Michelle Crimson asked:


According to the J.D. Power and Associates midmonth sales report, the US auto sakes particularly at the retail level has dropped by 20.4 percent during the first half of July on a selling-day adjusted basis.

J.D Power tallied the results for the first ten days of the month and basing from the data they’ve gathered they come with the projection that the overall market is likely to plunge by 6.8 percent in July that is despite the fact that automakers sell as many cars to fleet customers like for instance rental car firms similar to what they did a year ago. The firm has released a copy of its reports to its subscribers last Wednesday.

J.D. Power is also estimating that July sales will see significant growth over the second half of July this is because dealers as well as automakers usually gives additional incentives for cars and trucks for the final weeks of the month.

In case the forecast of J.D. Power do come true, the market could actually be facing an unexpectedly unpleasant start contrary to the expected brighter second half. The industry has been able to surpass the difficult first six months of the year brought about by the never ending increasing of gasoline prices add to it the housing problems that are weighing down on customers.

General Motors Corp. the producer of high quality Saab car covers is continuously experiencing a declining sales figure through July 15 with a drop in sales by almost 40 percent as compared to the same period last year that is of course according to reports of J.D. Power. The world’s largest automaker has also made its own projection stating that its July sales will drop by 15.2 percent as compared to its July 2006 sales figures.

GM’s decline in July would follow a 21 percent dropped posted in June underscoring the hardships that the automaker is facing as its overall market continuous to slide. The automaker is depending on a stronger US light-vehicle market in the second half to help its retail-sales volume afloat unfortunately the early results for July shows that the market is not keeping up with GM’s expectations.

Aside from General Motors, J.D. Power is projecting sales decline for almost all major automaker in the US market during the month. J.D. Power has also said that General Motors could take the biggest hit in July. Ford Motor Co. is once again seen with sales falling by 5.7 percent, while the Chrysler Group is expected to post a 6.6 percent dropped in sales.

John McDonald GM’s spokesman has refrained from giving any comments on the company’s results while Ford and Chrysler could not be reached for comments.

Detroit’s Big Three are not the only once that are to be affected by low sales even Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. are seen with slipping sales figures around 1 percent for Toyota and 5.4 percent for Honda.

J.D. Power and Associates has also reported that rebates for consumers is up by 28 percent while subvented interest rates are down by 61 percent which means that automakers are trying to attract consumers with a blend of discounts and low rate financing.



Helen

gp1314 asked:


As a hobby I make handcrafted bath & body items for family & friends. Recently I was asked to supply a local retailer with a large volume of my products. I can supply the product, my question is how do I handle the sale? Should I sell the product at wholesale or should I sell the product at retail and offer some type of volume discounting? Like 5 or 10% off, also should I ask for a deposit, and if so how much, thanks.

Sean

Jesus R asked:


We provide credit card processing for retail merchants. We could use a POS company that would offer hardware and software for retailers Point of Sale activity at wholesale pricing.

Raymond

Louise G asked:


Copyright (c) 2008 The Sales Recruitment Jobsite

A few basic things are critical to the success of a sales recruitment jobsite, or any specialist jobsite for that matter. Why am I only discussing specialist jobsites and not generalist jobsites, I think that will become apparent as we continue our discussion using a sales recruitment jobsite as our specialist example.

A few basic things are critical to the success of a sales recruitment jobsite, or any specialist jobsite for that matter. Why am I only discussing specialist jobsites and not generalist jobsites, I think that will become apparent as we progress our discussion using a sales recruitment jobsite as our specialist example.

The few critical factors that will make a specialist jobsite work for you the recruiter are very much common sense. Firstly the right potential candidates must be attracted to the site, secondly the jobseeker must be enticed by the site to search and apply for jobs and to register there details so that recruiters can contact them in the future. The third criteria relates to you the recruiter, the site must be easy to use and give you access to the right candidates in a timely and cost efficient manner. All sounds fairly easy so far, so how do you go about assessing if you are about to spend money using the right jobsite? You could take a free trail and some sites do offer this, however many do not and how much time and energy do you have available to waste testing out inadequate sales recruitment jobsites?

