of the stores are fully packed, especially during promotions and discount offers. If possible, they should provide more cash counters just for that day so they don’t increase their everyday operating expense. Online shopping will also help reduce crowd in stores.  Checkouts are extremely slow: Again because of overcrowding, people stand in queues for hours to checkout especially during heavy sales. More cash counters can always help and the employees should be fast enough to tackle such situations. Youth has very little patience and if Big Bazaar provides online shopping and fast, free delivery, youth will make use of it and hence this reduces the crowd and waiting time.  Placement of Products: Sometimes the products are placed randomly. This is not only Big Bazaar’s fault but also of the public because they put stuff anywhere they like if they don’t want to buy it. Also there are no specific categories on the ceiling to direct the customers like in Walmart.  Perception of low price: Low price is perceived as low quality generally, so some people may avoid buying from Big Bazaar.  As explained in the segmentation of the market above, Big Bazaar ignores the upper and elite class people who are ready to pay any price for the best quality and the product they need. Big Bazaar should provide some extreme quality products to cater to this class as well. They should have effective distribution which means to apply 80/20 rule “i.e.” they should attract high elite business population because high percentage of sales comes from less percentage of people.  Lot of competitors: A lot of countries want to enter the retail industry in India which causes one of the biggest threats to Big Bazaar, for example, Walmart, Tesco, and Carrefour. Big Bazaar needs to retain its customers either by providing them more promotions or offers or 29

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discounts or by promoting their brand at a large scale and attracting the elite class of population so that they don’t fly to other brands when they come in.



Competition from other value retail chains such as Shoprite, Reliance (Fresh and trends), Hypercity and D mart. 

Unorganized retail also appears to be a threat to Big Bazaar’s business. A large population still prefers to visit local convenient stores for daily purchases 

Changing Government policies



International players looking to foray India

Big Bazaar Promotional Schemes Big Bazaar encourages new promotional schemes time to time to boost their sales. The customers also get some big benefits from these promotional schemes. Big Bazaar has employed highly qualified staff to assist consumers. All the products are well managed and displayed in a nice way. There are many billing counters for easy and prompt billing. Boards are placed at most of counters so that one can easily pick the product of its need. Products are properly marked and rates are mentioned. Multiple Brands are available for most of the merchandise. The buyer has the facility to choose its favorite brand. Big Bazaar also has its own brand products which are available at quiet reasonable rates so that they are very budget friendly. Sabse saste 5 din With a view to get maximum benefit of holiday and long weekend Big Bazaar introduced concept of Sabse saste 3 din in January 2006. Republic Day 26th January is a national holiday so Big bazaar proposed the idea of Sabse saste din. These days varies according to 26th January and weekend. It may last for 5 days even. Big bazaar offers many great discounts and offers during these days. Wednesday Bazaar Wednesday has been named as “Hafte Ka Sabse Sasta Din” by Big Bazaar. This is because Wednesday is the most desolate day of the week. Very few consumers visit market on the mid-week day. This scheme brings out most housewives to save a lot on this day. Big Bazaar gives huge discounts on many products on Wednesday. One more benefit for consumers is that they can avoid rush days on weekends. Wednesday Bazaar is here again to help you stock up for another week! Make the most of these incredible offers at a Big Bazaar store near you! 30

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The Great Exchange Offer When you think of disposing old goods and scrap it’s a big headache. Big Bazaar has brought out solution to this problem. The Great Exchange Offer of big bazaar runs every year in financial year end. February and March are the months of Exchange Offer. It is a great opportunity for consumers to get good rates for scrap. Big bazaar issues coupon against the scrap which you can use against your purchase at Big Bazaar. You can get coupons by giving away old goods like electronics, newspaper, shoes, tyres, clothes, utensils, plastic wares and furniture etc. Big bazaar Gift vouchers When you are too confused in buying a gift for your near and dear ones? Big Bazaar makes it easy for you. You can gift Big Bazaar Gift vouchers which are like cash and can be redeemed at any Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar outlets all over India. These Gift vouchers can be used to make payment for any goods and services available at Big Bazaar. Big Bazaar Gift vouchers are available in denominations of Rs. 100 to Rs. 5000. One can choose according to its requirement. The other promotional schemes which Big bazaar is using are special Big Bazaar card which provide some privileges to its holders. They also use big faces for Brand Endorsement. Some of the Big celebrities include Famous cricketer of Indian Cricket Team M.S. Dhoni, Bollywood actresses Asin and Vidya Balan. But one has be very alert while using any of the promotional schemes as there are many terms and conditions involved in these schemes. CURRENT POSITIONING STRATEGY OF BIG BAZAAR: Big Bazaar is holding a strong position in the market and is growing very fast. It captures the maximum Indian market and with a strong financial background and it has to go a long way through. The low price strategy it is successfully running its business all over India and is still growing bigger and bigger. The following graph shows the Product Life Cycle of Big Bazaar which is currently at the growth stage. RETENTION STRATEGY: Big Bazaar strive to foster a feeling of well-being in their employees through care and respect, Big Bazaar have several structured processes including employee mentoring and grievance management programmers which are intended to facilitate a friendly and cohesive organization culture. Off -site activities are encouraged to improve interpersonal relationship. Big Bazaar also acknowledge the efforts exerted by their employees by organization an annual celebration called ‘Pantaloon Day’ where Big Bazaar recognize employees who have shown exceptional talent, sincerity and dedication. Big Bazaar have implemented an employee suggestion programme called ‘Prerna’ wherein the employee can give their 31

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

suggestions. Every quarter the best suggestion received per zone per format is awarded prize called ‘Golden Cap’.

THE BCG MATRIX: The Boston Consulting group’s product portfolio matrix (BCG matrix) is designed to help with long-term strategic planning, to help a business consider growth opportunities by reviewing its portfolio of products to decide where to invest, to discontinue or develop products. It's also known as the Growth/Share Matrix.

1. Question marks: high growth markets with low market share. 2. Stars: high growth markets with high market share. 3. Cash cows: low growth markets with high market share 4. Dogs: low growth or market share

In BCG matrix it start wuith question mark quadrant where there is a high market growth but the low market share in which few ventures becomes stars and few other divested however BIG BAZAAR falls under the stars quadtrant where there is a high market growth and also the high market share, the rapid growth and expansion can be seen in this particular quadrant, For now the Big Bazaar is at the good position in the market where there is a rapid market growth and also the expansion in market share. Further the Cash Cow quadrant there is low opportunities of market growth but doing well with the current market share, any venture needs to do some extraordinary stuff and to become a stars quadrant in BCG matrix. 32

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Company with low market growth and low market share falls under the Dogs quadrant where the company is at the weakest position and facing problems to survive in the market and struggling to make profit out of the business.

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Big Bazaar’s Commitment Our commitment is to deliver sustained growth, through empowered people, acting with responsibility and building trust with customers. Here’s I am explaining what this means:

Sustained Growth is fundamental to motivating and measuring our success. Big Bazaar’s quest for sustained growth stimulates innovation, places a value on results, and helps us understand whether today’s actions will contribute to our future. It is about growth of people and company performance. It prioritizes making a difference and getting things done.

Empowered People means we have the freedom to act and think in ways that you feel will get the job done, while being consistent with the processes that ensure proper governance and being mindful of the rest of the company’s needs.

Responsibility and Trust form the foundation for healthy growth. It’s about earning the confidence that other people place in us as individuals and as a company. Our responsibility means we take personal and corporate ownership for all we do, to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to us. We build trust between ourselves and customers by talking not by mouth but by our superior customer service and being committed to succeeding together

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ADVERTISING: THE ESSENTIAL OF BRAND BUILDING PROCESSAdvertising is an essential component of brand building. The advertisement and brand building is done through various ways, the techniques used are:

Tag-line:Big Bazaar tag-lines are the key components of advertising. These tag-lines are modified according to demographic profile of customers. These catch-phrases appeared on hoardings and newspapers in every city where Big Bazaar was launched.

Print Ads:Big Bazaar newspaper advertisements are present just before launch of any new scheme.

TV Ads:Kishore Biyani spends a lot of money in brand building exercise. Big Bazaar commercials are shown on various channels in India. Presently, Fashion at Big Bazaar commercial is aired.

Road-side Advertisements:Big Bazaar bill-boards are displayed on prime locations in various cities as a brand building exercise. They display the catch-phrases now-a-days.

Radio Ads:This technique is used in cities like Sangli (Tier 1 / Tier 2 cities).Now-a-days, it is replaced by advertisements on FM channels. This informs customers about all new happenings at Big Bazaar.

For example:

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The departmental store chain Big Bazaar has launched a commercial sometime back to promote ‘The Great Exchange Offer’. The commercial portrays how customers can exchange any old and broken items (junk) and get new products at a discounted price from Big Bazaar.

Customer can get the amazing prices for junk. The month of January and February is generally a low-key affair in terms of customer footfalls and revenue generation. Innovative, out of the box promotions is one of the effective ways to draw customer attention and shore up the revenue. Historically Exchange schemes have been used to induce better sales; it also has a strong appeal with the Indian mindset of getting value even for their junk, states an official release from Big Bazaar.

Targets at the middle class and upper middle class only: It targets at the middle and upper middle class due to which it ignores the upper and elite class people as they are the cream of the society who are ready to pay any price for the quality and product they need.

Opportunities: Big Bazaar can enter into production of various products due to its in depth understanding of customers’ tastes andpreferences.

Nowadays people prefer going to one big store and buy everything instead of visiting different places for different items and waste time. So Big Bazaar can expand the business in smaller cities as there is a lot of opportunity. Lot of potential inthe rural market.

Threats: High business risk involved: Big Bazaar investment is very large so it is obvious that there is high business risk involved.

Lot of competitors: There are a lot of countries which are planning to enter the Indian market like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco which is a big threat to Big Bazaar. 36

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Less Parking Space: Customers are not satisfied with the parking space availability provided by Big Bazaar. Hence it’s a threat of Big Bazaar as it may loose its customers because of less parking space availability. In holidays it will be very difficult for customers to park their vehicle in Big Bazaar.

Unorganized retailing: Unorganized retail stores are a threat to the business of big bazaar as now also people prefer to go to the local stores which are convenient enough for them.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Big bazaar should keep offers in regular intervals so that there should not be a long term gap, because offer is the most influencing factor which is responsible for customer purchase decision. Big bazaar should start emphasizing more on internet shopping along with the formal retail shopping because a large population of the country likes to shop online in order to save time. Along with the different discounts and offers it should pay attention towards the students and provide some offers for them also because half of the Indian population is of youths and students. It should work on its billing counters and customer service in order to solve the problem of long queues and waiting customers.

LITRATURE REVIEW:-

(Doyle& Fenwick 1974; Jain & Etgar 1976: King & Ring 1980; Chowdhury et al 1998), withsome research efforts having attempted to explore the evolution of store image formation(Mazursky and Jacoby 1986); and others seeking to conduct a meta-analysis of retail patronage studies (Pan & Zinkhan 2006). However, the existing literature did not retail image. Consumers‘ perception of store image is based, in part, on functional qualities that the store may possess, and by other, less tangible or psychological attributes (Lindquist 1974). Lindquist analyzed over 20 studies dealing with store image formation and identified 35 different aspects that in reveal any prior studies where clustering techniques had been used to study consumers‘ perceptions of stofluence store image formation. These were grouped into nine broad categories, including: merchandise, service, clientele, physical facilities, 37

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convenience, promotion, store atmosphere, institutional attributes, and posttransaction satisfaction. Mazursky and Jacoby (1986) conducted a similar analysis and verified that ―merchandise related aspects‖ (such as quality, pricing and assortment), and “service related aspects‖ (such as quality in general and salesperson‘s service) are among the most important components of store image. A 1994 study by Baker, Grewal and Parasuraman confirmed that ―the store image literature suggests there are linkages between merchandise and service quality, and store image.‖ A later study by Baker, Grewal and Voss (2002) also confirmed that service quality was a key determinant of store image. Given the prevalence in the literature of merchandise and service as two key determinants in the formation of store image, these two attributes were selected for this present study to gauge consumer‟s perceptions of retail stores. These attributes were incorporated in this study by obtaining consumer similarity judgments on retailers‘ ―service quality‖ and ―merchandise quality”. The clustering of retail stores based on these two attributes will yield a better understanding of competition within the retailing industry. This is of interest from a strategic marketing standpoint in that many off-price retailers carry the same quality merchandise as other, higher priced retailers (namely, department stores and specialty stores). In previous years, competition within the retail sector was more clearly delineated in that department stores tended to compete with other department stores; and in general, stores of a specific type tended to compete with like stores in reality, these distinctions (at least with regards to merchandise quality) may not be as clear today since off-price retailers often carry the same merchandise as specialty and department stores. No longer can the competition be viewed as narrowly – merely by store type - as it had been in the past for purposes of marketing strategy development. Off-price retailers strive to convince consumers that their product quality is comparable to that of department stores. This study will enable us to confirm whether consumer perceptions of product quality will also yield information that would be of strategic interest to retailers.

For the survey of existing literature, the research papers published in Journals, Reference books, Magazine, internet, government report etc were referred. The observation and findings presented in this section are based on this literature review. Feinberg, Sheffler, Meoli and Rummel (1989) considered the social stimulation provided by malls, finding that the mall served as an outlet for social behavior. Further examination of this issue was made by Lotz, Eastlick and Shim (2000), who studied the similarities and differences between mall entertainment seekers and mall shoppers. Their results supported hypotheses that there are different motivations for individuals who visit a mall for entertainment activities versus those who visit for shopping purposes. Roy (1994) in his study considered several characteristics of shoppers - such as functional shopping motivation, deal proneness, recreational shopping motivation, age, income and family size, to be a significant influence on mall shopping frequency. Burns and Warren (1995) opined that since the store mix and product offerings of many regional shopping malls are very similar, often the primary discriminator between many of these centers is merely location. Making the choice to shop at a regional shopping mall other than the one nearest to one‟s place of residence, therefore, does not appear to be a logical choice in many instances. Such behaviour, however, appears to be relatively common. 38

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It would appear; therefore, that regional shopping mall choice may not always be based solely on the offerings and location of the available shopping alternatives

Jackson (1996) in his study observed that malls have become the place where senior citizens walk in comfort and security, where parents lead their young to Santa Clauses, where singles court, where teenagers socialize and where everybody consumes. Indeed a new term, “Mall Rats” has been coined to describe the legions of young people who spend their free time cruising indoor corridors. This proliferation of uses and of customers has led to the frequent observation that regional malls are the new downtowns, the centers of informal social interactions, the successors to the traditional marketplace.

J.A.F. Nicholls (1997) in his article has mention about the situational dimensions affecting purchasing behavior of Hispanic customers in a mall at some distance from their neighborhoods. The Hispanic shopper (which would also include a large segment of immigrants) makes the (shopping) trip worthwhile by traveling with companions, consummating a purchase while at the mall, and buying food or beverage during the visit. The Hispanic shopper also spends more time at the mall and visits more stores while there.

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Pashigian and Gould (1998) stated that consumers are attracted to malls because of the presence of well-known anchors - department stores with recognized names. Anchors generate mall traffic that indirectly increases the sales of lesser-known mall stores. Lesserknown stores can free ride off of the reputations of better-known stores. Mall developers internalize these externalities by offering rent subsidies to anchors and by charging rent premiums to other mall tenants. The results of this article suggested that mall developers are behaving rationally because they know that anchors attract customers to the mall and increase the sales of other mall stores.

Kay M. Palan (2000) in his paper outlined gender identity, of consumer behavior studies in the marketing literature that have examined gender identity. Based on the literature review, the paper evaluates whether gender identity research is still warranted, and proposes specific research questions to guide future research. The author is of the view that it is very essential to understand the complex and changeable nature of personality traits associated with gender categories.

Nikhilesh Dholakia & Piyush Kumar Sinha (2005) Customers tend to come to the stores with a choice set. This set varies according to the extent of planning that the customer undertakes before reaching the store. With more planning, this choice set narrows. While buying from the traditional format (serviced) stores, the customers carry lists. These lists, in many cases, mention the brand name of the product. Generally, the retailer simply fetches the sought brands and collects them on the counter, ready for tallying and payment. In the very affluent families, these patterns exhibit variations. Rather than the husband, the cart pusher may be the maid or the driver (chauffer). Of course, in such cases, almost all the picking and paying is done by "madam," the housewife-employer. While not yet much evident in Ahmedabad, in bigger metropolitan areas such as Delhi or Mumbai, there are some observed cases of maids coming to shop on their own, using lists provided by the employer. To command appropriate respect from the store help, the maids "dress up" in such situations. There has not been significant effort by research scholars and marketers to study the consumer behavior pattern in Malls and to differentiate the same with behavior pattern in traditional Mom-&-Pop shops. If the research has been conducted it is not being made available to the other researchers.

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Surbhi Khosla (2006) in her article briefly discussed about the retail sector in India and its journey. The article mentions in the chronological order the evolution of different retail formats in India and also major retailers in different formats. The article also discussed the recent trends in the formats and future scope of the different formats of retailing.

Prakash Chandra Dash (2007) studied and explodes the opportunities, challenges and strategies of Indian retail sectors. The paper discusses the challenges like merchandising mix, retail differentiation, supply chain management and also competition from supplier's brand in the Indian perspective.3

Sonal Kureshi, Vandana Sood, Abraham Koshy (2007) conducted a research study on “Comprehensive Analysis of Exclusive Brand Store Customer in Indian Market”. The objective of the research was (a) to provide insight about the profile of the consumers of exclusive brand store, based on their demographic and psychographic characteristics (b) to find out differences if any between the „Browser‟ and „Purposive‟ customers and (c) to examine the differences that emerge and draw implications for the retailer.

Piyush Kumar Sinha & Sanjay Kumar (2007) conducted research study to identify and classify the different formats of retailing in India. The study classifies the different formats of retailing in different categories and also explains the growth of each category and motivation of retailers to expand into specific category. Some of the findings of the study include: Most of the organized retailers in India are harping on quality, service, convenience, satisfaction and assured benefits to lure shoppers into the store. Retailers are not creating value for the consumer and also unable to decide suitable vehicle to deliver desired consumer value. No doubt that retail format is one of the vehicles to deliver value proposition and also it helps to position the store in the mind of target shoppers.

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2 DMART

D-Mart offer products to satisfy the entire family‘s needs. Merchandise offered at D-Mart is always at lower prices. Stores are designed with customer convenience in mind. D-Mart respects your intelligence by offering a wide choice of brand and pack sizes, couple with easy-tounderstand communications and information.

Avenue Super Marts Ltd Avenue Super Marts Ltd (ASL) owns and operates hypermarkets and supermarkets by the store name D-Mart. D-Mart seeks to provide a one-stop shopping experience for the entire family, meeting all their daily household needs. A wide selection of home utility products is offered, including foods, toiletries, beauty products, garments, kitchenware, bed and bath linen, home appliances and much more. Since D-Mart first opened its doors in the Mumbai region in 2000, it has grown into a trusted and well-established shopping destination in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. DMart is now looking forward to growing its stores across India.

Culture At ASL, we‘re strong believers in deriving excellence in customer service through systemic training and rigor at work. We value simplicity and humility in our people and strongly believe that integrity and merit is the only route to growth at ASPL. We hire professionals who share our values and unabashedly lead by example

Vision It is our continuous endeavor to investigate, identify and make available new products/categories for the customer‘s everyday use and at the ‗best‘ value than anybody else

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D-Mart is a chain of hypermarkets in India founded by Radhakishan Damani in the year 2002. As of October 2018, it had 160 stores across India in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, National Capital Region, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Punjab. DMart is a one-stop supermarket chain that aims to offer customers a wide range of home and personal products under one roof. Each DMart store stocks home utility products - including food, toiletries, beauty products, garments, kitchenware, bed and bath linen, home appliances and more - available at competitive prices that the customers typically appreciate. The core objective of DMart is to offer customers products at competitive value. DMart is promoted by Avenue Supermarts Ltd. (ASL). The company has its headquarters in Mumbai. History: Founded in Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra on 15 May 2002; (16 years ago) founded by Radhakishan Damani Headquarters in Anjaneya Cooperative Housing Society Ltd, Orchard Avenue, Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Competitiors 

Big Bazaar

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Easyday



Foodworld



HyperCity

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More.