Returning to our first factor, the right potential candidates being attracted to the jobsite, how does a jobsite go about attracting the right jobseekers to the website? The following is a list of the major routes to achieving this goal

* Search Engine Optimisation

* Email Marketing

* Pay Per Click Advertising

* Affiliate Programmes

* Online PR / Press Releases

* Blog marketing * Directories

* Link Programmes

* Social Network Marketing

* Offline Marketing - Television and Print Media

All of a sudden it does not look so simple and if a good jobsite is using all of these marketing and promotion techniques to drive quality jobseekers to the site, how do you know if they are doing it and doing it effectively, with some specialist sites charging as much as £400 for a single advert, getting it wrong could be a serious mistake.

If we go back to our good old friend Google, it can give us some insight. For example I am a recruiter wanting to recruit sales personnel. I know that Monster Jobs is regularly advertising on TV and all over the web, it is quite expensive which makes you think well perhaps that is because they invest a lot of money driving jobseekers to their collection of global jobsites. A quick search of the URL for monster UK, as you are recruiting for a sales person in the UK gives over 85000 results that contain a mention of monster uk.co.uk. A more detailed search link: URL is a bit less impressive at 5600. All these statistics may be very interesting to people working in SEO and online marketing, but to you as a recruiter are they going to get you the candidates that you need, simple answer is no. If we get a bit more specific about our recruitment needs as the majority of recruiters needs are very specific, we are looking for a sales manager for a UK bank. What would this person search for when looking for a jobsite, (this of course only gives you access to active candidates) perhaps they would search for “sales jobs” or “banking jobs” or even “sales manager jobs in banking” as people often search for exactly what they are looking for. So where does Monster uk come under each of these searches, for “sales jobs” it does not appear on the front page, either in the natural ranking or in the pay per click sponsored advertising. Next I carry out the search for “banking jobs” and I get a result monster uk is 9th in the search results, not bad. So I click on the link as if I am the banking sales manager, ready to do my search for sales management roles in banking, I select London from the location search box and now I go to select the job category and the closest match to retail banking that I work in, is retail customer service and hit the search button. The results are for junior cashier roles and for general retail sales jobs not in banking, I as the prospective jobseeker am so impressed that I close my browser and go back to work. Finally we test monster against the search phrase “sales manager jobs in banking” and yet again monster is not on the front page. So Monster Jobs is not for us in this example, what you really need is a sales recruitment jobsite that is going to attract and retain the details of the candidates that you need. The question is does such a jobsite exist? We will explore this together further in the next article in the series.



Gabriel

Marketsmonitor asked:


Retail is one of the fastest growing industries of the Russian economy. In recent years, Russia has emerged as a leading name among countries providing the most conducive retail environment. In fact, Russia is the third most attractive destination for retail after Vietnam and India, thanks to its rapid economic growth, rising purchasing power, favorable policy framework, growing consumer spending and consumption level.

Realizing its potential as a “nearly perfect” retail outfit, a number of large international retailers are heading to Russia. A large population base and oil-based wealth has further attracted the foreign retailers towards the country, says “Russian Food and Non Food Retail Forecast (2009-2012)”.

The Russian retail industry is growing dynamically and undergoing rapid transformation. The market is still fragmented in nature with top 25 retailers accounting for less than 15% of the total market. The current situation offers big opportunities for retailers (both domestic and foreign) to expand their operations and to tap the market. And the vast consumer base with rising demand offers the desired platform for growth and expansion.

“Russian Food and Non Food Retail Forecast (2009-2012)” provides detailed overview on the retail industry in Russia. It covers the past, current and future performance of the industry and identifies the factors responsible for the growth of the industry. The research also studies the behavior of the Russian consumer with respect to his purchasing power, spending pattern, and inclination towards domestic and foreign brands. The future growth areas discussed in the report helps to analyze the emerging market segments for players.

The report features four-year industry forecast (2009-2012)

- Retail Sales in Billion US$

- Non-food Retail Sales in Billion US$

- Food Retail Sales in Billion US$

- Food Imports in Billion US$

- Luxury Goods Market in Billion US$

- Baby Food Market in Million US$

- Clothing Retail Sales in Billion US$

- Cosmetics & Perfumery Market in Billion US$

- Personal Disposable Income per Head in US$

- Consumer Expenditure in Billion US$

- Online Sales Market in Billion US$

For More detail Please Visit :- http://www.marketsmonitor.com/Report/IM168.htm

Issued By        :    MarketsMonitor

Contact Email        :    sales@marketsmonitor.com

Phone            :    +91 (11) 42141228

State/Province        :    Delhi

Country            :    India

Categories        :    Food, Retail



Holly

Michelle Crimson asked:


Sales reports showed on Tuesday reveal that leading a sharp decline for Detroit carmakers in June is General Motors’s 24 percent slide in sales. Meanwhile, Japanese firms ramped up incentives and bagged more market share.