Urban Ladder

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Reliance Fresh



Spencer's

Presence D-Mart's expansion began in 2007, when stores were opened in Ahmedabad, Baroda, Pune, Sangli, Andhra Pradesh Hyderabad, Karnataka, Bangalor Today D-Mart is established in 46 locations across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, 43

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In Maharashtra, 

Mumbai



Navi Mumbai



Thane



Pune



Solapur

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Sangli

In Gujrat 

Ahmedabad



Rajkot



Baroda



Amravati



Surat



Anand



Kolhapur

In Andhra pradesh 

Hayderabad



Karnataka



Bangalor

Offerings: D-Mart offers a wide selections of products in the following categories: 

Foods



Toiletries and Beauty products



Garments



Kitchenware



Bed and Bath linen 44

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR 

Toys & Games Stationery



Home Appliances



Footwear

Marketing mix of D-Mart Product in the Marketing Mix of D-Mart: D-Mart is a one-stop outlet that offers a wide range of choice in home and personal products to its customers. It believes in mass commodities and therefore its products are available in different sizes and colours. Apparels are displayed in a systematic manner in accordance with their size options. Retail price, actual discount and offer price are displayed on the tags for the convenience of customers. Area of the outlet is divided in accord with products as every product has a separate section from which a customer can easily make a choice. Each D-Mart outlet has following products in its portfolioFood items including vegetables, fruits, dairy products, frozen eatables Grocery items like flour, rice, dal, sugar, salt Apparels for kids, male and females Beauty products and personal care including soap, shampoo, cleanser, toner Kitchenware including crockery, utensils, plastic containers Toys and games for children Home appliances like iron, mixer grinder, grill toaster Bed and bath linen Luggage like trolley bags Footwear for everyone including children, men and women Daily essentials like biscuits Place in the Marketing Mix of D-Mart: D-Mart has a reach in most of the important cities in India including Ahmedabad, Surat, 45

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Rajkot, and Bhuj in Gujarat, Tirupathi in Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad in Telangana, and Bangalore in Karnataka, Mumbai and Kolhapur in Maharashtra. It is able to provide its products through a network of one hundred and ten stores and has its headquarters base in Mumbai, India. D-Mart has set up its stores at very strategic points to gain maximum advantage from its locations because easy accessibility and proper transportation facilities are very important for the survival of any outlet. Exceptional service is not the vital factor for such outlets. They have reliable and trained employees to help customers in hours of need but the consumers are generally self-sufficient and are likely to pick up items from various shelves themselves in a walking trolley basket and take it to billing counter for payment. Price in the Marketing Mix of D-Mart: D-Mart is a departmental store and believes in levying an economic pricing policy for its products. The company has taken a low-cost approach to target that group which is price sensitive. As mass merchandise is its mantra it has kept prices at reasonable and economic rates so that a customer can easily purchase it. D-Mart has adopted a simple strategy of garnering huge sales through affordable prices and keeping price range within reach of customers is its top priority. It offers a 5% of minimum discount on MRP at any given time on all items except fruits, grocery, vegetables and medicines. D-Mart has also adopted a discount pricing policy and it periodically offers its customers various incentives and lucrative discounts, especially during festival seasons. Customers at such times buy in bulk quantities resulting in a huge volume of sales. This is the reason why such stores are able to earn greater revenues. Promotions in the Marketing Mix of D-Mart: D-Mart is one of the largest multi-brands in India and to maintain its position as one of the best, company has adopted several promotional activities. It offers gift coupons to reward its employees and during certain periods to boost its sales, coupons are also allotted to customers when they meet certain standards of bulk purchase. Discounts are offered during festive seasons, for example, there was a 10% off on prices of Cadbury products during Raksha Bandhan. D-Mart also creates brand awareness and visibility through hoardings. Latest offers and schemes can be easily known through its promotional activities that are published in newspapers. Strengths are defined as what each business does best in its gamut of operations which can give it an upper hand over its competitors. The following are the strengths of DMart: Focus on long-term: Damani, the founder of D Mart is an investor and thus the company has been focused entirely on long-term gains. This has made the company maximise its returns through a value is driven pricing strategy. Slow scaling up: D Mart started off on a very low key note and slowly took its time to move up the ladder. This gave the company a better control and deeper understanding of its supply 46

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chain and also helped them manage the bottom line better. People-centric management style: D Mart has a very good employee policy in place and is very transparent in its employee relations. They also have a good relationship with vendors and suppliers and the stakeholders are happy. Discount Policy: One factor that delineates D Mart from its competitor is its huge discount policy. The retailer sells essential goods at a flat discount price which most competitors cannot match and this helped them penetrate the market. Clear price based differentiation: D Mart never followed the trends set by other competing retail brands but believed in setting their own trends. They captured the market through a clear price based differentiation and priced their goods at significantly lower prices than competitors. Weaknesses Weaknesses are used to refer to areas where the business or the brand needs improvement. Some of the key weaknesses of D Mart are: Focus on certain places: Quite unlike their competitors, who are present everywhere, D Mart has focused more on the Western States and has a very low presence in the South. This has restricted them from gaining market prominence. Slow growth: D Mart has established almost 16 years ago much before the retail boom set a fire in India. However, it has not been able to capture the market even as much as many of the later entrants primarily because of its long-term focus. Sustainability of low pricing: The Company has a zero credit policy and thus vendors and suppliers give them a much better price which is how the company is able to afford the low prices that the competitors cannot imagine. No frills: D Mart follows a no-frills approach where the focus in to cut costs wherever possible. Their facilities are basic and lack the frills of most upmarket retailers. The customers who come here essentially look at the low prices of products on offer. So thus the sustainability of this differentiator is questionable. Opportunities Opportunities refer to those avenues in the environment that surrounds the business on which it can capitalize to increase its returns. Some of the opportunities include: Technology: Technology has a lot to offer to retailers in terms of in-store experiences and retailer can use IoT, artificial intelligence etc to create value-adding services to their customers for which a premium can be charged. Personalization of services: Customers are looking for personalized services for which they are willing to pay extra. Retailers should capitalize on this propensity to pay more and 47

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increase the quality of their services.

Threats Threats are those factors in the environment which can be detrimental to the growth of the business. Some of the threats include: Online retailers: People in cities especially are highly lethargic about leaving their homes and prefer to shop online today. Companies like Amazon and Flipkart thus become major threats to most retailers. Online Start-ups: The hottest trend in India is online start-ups. Many of them are aggregators who bring together the supplier and the customer cost-effectively. These companies are the emerging threats more so because many new brands are cropping up in the aggregation market primarily because of lower barriers to entry. D-Mart seeks to provide a one-stop shopping experience for the entire family, meeting all their daily household needs. A wide selection of home utility products is offered, including foods, toiletries, beauty products, garments, kitchenware, bed and bath linen, home appliances and much more. Since D-Mart first opened its doors in the Mumbai region in 2000, it has grown into a trusted and well-established shopping destination in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. D-Mart is now looking forward to growing its stores across India.

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India’s most valuable retailer is choosing to veer away from its time-tested business rules as it chases growth. Avenue Supermarts Ltd, owner of D-Mart, is looking to accelerate profit and revenue growth by opening 30 stores annually from an average of 20 stores in the last two fiscals. For this, it is willing to compromise on certain basic tenets of its business such as owning its stores and focusing only on brick and mortar. “We have progressed from opening around 10 stores per annum historically to 15-20 stores. There is an opportunity for us to at least reach 30 per annum. That much is possible," said Neville Noronha, managing director and chief executive officer of Avenue Supermarts. The firm, which listed in March 2017, shot into the limelight with 114% gains on listing day as investors welcomed its rather unadventurous but highly profitable business model. In the first nine months of this fiscal, D-Mart posted a 28% gain in revenues and a 60% jump in net profit. Yet investors are hungry for more. The D-Mart stock is trading at 71.37 times expected earnings for the next 12 months and has seven “sell" ratings compared to four “buy" and “hold" ratings. To accelerate growth, Noronha said D-Mart is willing to forgo owning its stores. So far, the company has followed an ownership or long-lease model, which has helped cut costs and boosted margins. Since the beginning of fiscal 2018, D-Mart has maintained gross margins of at least 7.5%, compared to the 3-4% margins of its nearest rival, Future Retail Ltd. The firm is best known for its “everyday low cost, everyday low price" strategy, allowing it to extend near-permanent discounts to customers on a daily basis. This helps it to churn inventory quickly and aids profitability. However, challenges in acquiring land at suitable locations, getting necessary permissions and requisite approvals has prompted the shift in strategy. “That’s why we’ve been a little less stringent," Noronha said, adding, “if you would have said eight years back, whether we want to do a lease, we would have downright refused. Today... we are open to it."

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D-Mart is eyeing the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for its next round of expansion. As of 31 December, the company had 141 stores. At the end of fiscal 2017, as many as 68% of its stores were located in Maharashtra and Gujarat. The push comes at a time when the pace of store addition hasn’t been particularly impressive. For the nine months ended December, D-Mart added 10 stores. “Speed of opening new stores has to improve. There is an opportunity to do better there," Noronha had said when the December quarter results were announced. By compromising on the firm’s basic tenets, he has addressed analysts’ concerns. “Slippage in store additions as seen in 9 months FY18 (and) limited ability to increase store additions to maintain growth contribution from new stores" will constrain sales growth, wrote IIFL analysts in a 1 February report. D-Mart is also looking to ramp up its e-commerce presence. In January this year, Avenue Supermarts turned its e-commerce venture, Avenue E-commerce Ltd, from an associate company (related to the parent via promoters) to a wholly owned subsidiary. D-Mart promoter Radhakishan Damani owns a controlling stake in this firm. D-Mart has also recently stepped up promotional activity, and the company is seeing more traction at its “click and collect" kiosks.

Apart from click and collect, the company is running home delivery pilots in “D-Mart dark areas" in Mumbai—neighbourhoods in the city where D-Marts don’t exist. The company charges for its home deliveries and is mainly focused on groceries.

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As surprising as it may sound, India’s most profitable supermarket isn’t backed by Ambani, Birla, Biyani or Goenka.

India’s Walmart in the making, as a number of analysts have called it, is Avenue Supermarkets Ltd, the parent company behind a chain of supermarkets and hypermarkets called D-Mart. D-Mart, owned by notoriously media-shy investor Radhakishan Damani, cleaned up spectacularly on Dalal Street, with its shares more than doubling in value after its initial public offering (IPO). The company’s shares were sold at Rs 299 apiece at the IPO and surged as much as 106% after listing at 604.4 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday, making it not only the first retailer to list in a decade, but also perhaps the best IPO listing in recent Indian corporate history.

Its current market cap stands at a cool Rs 39,400 crore – which is higher than the combined market capitalisation of both Future Retail and Aditya Birla Fashion.

The math behind its business model is attractive to be sure, especially when compared to corporate rivals that attract a lot more publicity. For fiscal 2016, Kishore Biyani’s Future Retail put up a profit of Rs 14.55 crore on annual revenue of Rs 6,845 crore while RPGowned Spencer’s Retail posted a Rs 168 crore loss on revenue of Rs 1881.31 crore.

In the same period, D-mart bagged profits of Rs 320 crore on the back of Rs 8,600 crore in revenue. Even though Reliance Retail, a far larger retailer that dabbles in everything from electronics to jewellery, posted similar profit in the 2016 fiscal (Rs 306 crore), it did so by bringing in revenue of Rs 18,399 crore – more than double D-mart’s revenue.

Cautious and obsessively focussed To be fair, Damani’s D-Mart is extremely cautious, some would say borderline paranoid, in the way it operates and the way it expands. It’s strategy is markedly different from nearly every other Indian retailer. While other companies have expanded quickly into multiple segments with differentiated retail chains, 51

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D-Mart’s sales mix is largely limited to food and groceries. Categories like high-end electronics, jewellery and watches – which companies like Reliance have forayed into and which make up as much as 25% of Indian consumer spending – is something the company stays far away from.

The company also avoids the potentially lucrative but usually troublesome practice of creating private labels or brands, something retailers like Future Retail and Trent are currently doing in India. Damani thrives on low margins and, to a certain extent, D-mart is built around this philosophy. Industry executives at rival companies call it the “three-step business model”, very similar to that of Walmart.

“Start with low-cost products that consumers need on a daily basis and that you can sell for slightly below MRP. This allows you to rack up a great inventory turnover ratio. Then use that quick inventory turnover to negotiate better prices with wholesalers which in turn allows you to support your low prices,” a top retail executive, who declined to be identified, told The Wire.

Different duckling Anything that doesn’t fall into this meticulous process is abandoned. Private labels and top-end products bring in higher margins but saddle companies with inevitably higher inventory turnover. Offering multiple brands of the same product also leads to similar outcomes, which is why the assortment of products and variety of brands that one finds at a D-Mart store is often limited when compared to Reliance Fresh or Big Bazaar. Damani likes his stores to be more like a well-tuned assembly chain: where products are converted into sales as fast as possible. Because of this, it’s able to avoid the high-stakes, perennial discount game that other retailers often get trapped in. Customers who walk into a D-Mart store understand that they are getting a no-frills approach but also know that most food items and groceries on offer will be 6% to 12% cheaper than what they will find at other stores. In some cases, certain products will be 10% below MRP. However, the company operates differently in other ways as well. While competitors head to India’s rapidly-growing malls because that’s where consumer spending is highest, D-Mart hasn’t and doesn’t ever plan on opening a store in a mall. 52

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As other retailers are experimenting with a wide range of formats and geographic locations, D-Mart sticks to what it knows best. It uses one of two formats of stores whose size is calculated based on location and shopper density. The company is also extremely reluctant to expand geographically. Until 2014, it had stores only in four Indian states. Over the last three years, it has expanded into five more states but is still conspicuously absent in the NCR region and other high consumer spending states like Tamil Nadu. Analysts point out that it follows a principle of opening 75% of its new stories in existing states or markets and plans on staying true to this in the coming years. This strategy pays off for the company. In its 15 years of operations, it has never closed, moved or shut down a store.

Regimented business model Much of the company’s focus, as well as comparisons to Walmart, stems from Damani’s decision to follow a store-ownership model. The company has spent over Rs 23 billion on acquiring land and buildings but either owns most of its stores or has them on a 30-year long-term lease. This is, in part, what has forced it to rack up debt of a little over Rs 1000 crore; a certain amount of its IPO proceeds have been allocated towards repaying this debt. However, its ownership model crucially allows it to save on rental costs. A recent ‘Yes Securities’ analyst note points out that D-Mart’s rental costs are only 0.2% of total sales compared to 8% for Biyani’s Future Retail. It may appear strange that while buzz is so strong around India’s e-commerce industry and companies like Flipkart and Snapdeal, the best-performing IPO in recent corporate history is a brick-and-mortar supermarket. And yet, D-Mart’s stringent focus on profitability offers lessons to both physical and online retailers, both of which have stumbled in the last few years. After burning through billions in venture capital funding and thousands of layoffs, India’s e-commerce industry is finally growing up and shifting towards a focus on profitability. On similar lines, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, which have burnt their hands in expanding too quickly and experimenting too rapidly, are slowly taking a reality check. All this means that D-Mart’s future, while bright, is not without risk. The company’s success so far stems from its blinkered approach towards product categories and geographic location. As D-Mart chief Neville Noronha put it last year, the company succeeds because it does “small things repeatedly and consistently”. Can it keep doing this, especially when its 53

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revenue growth in fiscal 2015 and 2016 was lower than the annual revenue growth seen in the preceding two years? As the company moves forward, its biggest competition will not only be keeping true to its business model but also staving off the threat posed by rivals that are slowly maturing and looking to take a bigger share of the retail pie.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

Ritu Bhattacharjee works as a sales executive at an automobile dealership in South Mumbai and lives with her husband and six-year-old son in Powai in the geographical centre of Mumbai. “I love it here!” she says. “There is nothing that is not available in our neighbourhood. Restaurants, stores, cafes, bookshops, everything is just a two-minute walk away from our place. And ever since DMart opened, life is perfect. I don’t have to go anywhere else for grocery shopping. When asked about another supermarket close by that pre-existed DMart, she dismisses it with a wave of a hand. “They don’t keep many things that I want. But DMart! Sometimes I wonder if they’ve placed a spy cam inside my house. How do they know exactly what I’m looking for?” she laughs. Ritu is one of thousands of women in the city of Mumbai and now, other cities as well, who find not just satisfaction but actual deliverance in DMart. They have no hesitation in extolling its virtues. And their praise is almost identical. “D-Mart has everything we want. The offers at DMart are unbelievable.” “This is the only supermarket in India where the customer is not bothered about the ambience of the store. Her entire attention is centres on filling up her shopping trolley without a care in the world,” said a global retail leader from Wal-Mart, after visiting a DMart store in Mumbai in 2008. “We know for a fact that when a customer is completely sure she is getting the best value, she lets her guard down, she buys more and in the bargain, the store wins,” he puns with a deadpan face. DMart wasn’t conceived through a grand business strategy, but merely as a hunch that was backed by its promoter, RK Damani. And yet, it is acknowledged as a successful, solid, homegrown regional supermarket chain in India. It stands tall amongst large corporate and multinational supermarket chains, in its markets. How did this happen? How a humble, unadvertised, unsung and relatively unplanned venture did more than a shade better than 55

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more organised competitors? How does it remain the market leader in its catchments year after year? Obviously, there is something this supermarket does smarter than many bigger, wiser supermarket teams. The story of DMart began almost 14 years ago in the dusty streets of Mumbai and upcountry Maharashtra where its promoters walked the supermarkets and co-operative stores of the time and observed the contents of the shopping trolleys to gain an understanding of what the customer bought and what she rejected. All operational wisdom was gleaned from the supermarket ‘street’, while philosophically, it was clear that the store must follow the principles laid down by Sam Walton. Wal-Mart had treated some fundamentals as gospel and if they could succeed with their simple approach to retail, there was no reason for a store in India not to do so. In a very basic way, therefore, all DMart did was to watch the customer trolley and read everything about Sam Walton and Wal-Mart. Nothing else was strategically important. The strategy paid off in spades. DMart’s ‘Give ‘em what they want’ approach to retailing has customers lining up at their doors. Our work at understanding and decoding DMart led to some simple clues and points of view about each of the three constituencies of retail – the customers, the vendors and the employees. DMart started in a very simple way in New Bombay. By supermarket standards, the first store, which also acted as a pilot for the business, located in a 4,000 square feet premises, was tiny. But the principles it developed then have stood the test of both time and scale. The business was in no hurry to create behemoths. Instead it patiently went about laying down the first principles of this fledgling business, and creating the core DMart point of view about the three ‘constituencies’ of retail. Now the simple formula that makes DMart tick is shared and intuitively understood as invaluable in the large organisation. Probably this simplicity has helped it scale nicely while staying lean as an organisation. One of the cornerstones of DMart’s continued success is how it has retained its frugal outlook to retail through all market upheavals and internal changes over the years. From his stock investor days, RK Damani, or RK, as he is popularly known, had the habit of forming strong, informed points of views about what mattered for success and singlemindedly pursuing the chosen path. He pursued the same mindset in the retail business. One of his biggest success sutras was that of prioritising with a vengeance. “If there are 10 principles or acts needed to run the business, I would pick the two or three that mattered the most and then drive them to be a market beater in those things. It is okay for me if I am even below average in the other seven things,” he says confidently. Running with what matters the most and staying the course has obviously been a winning strategy for DMart. It is therefore worth examining the most important components of each of the three constituencies, the customer, the employee and the vendor, for DMart. 1. The Indian customer, who shops at air-conditioned stores, does not run her family’s grocery needs on a tight budget. While supermarket customers are, by and large, well-to-do people, yet everyone wants to save money. People with money buy more, to achieve higher savings. DMart’s pricing is designed for the customers to save more across everything she buys. 56

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However, those who buy bigger packs save even more. It’s as simple as that! The merchandise department of DMart, its buyers, act more like agents of the customer and not of the company. This is in line with Sam Walton’s description of his merchandise department. If the buyers buy better, they can sell cheaper. The very fundamental principle of ‘what you receive, you pass on’ is almost biblical in its simplicity. If buyers negotiate a good price with vendors, DMart passes on the benefits to the customers, in the process communicating a message of care and protection. “Even when you are not looking, not careful, you’ll still save money with us” seems to be the unstated subtext in its communication. How can any customer resist such a message of genuine concern? It follows that the customer will let her guard down and fill her trolley with reckless abandon. After all, DMart has her back and she knows it. One of RK’s old beliefs is, if she saves well, she’ll overlook other flaws in the offering. There are many aspects to a customer facing business. A well-lit and designed shopfloor with smart adjacencies and category flows, polite staff, proper communication, attractive displays, weekly, monthly promotion cycles, so on and so forth. DMart could have tried to focus on all these and more. It didn’t because then it would have lost its edge. It only looked at how much the customer saves, and became a market leader in that, much to the shopper’s joy. She bought more. “Also, she’ll tell others about us and therefore we’ll not need any marketing!” chuckles RK. 2. Store employees or associates are first generation retail workers in India. Self-service retail is still in its early stages of evolution. Combine this with the fact that culturally, in India, service and servitude have often been treated as one and the same, and it becomes obvious that introducing a service-oriented format in our country is a mammoth task. Workers and servers in all walks of life come from a different class and socio-economic background than the people they serve. They are largely untrained and often uneducated or first generation learners, their parents being employed in small factories or as work hands in small businesses. Nothing in the environment or upbringing of these new retail associates therefore prepares them for a customer facing service job. The service culture is entering our environment, but it will take a generation to become firmly entrenched as part of our society. Until that happens, what is it that a customer-facing business needs to do? Can it afford to depend on this class of workers to generate customer satisfaction? The obvious answer is no. From this point of view, DMart has built a cadre of simple, hardworking store people who ensure fully stocked shelves, clean price communication and efficient check-outs and not much beyond in customer service. Well, selling simple grocery items at fixed prices does not require much people-based service, in any case. The simplicity of the shopfloor associates is offset by stateof-the-art, global standard store equipment. Be it flooring, shelves, trolleys, scanners – all hardware and connectivity deployed at the stores is expensive, best in class. Not many things therefore need skilled, smart manpower. Equally significantly, the associates have no sales targets. Clearly, the organisation does not depend on its associates for its sales. It allows its systems and basic principle of simplicity to do that for it. DMart seems to live its ‘selfservice’ dharna, diligently. While staff are amply trained and rewarded, this is not where the company has chosen to place its sales focus on. 3. Vendors, who deliver goods and get paid by retailers, are small and medium traders, 57

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micro-entrepreneurs, by a vast majority. Even when supermarkets buy goods made by reputed MNCs, the real last-mile seller is often a distributor named Agarwal & Sons, for example. Small traders in India, as a rule, are always short on capital and perpetually stressed about their working capital situation. DMart decided to be a market beater by paying faster than market norms to its vendors. Quickly, they became known as the best pay masters in town. In spite of being tough negotiators, every vendor wanted them to succeed, for this very reason. Vendors did many small things in their power to ensure DMart got the best availability and deals. Vendors are known to advise and tip off the buyer teams, often, with market intelligence. DMart has ensured an ecosystem that’s very helpful in winning the complexities of the supermarket business, with this simple vendor insight. It also helps to have a liberal stock holding policy the way DMart does, in a growing market like India. The Indian customer is intuitively frugal and also traditionally underserved. When she sees a hardworking store like DMart that empowers her, saves money and has a no-nonsense outlook, she overlooks and forgives the no frills, often cheerless, warehouse like store setting. Going forward, from being a regional retailer, as it expands into other parts of the country, DMart has to grapple with the fact that India is more like a continent than a homogeneous market. Food tastes and preferences and buying behaviour change every 100 kilometres. Assortments, work cultures and therefore overall management will need to get complex. A simple business model based on insights about the three constituencies of retail and a trusting, forgiving customer will stand in good stead when DMart begins to engage with greater complexity. It is a well-known fact that in most large markets, the biggest retailer is the discount supermarket and in many cases, it is a local player and not a multinational. DMart with its stable fundamentals is well-placed to play for that spot, for now at least! (As appeared in my book, “SupermarketWala: Secrets of Winning Consumer India”) 

(Doyle& Fenwick 1974; Jain & Etgar 1976: King & Ring 1980; Chowdhuryet al 1998), withsome research efforts having attempted to explore the evolution of store image formation (Mazursky and Jacoby 1986); and others seeking to conduct a metaanalysis of retail patronage studies (Pan & Zinkhan 2006). However, the existing literature did not retail image. Consumers‘ perception of store image is based, in part, on functional qualitiesthat the store may possess, and by other, less tangible or psychological attributes 

(Lindquist 1974). Lindquist analyzed over 20 studies dealing with store image formation and identified35 different aspects that in reveal any prior studies where clustering techniques had beenused tostudy consumers‘ perceptions of stofluence store image formation. These were grouped into nine broad categories, including: merchandise, service,clientele, physical facilities,convenience, promotion, store atmosphere, institutional attributes, and post-transaction satisfaction. Mazursky and Jacoby (1986) conducted a similar analysis and verified that merchandise related aspects‖ (such as quality, pricing and assortment), and “service relatedaspects‖ (such as 58

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quality in general and salesperson‘s service) are among the most important components of store image. A 1994 study by Baker, Grewal and Parasuraman confirmed that the store image literature suggests there are linkages between merchandise and service quality, and store image.‖ A later study by Baker, Grewal and Voss (2002) also confirmed that service quality was a key determinant of store image. Given the prevalence in the literature of merchandise and service as two key determinants in the formation of store image, these two attributes were selected for this present study to gauge consumer‟s perceptions of retail stores. These attributes were incorporated in this study by obtaining consumer similarity judgments on retailers’ service quality‖ and ―merchandise quality”. 

The clustering of retail stores based on these two attributes will yield a better understanding of competition within the retailing industry. This is of interest from a strategic marketing standpoint in that many off-price retailers carry the same quality merchandise as other, higher priced retailers (namely, department stores and specialty stores). 

In previous years, competition within the retail sector was more clearly delineated in that department stores tended to compete with other department stores; and in general, stores of a specific type tended to compete with like stores in reality, these distinctions (at least with regards to merchandise quality) may not be as clear today since off-price retailers often carry the same merchandise as specialty and department stores. No longer can the competition be viewed as narrowly merely by store type - as it had been in the past for purposes of marketing strategy development. Off-price retailers strive to convince consumers that their product quality is comparable to that of department stores. This study will enable us to confirm whether consumer perceptions of product quality will also yield information that would be of strategic interest to retailers.



D-Mart wanted to create an image amongst the masses of a discount store that offers most of the products from across all major brands. Basically, a store that offers value for money! Now, since people mostly come to Dmart because they all what they need under one roof; hence, Dmart stores are operational in high traffic areas and across three formats including – Hypermarkets, that are spread across 30,000-35,000 sq. ft., Express format, that is spread over 7,000-10,000 sq. ft. and lastly, the Super Centres, that are set up at over 1 lakh sq. ft. 

And Dmart’s target audience being the middle income group, it uses Discount offers as a promotional tool for luring the customers and increasing sales as well. 

Since Dmart is targeting middle income households, all their stores are in, or close to, residential areas and not in malls. Their idea is not to meet every consumer need like other competitors, but instead, Dmart aspires to meet most regular consumer needs, while providing value for their money. And since, 90% of these stores are 59

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owned directly by Dmart, they don’t have to worry about monthly rentals and their rise, or relocation risk. Additionally, this is helping them build assets on their books. This also helps to keep Dmart well capitalised and debt-light, while its operations generate spare cash. 

All the money that is saved using this strategy is eventually offered back to the customers in the form of discounts! The FMCG industry has a payment norm of 12-21 days, but Dmart pays its vendors on 11th day itself. This helps him stay in the good books of the vendors and avoids stock outs. And since Dmart buys in bulk and pays its vendors well in time, they also get to earn higher margins. Basically, their strategy is to “Buy it low, Stack it high and sell it cheap”! 

Dmart offers good money, flexibility, empowerment, and relaxed & efficient work culture. They even go on to hire 10th standard dropouts with the right attitude and commitment. They prefer hiring raw talent, and then invest heavily in training, to mould them as per their requirement. Employees are just told once about the value system and policies at D-Mart and then are empowered by giving them the freedom to operate without somebody constantly looking over their shoulders. There is absolute clarity on what needs to be achieved, but you don’t need to fear targets.

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CHAPTER 3:- DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

SWOT ANALYSIS:

Strengths: Maximum number of varieties: People prefer those places where they can get the maximum products they need and Big Bazaar provides vast range of products under one roof helping in attracting customer and their family to shop together and enjoy the experience.

High brand equity: Big Bazaar has created high brand equity through its promotions and marketing it has created a different image for its products as the cheap and best

Largest chain of retail marketing in India: Big Bazaar is the first retail chain to be started in India and is the largest and successful until now.

High capacity investment: Big Bazaar offers 1,70,000 products and owns more than 100 retail stores all over India and has the strong financial background as being the subsidiary of future groups which owns the pantaloons which is one of the biggest the industries in men’s wear in India and have its work is spread all over India. Future group is one of the leading groups in India.

Everyday new promotions and schemes of low prices and discounts: Big Bazaar always offers new schemes of low prices and gives discounts in products like Big Bazaar offers the sabse saste 3 din ( the cheapest 3 days) in which it offers the lowest of prices than other days.

Facilities like online booking and delivery of goods: It is not just a chain of retail shopping but also provides online shopping facility to the consumers.

Weaknesses: 61

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Overcrowded: During offers, promotions and even on weekends the place is overcrowded with people and sometime even there is the situation of closing the store due to it.

Checkout can be extremely slow: There can be seen a long queue on the billing counters making the consumer wait for hours due to the slow service and the crowd.

Perception of low price=low quality: Generally people think that if any product has low price then the quality of the product will be low as they think quality comes with price.

Company overview Big bazaar Big Bazaar Pvt., Ltd. operates as a hypermarket. The company offers fashion and general merchandise including home furnishings, utensils, crockery, cutlery, sports goods, electronics, toys, footwear, men's and women's apparel, accessories such as sunglasses, watches, and handbags, luggage, fruits, vegetables, and stationary products. The company sells its products through its retail stores located nationwide. Big Bazaar Pvt., Ltd. was founded in 2001 and is based in Mumbai, India. Big Bazaar Pvt., Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of Future Group. Kishore Biyani said he is not holding talks with anybody to sell stake in Big Bazaar Pvt., Ltd and Food Bazaar, Inc. as Future Group has sorted out its debt crisis. "We are not

in discussions with anybody. I don't want to divest my core retail business now. I want to run it," Kishore Biyani told ET. "Our debt levels are very comfortable and divestment, if any, will only be in non-core assets," the Future Group Chief said. "In the past one month, Biyani has managed to reduce his debt by INR 60 billion. Now, he is in no hurry to sell any of his core businesses," the person close to Future Group said. Mitsubishi Corporation is looking to acquire a stake in Big Bazaar Pvt., Ltd. Mitsubishi had made it a pre-condition to invest in Future Group‘s food sourcing and backend infrastructure, sources familiar with the matter said. Mitsubishi and Future Group discussed the issue in the US last week and Mitsubishi has even suggested a convertible structure that will allow an equity stake in Big Bazaar. Kishore Biyani was unavailable for comments and his spokesperson said the matter was speculative. Mitsubishi did not respond to Business Standard seeking comment.

BIG BAZAAR 1

2

3

4 62

5

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%

Advertisement 17.05

%

%

%

%

%

20.45 9.09

11.36

17.61

24.43

REFERENCE

11.93

16.47

20.45

15.9

14.77

20.45

EXPERIENCE

16.48

14.78 21.02

14.2

11.36

22.16

QUALITY

16.48

9.66

22.16

15.91

11.36

QUANTITY

21.59

21.02 10.8

12.5

24.43

9.66

24.43

Big-Bazaar Big Bazaar offers a wide range of products which range from apparels, food, farm products, furniture, child care, toys, etc. of various brands like Pantaloon, Levis, Allen Solly, Pepsi, Coca- Cola, HUL, ITC, P&G, LG, Samsung, Nokia, HP etc. Big Bazaar also promotes a number of in house brands like: - DJ & C - Tasty Treat End. Notes Four Cs! Consumer wants and need Vs Product - Cost to satisfiy Vs Price - Convenience to buy Vs Place - Communication Vs Promotion HUC - Hindustan Unilever Ltd. ITC - Indian Tobacco Company P&G - Procter & Gambler

ANALYSIS: Give response for choose product from the store to First rank D-Mart is 16.12%, & Second rank is 22.58%, & Third rank is 20.16%, & Fourth rank is 13.70%, & Fifth rank is 12.09%, & Sixth rank is 15.32% of them Advertisement. Give First rank is 14.51%, & Second rank is 19.35%, & Third rank is 15.32%, & Fourth rank is 18.54%, & Fifth rank is 20.16%, & Sixth rank is 12.09%, of them Reference. Give First rank is 25%, & Second rank is 17.74%, & Third rank is 22.58%, & Fourth rank is 8.06%, & Fifth rank is 63

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11.29%, & Sixth rank is 15.32%, of them Experience. Give First rank is 23.38%, & Second rank is 12.09%, & Third rank is 7.25%, & Fourth rank is 17.74%, & Fifth rank is 16.12%, & Sixth rank is 23.38%, of them Quality. Give First rank is 10.48%, & Second rank is 13.70%, & Third rank is 20.96%, & Fourth rank is 21.77%, & Fifth rank is17.74%, & Sixth rank is 15.32% of them Quantity. Give First rank is 10.48%, & Second rank is 14.51%, & Third rank is 13.70%, & Fourth rank is 20.16%, & Fifth rank is 22.58%, & Sixth rank is 18.54% of them Service

INTERPRETATION: Majority of the customers are give response for interested to buy under unexpected offers only. Big-Bazaar The pricing objective at Big Bazaar is to get ³Maximum Market Share. Pricing at Big Bazaar is based on the following techniques: Value Pricing (EDLP - Every Day Low pricing): Big Bazaar promises consumers the lowest available price without coupon clipping, waiting for discount promotions, or comparison shopping. Promotional Pricing: Big Bazaar offers financing at low interest rate. The concept of psychological discounting (Rs. 99, Rs. 49, etc.) is also used to attract customers. Big Bazaar also caters on Special Event Pricing (Close to Diwali, Gudi Padva, and Durga Pooja). Differentiated Pricing: Differentiated pricing i.e. difference in rate based on peak and nonpeak hours or days of shopping is also a pricing technique used in Indian retail, which is aggressively used by Big Bazaar. e.g. Wednesday Bazaar Bundling: It refers to selling combo-packs and offering discount to customers. The combo- packs add value to customer and lead to increased sales. Big Bazaar lays a lot of importance on bundling. e.g. 3 Good Day family packs at Rs 60(Price of 1 pack = Rs 22) 5kg oil + 5kg rice + 5kg sugar for Rs 599 Big Bazaar is a household name that is used synonymously with ‘retail’ in India. We represent the requirements of a typical Indian home. Founded in 2001 by Kishore Biyani, we as a retail chain operate under the parent organisation – Future Group – that holds a significant prominence in the Indian retail and fashion sectors. Big Bazaar is one of the oldest hypermarket chains that houses around 250+ stores in the country. We cover three essential categories in Indian retail: home, food, and fashion. Popular retail chains – like the Food Bazaar and fbb form an integral part of Big Bazaar’s identity. The latter (i.e. fbb) has exponentially grown into a major brand that epitomizes fashion in India. In spite of covering a wide gamut of consumer essentials at reasonable prices, we are best known for our understanding of our customers’ evolving needs and comforts. In a fast-paced world, we are perceived as a thought leader who relies on traditional Indian values of seva or ‘care for the customer’ while remaining firmly futuristic in taking business decisions that fuel better quality and efficiency. Big Bazaar is not just another hypermarket; it caters to every need of your family. Where Big Bazaar scores over other stores is its value for money proposition for Indian customers. We guarantee the best products at the best prices. With the ever-increasing array of in-house brands, we have opened doors in the world of fashion and general merchandise, including 64

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home furnishings, utensils, crockery, cutlery, sports goods and much more at prices that will surprise you. And this is just the beginning.

Above chart and table exhibited the data of atmosphere of the Big Bazaar. Form the above chart and table we can analyze 48 % of visitor was satisfied the atmosphere of the mall, 48 % respondent was says the atmosphere of big bazaar was good, followed by 35 % visitor says the atmosphere was very good. It indicate 250 customer out of 300 customer was positive response about the atmosphere of the mall. Only 4 % customer says the environment of the big bazaar was very bad and bad, so from this data we can conclude 83 % customer was say big bazaar was provide good environment.

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All the data of parking facility in big bazaar was presented in above chart and table. 33 % visitor says parking facility of big bazaar was very good, followed by 42 % visitor review regarding parking facility was good. Only 6 % and 5 % visitors say big bazaar parking facility was bad and very bad, So we can conclude overall parking facility was good because 75 % visitors say parking facility it was good.

Above chart and table exhibited data regarding response of employee. Employee response is effected on customer satisfaction. 35 % visitors say response of the big bazaar employee was very good, followed by 41 % visitor say response of employee regarding product and service was good So we can conclude 76 % visitor say employee response was good and this policy was good from the big bazaar point of view. Only 4 % and 5 % say the response of the employee was bad and very bad. Above chart and table exhibited data regarding response of employee. Employee response is effected on customer satisfaction. 35 % visitors say response 66

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of the big bazaar employee was very good, followed by 41 % visitor say response of employee regarding product and service was good So we can conclude 76 % visitor say employee response was good and this policy was good from the big bazaar point of view. Only 4 % and 5 % say the response of the employee was bad and very bad.

Avenue Supermarts, owner of retail chain D-Mart, made a historic market debut on Tuesday, with its stock gaining 114 per cent over the issue price of Rs 299 to close at Rs 641 — one of the best listing-day performances. The stellar debut saw the supermarket chain’s market value soar to Rs 39,988 crore, more than the combined market capitalisation of the next three big listed retailers — Future Retail, Aditya Birla Fashion and Trent. Its founder and ace investor, Radhakishan S Damani, and his family, own an 82 per cent stake in the company after the initial public offering (IPO). The value of their holding soared to Rs 32,790 crore, leapfrogging Damani into the country’s billionaire list and even surpassing stalwarts such as Rahul Bajaj and Anil Ambani. Damani, known to maintain a low profile, made a rare appearance at the listing ceremony, along with his family and close aides. Some stock market veterans, including Enam group founders Nimesh Shah and Vallabh Bhansali, had gathered to support him. 67

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“Damani’s success has come from three factors — humility, business acumen and India’s growth. He has a tremendous amount of honesty and humility. Damani has demonstrated how one can be successful by doing things in a simple way and not get carried away with glamour. Also, he has demonstrated that growth can be endless, if you are able to address the bottom of the pyramid,” said Bhansali. Analysts said D-Mart was one of the best players in the domestic retail sector, estimated to double in size to about $115 billion (organised sector) in the next three years.

“D-Mart is a unique player with a sustainable business model, tailor-made for Indian consumers. It offers great quality even in terms of management and growth potential,” said Motilal Oswal, chairman, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

In the run-up to the D-Mart IPO, some of its listed peers such as Future Retail, Trent and VMart had seen their stock prices surge. Industry players said the domestic consumption theme was a big story and was finally getting its due. “The markets are recognising the retail sector. Consumption is a big theme in the country. Every generation will consume more than the previous one. There is opportunity for everyone. It is all about building the right models,” said Kishore Biyani, group chief executive officer at Future Group.

The listing-day gains follow a tremendous response for the company’s IPO, subscribed 105 times.

Market players expect the demand for the stock might continue, as there wasn’t much freefloat. The company promoters had diluted around a 10 per cent stake in the IPO to raise Rs 1,870 crore. Assuming all the pre-IPO shares would be locked in, only 10 per cent equity, worth around Rs 4,000 crore, would be readily available for trading.

D-Mart, which is focused on value-retailing, derives the bulk of its revenues from Maharashtra and Gujarat. The company had opened its first store in Mumbai in 2002, and had expanded to 118 stores as of January 31. Unlike other retail chains, D-Mart owns most of its stores. Some are on a long lease. For the nine months ended December 2016, the company reported revenues of Rs 8,803 crore and net profit of Rs 387 crore. 68

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Business Model D-Mart is one of the largest and the most profitable retailers in India, with stores spread across eight states, with a majority of them in Maharashtra. The company has 112 stores, as of September 2016, with a total retail space of 3.4 million square feet, located across 41 cities. 63 percent of its revenue came from Maharashtra, followed by Gujarat which contributed 19 percent, while the remaining came from all other geographies. Avenue Supermarts owns all its properties which eliminates rental cost. Rental costs typically account for three to eight percent of total expenses of its peer group retailers.

In the last 15 years, Avenue Supermarts has opened 112 stores based on a cluster approach, according to its DRHP. It opens new stores within a few kilometre radius of its existing stores and distribution centres targeting densely-populated residential areas with a majority of lower-middle, middle and aspiring upper-middle class consumers. This helps the company reduce the distribution cost and to

Peer Comparison Avenue Supermarts will have to compete against established players like Future Retail Ltd., V-Mart Retail Ltd., Trent Ltd., Shoppers Stop Ltd., and Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd in the listed retail space.

The company also has other unlisted retailers like Hypercity Retail (India) Ltd. and Spencer’s Retail Ltd. to compete with. 69

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Higher revenue and net profit per square feet does give D-Mart an edge over its peers as the absence of rental costs helps the company deliver higher operating margins. Spencer’s and Hypercity had losses at operating and net profit level in the financial year 2015-16.

Strengths in the SWOT analysis of Big Bazaar 

High brand equity enjoyed by Big Bazaar



State of the art infrastructure

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A vast variety of stuff available under one roof

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Everyday low prices, which attract customers

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Maximum percent of footfalls converted in sales

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Huge investment capacity

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Biggest value retail chain in India

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It offers a family shopping experience, where entire family can visit together.

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Available facilities such as online booking and delivery of goods

Weaknesses 

Unable to meet store opening targets on time



Falling revenue per sq ft

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General perception: ‘Low price = Low quality’

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Overcrowded during offers

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Long lines at billing counters which are time consuming

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Limited only to value offering low price products. A no of branded products are still missing from Big Bazaar’s line of products. E.g. Jockey, Van heusen, Opportunities 

A lot of scope in Indian organized retail as it stands at approximately 4%.



Increasing mall culture in India.



More people these days prefer to visit big stores where they can find large variety under one roof 

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Strengths in the SWOT analysis of D mart : Strengths are defined as what each business does best in its gamut of operationswhich can give it an upper hand over its competitors. The following are the strengths of DMart :  Focus

on long-term: Damani, the founder of D Mart is an investor and thus the company has been focused entirely on long-term gains. This has made the company maximise its returns through a value is driven pricing strategy.

 Slow

scaling up : D Mart started off on a very low key note and slowly took its

time to move up the ladder. This gave the company a better control and deeper understanding of its supply chain and also helped them manage the bottom line better.

 People-centric

management style : D Mart has a very good employee policy in

place and is very transparent in its employee relations. They also have a good relationship with vendors and suppliers and the stakeholders are happy.

 Discount

Policy: One factor that delineates D Mart from its competitor is its huge discount policy. The retailer sells essential goods at a flat discount price which most competitors cannot match and this helped them penetrate the market.

 Clear

price based differentiation : D Mart never followed the trends set by

other competing retail brands but believed in setting their own trends. They captured the market through a clear price based differentiation and priced their goods at significantly lower prices than competitors.

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS: D'MART D-mart Exclusive, Dolphin Mart's home decor and gifting solutions brand, plans to open around 35 stores and is targeting a turnover of Rs 80 crore this fiscal. In the current financial year, the company plans to invest a total sum of Rs 20-25 crore for expansion. d'mart Exclusif plans to open 3 stand-alone showrooms, 15-16 boutiques at airports/ malls, and 14-16 franchise stores this fiscal. It also plans to open a kiosk at T3 Terminal in Delhi and stores in tier 2 and 3 cities as well. The company will also venture into e-commerce by the end of this year. 71

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Dolphin Mart is the importer and distributor of premium signature art and decor pieces including silverware, crystal ware, limited edition collectibles, objects d‘art, figurines, furniture accessories and gifts items, selected and sourced from international brands in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, UK, and China. The company claims that d‘mart Exclusive is the sole product distributor for such premium brands in India as per an agreement. Speaking about the location preferences for its new stores, Praveen Rao, Vice President, and Dolphin Mart, said: ―The ideal location to open a new store depends on a number of factors. Our first preference is stand-alone showrooms on high streets, followed by reputed mall/shopping complexes. Highlighting the key requirements of a franchisee, he said that an exclusive franchisee would be required to invest a sum of Rs1 crore and must have an area of 1,200 sq.ft. while a nonexclusive franchisee would have to invest Rs 30 lakh and have an area between 800 and 1,000 sq.ft. For the shop-in-shop format, the franchisee will have to invest up to Rs 20 lakh and must have an area of 500-600 sq.ft.. He confirmed that d'mart Exclusive spends 10 percent of its total sales on advertising and marketing including more than 15 exhibitions annually. Kiosks are an important lead creation point for the retailer. Stores contribute 35 percent towards total sales of d'mart Exclusive . to Rao, among all the products sold at demark Exclusie, the price band between Rest 25,000 and Rs 35,000 is the most popular among Indian customers. Worldwide limited editions sell the most in India, contributing almost 60 percent towards the total sales of the company. There is a huge untapped market for the Rs 140 billion home improvement vertical in India. Indian consumers have disposable incomes and are looking for more upgraded lifestyles, which d'mart Exclusive caters to. The market has also extended from metro to tier 2 cities as well, which shows exponential growth in the sector.

Big bazaar Big Bazaar: This hypermarket chain was introduced in India by Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited. The year was 2001. The first store opened in Kolkata and was followed by stores in Hyderabad and Bangalore, in a short span of 22 days. These stores contributed over Rs 43 crores to the company‘s turnover and over Rs 2.89 crores to the PBDIT in the first year itself. In 2006-2007 more Indians discovered the value of shopping in Big Bazaar. Big Bazaar launched 27 new stores in 22 cities, covering over 1.40 million square feet. While Big Bazaar continued to expand in the large cities it also tapped consumptions potential in smaller cities like Agra, Allahabad, Coimbatore, Surat, Panipat, Palakkad, Kanpur, and Kolhapur. By May 2008, there were 89 Big Bazaars spread across various cities and towns across the country. ―Jo bazaar mein milta who sab yahan milta hai‖ is how Rakesh Biyani Director Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited describes Big Bazaar. The bazaar is a term commonly used for the market or market place. Whenever any of us need anything the simplest way to get it is to go to the bazaar. Big Bazaar represents a location where a customer can shop for anything that he 72

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

needs for which he would normally visit a bazaar or the markets . Retail in India is still at a nascent stage. This case study has been prepared as a basis for discussions, on evolving formats suitable for India. Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited was incorporated as Manz Wear Private Limited in the year 1987. It became a public limited company in 1991 and was renamed Pantaloon Fashions (India) Limited and then Pantaloon Retail (India) limited in 1999. Over the years the company has accelerated growth through its ability to manage change. It integrated backwards into garment manufacturing and expanded its retail network at the same time. It launched three successful brands – Pantaloon trouser bar denims and John Miller shirts between 1987 and 1993. The company introduced the concept of The Pantaloon Shoppe, an exclusive men‘s wear retail store, which expanded across India from 1994-1998 . In the year 1997, Pantaloon moved to large format lifestyle retailing with the launch of Pantaloons India‘s family Store. Pantaloon has grown to a 29 store network and occupies 263,000 sq ft of the retail space. They contributed Rs 174 crores to the total turnover of the company. The management was aware that in retail, size mattered. The business revolved around volumes. Lifestyles retailing did not rally provide these volumes the volumes came from the large Indian middle class market that was waiting to be tapped. Big Bazaar – the discount store — was launched in the year 2001, to meet the aspirations of he middle class. In a short span of two years it had added a Food Bazaar and Gold Bazaar to its ranges of offerings . At the time of the launch of Big Bazaar there was no real precedent in the Indian market Giants the RPG hypermarkets had opened in Hyderabad only two months prior to the launch of Big Bazaar. A western model had to be adapted to suit the needs of the Indian environment various local markets and local market leaders were studied. This was done to understand the product mix and the prices offered. One of the key discount retailers studied was Sarvanna Stores in Chennai. Saving is the key to the Indian middle class consumer. The store which would be created had to offer value to the consumer.

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CHAPTER 4:- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research Methodology:-Since the study is on retail sector first the detail study of the store is been conducted about its Management team its structure the number of departments which all brands does the store has, who are its suppliers about its warehouses. Based on the topic objectives were set and to arrive at the opinion on objectives a set of 120 questionnaires were designed of 26 questions and response is collected from the customers who are visiting the store. For data collection Random Convenient sampling method was adopted. For this project the area of research is Ahemadabad.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:To scan customer buying behavior. To know the promotional strategy of Big Bazar D-Mart To know the relation between promotional strategy and buying decision . To comprehend the determinants of customer satisfaction. To know about the growth prospective with respect to demand analysis. To analyse product mix. How Big Bazaar and dmart Establish and maintain the in retailing through

Data Collections Methods: Market research requires two types of data i.e. secondary data and primary data. Primary data has been used abundantly for the study. Well-structured questionnaires were prepared & the survey was undertaken. Feedback for the display has been taken by asking questions & observation has also done to gather primary information. There is also a use of secondary data, collected from the various journals, books, and websites & from Store managers. Primary data - Field Survey Secondary data – Big Bazaar records, D-Mart records,Book ,Company Websites Area of research: - Ahmedabad, himalya mall ,Sabarmati area Research approach: - Survey method

THE GAP MODEL: Identify the gaps between customer expectation and the actual services provided at different stages of service delivery Close the gap and improve the customer service 74

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This model developed by Parasuraman, Zeithalm and Berry in 1985 identifies five different gaps: The Customer Gap: The Gap between Customer Expectations and Customer Perceptions The customer gap is the difference between customer expectations and customer perceptions. Customer expectation is what the customer expects according to available resources and is influenced by cultural background, family lifestyle, personality, demographics, advertising, experience with similar products and information available online. Customer perception is totally subjective and is based on the customer’s interaction with the product or service. Perception is derived from the customer’s satisfaction of the specific product or service and the quality of service delivery. The customer gap is the most important gap and in an ideal world the customer’s expectation would be almost identical to the customer’s perception. In a customer orientated strategy, delivering a quality service for a specific product should be based on a clear understanding of the target market. Understanding customer needs and knowing customer expectations could be the best way to close the gap.

The Knowledge Gap: The Gap between Consumer Expectation and Management Perception The knowledge gap is the difference between the customer’s expectations of the service provided and the company’s provision of the service. In this case, managers are not aware or have not correctly interpreted the customer’s expectation in relation to the company’s services or products. If a knowledge gap exists, it may mean companies are trying to meet wrong or non-existing consumer needs. In a customer-orientated business, it is important to have a clear understanding of the consumer’s need for service. To close the gap between the consumer’s expectations for service and management’s perception of service delivery will require comprehensive market research. The Policy Gap: The Gap between Management Perception and Service Quality Specification According to Kasper et al, this gap reflects management’s incorrect translation of the service policy into rules and guidelines for employees. Some companies experience difficulties translating consumer expectation into specific service quality delivery. This can include poor service design, failure to maintain and continually update their provision of good customer service or simply a lack of standardization. This gap may see consumers seek a similar product with better service elsewhere. 75

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

The Delivery Gap: The Gap between Service Quality Specification and Service Delivery This gap exposes the weakness in employee performance. Organizations with a Delivery Gap may specify the service required to support consumers but have subsequently failed to train their employees, put good processes and guidelines in action. As a result, employees are ill equipped to manage consumer’s needs. Some of the problems experienced if there is a delivery gap are: Employees lack of product knowledge and have difficulty managing customer questions and issues Organizations have poor human resource policies Lack of cohesive teams and the inability to deliver The Communication Gap: The Gap between Service Delivery and External Communications In some cases, promises made by companies through advertising media and communication raise customer expectations. When over-promising in advertising does not match the actual service delivery, it creates a communication gap. Consumers are disappointed because the promised service does not match the expected service and consequently may seek alternative product sources.

COMPANY OVERVEIW OF D-MART Dolphin Mart Limited, founded in 1992 is engaged in Lifestyle Retail Marketing of imported rare collectibles ranging from home dcor, art pieces, corporate gifts, furniture and furniture accessories under two established premium brands namely dMart Exclusif and Woodmart Exclusif. A national player in the premium luxury segment, is dedicated to offering a range of aspirational and lifestyle decoratives handpicked from renowned world class brands across the world, with products from the classic to the contemporary.

―It is a challenge to handle fresh produce,‖ says S Jagdish Krishnan, chief operating officer, retail and bakery divisions, at Heritage Foods. ―For, it goes through the farmer-brokerwholeseller-retailer chain which roughly takes a day. If we work along with farmers and process it quickly, we can sell it profitably.‖ Besides, it also has a 50-member team which procures 55 per cent of its fresh produce locally in the areas where it operates.

It has one of the largest multi-product, multi brand service centre in the country, where 400 service staff and 120 skilled technicians work, who provide after-sales, collection and delivery services to customers. So whenever a customer buys a big product like airconditioner, its service centre is informed about the purchase which in turn calls the customer and says it will send technicians to install it. Its technicians get in touch with customers and 76

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

install it.



OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY



In this particular project I tried to study and cover the marketing mix of two biggest retail companies of India which are best in their own way and are aimed to 100% customer satisfaction. PRIMARY OBJECTIVE 

To find out the product, price, promotional and also the placement strategy carried by the hypermarkets BIG BAZAAR and D-Mart. 

SWOT analysis



To find out why they both are best in the business but different in their activities and strategies. 

Also to understand the share price, market share and their growth.



BCG matrix, GAP model

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE 

To know the factors which influence to buy products from BIG BAZAAR and D-MART. 

To add some of my own ideas and suggestion

Since the study is on retail sector first the detail study of the store is been conducted about its Management team its structure the number of departments which all brands does the store has, who are its suppliers about its warehouses.

Based on the topic objectives were set and to arrive at the opinion on objectives a set of questionnaires of 20 questions and response is collected from the 50 customers who are visiting the store. For data collection Random Convenient sampling method was adopted. For this project the area of research is Mumbai. Objectives of Research: 

To scan customer buying behaviour.



To know the promotional strategy of Big Bazar D-Mart. 77

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR 

To know the relation between promotional strategy and buying decision.



To comprehend the determinants of customer satisfaction.



To know about the growth prospective with respect to demand analysis.



To analyse product mix.



How Big Bazaar and dmart Establish and maintain the in retailing through promotion.

Data Collections Methods: Market research requires two types of data i.e. secondary data and primary data. Primary data has been used abundantly for the study. Well-structured questionnaires were prepared & the survey was undertaken. Feedback for the display has been taken by asking questions & observation has also done to gather primary information. There is also a use of secondary data, collected from the various journals, books, and websites & from Store managers. Primary data - Field Survey Secondary data - Big Bazaar records, D-Mart records Book, Company Websites Area of research: Mumbai, Chnadivali D-MART, Big Bazaar Rcity Mall's Ghatkopar (w) Research approach: Survey method Sampling Method Since the study is restricted to Retail sector, all the functional Departments of Big Bazaar & D-Mart and the responds are taken from google survey and found at the store only so according to the convenience randomly they are being picked so sampling method is used in this study is Random Convenient Sampling. Sampling Sample size: 50 respondents Sampling Method: Random Convenience sampling

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CHAPTER 5:- CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION

FINDINGS 

Most of the customers buy their requirement in Big Bazaar & d-mart on the basis of Weekly and monthly basis. Customers realized that Big Bazaar & d- mart stores provide qualitative products/service with reasonable price.



At present time Big Bazaar & d-mart provide different types of product assortments to the customers. 

Big bazaar & d-mart is a hypermarket as it provides various kinds of goods like apparels, grocery, stationary, food items, electronic items, leather items, watches, jewellery, crockery, decorative items, sport items, chocolates and many more. It competes with all the specialty stores of different products which provide goods at a discounted rate all through the year



Big Bazaar and d-mart mainly deal with middle income group people who want qualitative product with reasonable cost.



There are more than 50 big bazaars in different cities of India, it seems that there is a vast growth of big bazaar lying as customers demand is increasing for big bazaars.



the customers are give response for most powerful advertisement is BigBazaar. We can also interpret that the big-bazaar comparison is more powerful people attract with advertisement like T.V., Hoarding, news paper, is most of the part of purchasing by advertisement.

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SUGGESTIONS



Big bazaar and d-mart should provide large parking space for its customers so that they can easily park their vehicles.



The infrastructure is needed to be changed a bit during weekends as heavy crowd comes in to big bazaar and d-mart during those days



Big bazaar and d-mart should include more of branded products its product category so as to attract the brand choosy people to come in to big bazaar.



Big bazaar should keep offers in regular intervals so that there should not be a long term gap, because offer is the most influencing factor which is responsible for customer purchase decision



they also concentrate on TV advertisement they should show ads and promotional offers in a regular interval in languages like Hindi English.



Hoarding should be placed uncovered area.

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LIMITATIONS

 This research is conducted on a sample size, so it might be possible that the information given by such respondents may not match with the replay of total customer available in the store that time



The study was restricted to only the customers of BIG BAZAAR & D-Mart.

 The time constrain was a limiting factor, as more time was required to carry out study on other aspects of the topic

 The result and analysis based on the customer survey method and small sample size has taken only 120.



Findings are related to particular areas

 It might be possible that the answers given by the respondents are of biasness

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CONCLUSION

Big Bazaar & D-Mart are a major shopping complex for today‘s customers. It is a place where customers find variety of products at a reasonable price. Big Bazaar & D-Mart has a good reputation of itself in the market. It has positioned itself in the market as a discounted store. It holds a huge customer base. The majority of customers belong to middle class family. The youth generation also likes shopping and moving around Big Bazaar & D-Mart. Volume sales always take place in Big Bazaar & D-Mart. Impulse buying behavior of customers comes in to play most of the times in Big Bazaar & D-Mart. Big Bazaar & D-Mart is a hypermarket as it provides various kinds of goods like apparels, grocery, stationary, food items, electronic items, leather items, watches, jewellery, crockery, decorative items, sport items, chocolates and many more. It competes with all the specialty stores of different products which provide goods at a discounted rate all through out the year. It holds a large customer base and it seemed from the study that the customers are quite satisfied with Big Bazaar & D-Mart. As of now there are 34 Big Bazaar & D-Marts in different cities of India, it seems that there is a vast growth of Big Bazaar & D-Mart lying as customers demand; increasing for Big Bazaar & D-Marts. It has emerged as a hub of shopping specially for middle class people. Different types of products starting from a baby food to pizzas wide range is available under one roof. In Delhi it is the middle class people who mostly do marketing from Big Bazaar & D-Mart. Even most of the people do their monthly shopping from Big Bazaar & DMart. People not only visit Big Bazaar & D-Mart to do shopping but also visit for outing purpose as it provides a very nice ambience to its customers. As people go to malls they just tend to move around Big Bazaar & D-Mart whether it is for shopping purpose or for outing purpose. Grocery, apparels and food items are the products which are demanded most by the customers of Ahmedabad in Big Bazaar & D-Mart. The major drawback of Big Bazaar & DMart is that it lacks in providing enough parking space for their customers. This may discourage the customers to come to Big Bazaar & D-Mart and shop as they face difficulty in parking their vehicles. Even though some customers say that they don‘t feel problem in parking their vehicle, it is because of the parking space available to them by the mall. As it is surveyed it seems that the biggest competitors of Big Bazaar & D-Mart are the kirana stores, discounted specialty stores like Vishal mega mart, The Tata Groups (Croma), Reliance Retail, & Sabka Bazaar etc. 82

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QUESTIONNNAIRE Q.1) WHICH STORE FIRST COMES TO YOUR MIND WHEN YOU THINK OF PURCHASING A PRODUCT?

Q.2) HOW FREQUENTLY DO YOU VISIT A STORE?

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Q.3) THE ADVERTISEMENT EFFECT YOUR SHOPPING BEHAVIOR?

Q.4) WHICH STORE IS MORE POWERFUL?

85

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR Q.5) ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH THE SERVICE PROVIDED BY STORE?

Q.6) WHICH SECTION OF D-MART DO YOU LIKE THE MOST?

Q.7) WHY BIG BAZAR CALLED BIG BAZAR ? 86

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

Q.8) MAIN REASON FOR COMING TO THE STORE ?

Q.9) ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE LOCATION OF THE STORE? 87

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON D-MART AND BIG BAZAR

Q.10) ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE PARKING FACILITY PROVIDED?

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reference Books

Books name

Author/publication

MARKETING Kotler, MANAGEMENT AND Armstrong, BUSINESS BUYER pub. :Delhi, BEHAVIOR.

Phillip. PHI ed. 9th. (pp.218 -224,335353,411- 413,559-561,)

Websites http://www.bigbazaar.co.in http://www.pantaloonretail.in/businesses/big-bazaar.html http://www.pdfcoke.com/doc/41556853/Bigbazaar-4p-Mix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_management http://www.pantaloonretail.in http://dmartindia.com/home.html  https://www.livemint.com/Companies/SXKP9ZP6AAdCSkj5TbFoEJ/Chasing-growthD-M art-rethinks-store-strategy.html 

https://www.marketing91.com/swot-analysis-d-mart/



https://thewire.in/business/indian-walmart-making-explains-d-mart-success

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