Analysts said that Japanese manufacturers increased consumer incentives, catching Detroit by surprise, and gained more sales all over the auto spectrum.

According to AutoData Corp., overall sales for the industry were down three percent for the year. The company also said that US manufacturers held 50.2 percent of the market to 42.7 percent for Asian brands.

David Healy, an analyst at Burnham Securities, said that GM’s June sales were exceptionally poor and is attributed for special factors. He further said that GM had a very weak sales experience in June, in any way you slice it. Healy also points out that higher fuel costs also discouraged buyers of many domestic, or GM, truck models.

He continues that GM pulled the entire industry down accounting for most of the loss for the whole industry.

An industry analyst at Edmunds.com by the name of Alex Rosten said that GM and other US car makers appeared unprepared for the market attack from Toyota and Honda, which have been widening their product lineup. He added that the single most important factor in GM’s terrible sales decline was a lack of incentive spending. Rosten continues that the Detroit Company was taken by surprise by how much the foreign automakers were willing to push incentives.

He said his firm’s analysis depicted GM cut back of 9.7 percent from last year on incentive spending while Honda raised incentives to 81 percent and Toyota 26 percent.

The incentives may be comprised of low-rate or zero-percent financing, rebates or discounted lease payments.

Rosten claimed that they are going to see a substantial incentive increase throughout the summer, mostly from GM.

GM said its dealers delivered 326 300 units accounting most of the decline coming from rental sales. However, GM said its retail sales were also below expectations.

Mark LaNeve, vice president of GM North America, said they expected June would be a tough comparison to a year ago, given the planned reduction in daily rental sales. However, he added that they continue to believe that maintaining a disciplined approach to both incentives and daily rental car sales is the key to making their marketing strategy work in the long run.

Industry analyst Healy said that despite GM’s weak month, it has made progress in turning its fortunes around. He said the very weak monthly sales figures may improve in the coming months. He added that GM has trimmed down nine billion dollars of annual overhead and has introduced new models that are quite profitable.

Healy deduced further that GM is close to break-even in North America.

General Motors wholly owns the Saab brand. It therefore manufactures Saab rotors for the brand’s engine.



Katherine

sandhya dubey asked:


 

 

                                                                               

NEW ERA IN RETAIL-THE ROAD & CHALLENGES AHEAD



   

   Dr. Piyush prakash(Reader: D.A.V. College Kanpur)

 and Sandhya Dubey (Research Scholar)                                                                                                        

     

 

 



 

   ABSTRACT: 

In India, the most of the retail sector is unorganized. In India, the retail business contributes around 11 percent of GDP. Of this, the organized retail sector accounts only for about 3 percent share, and the remaining share is contributed by the unorganized sector. The main challenge facing the organized sector is the competition from unorganized sector. Unorganized retailing has been there in India for centuries, theses are named as mom-pop stores. The main advantage in unorganized retailing is consumer familiarity that runs from generation to generation. It is a low cost structure; they are mostly operated by owners, has very low real estate and labor costs and has low taxes to pay.

In organized retailing will grow faster than unorganized sector and the growth speed will be responsible for its high market share, which is expected to be $ 17 billion by 2010-11.

Retailing will show good prospects in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, kolkata, Bangalore and Kanpur. After Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong, In India Delhi will be the next big retail destination, According to Confederation of Indian industries whose findings have shown that Delhi has the good resources and good conditions for the retail sector. Out of the total earnings of the Government of Delhi Rs 11,000 crore, Rs 6,500 crore is achieved from the retail sector.

- Share of Organized Retail

1999 2002 2005

Total Retail (in billion INR) 7000 8250 10000

Organized Retail (in billion INR) 50 150 350

% Share of Organized Retail 0.70% 1.80% 3.5%

The organized sector is expected to grow faster than GDP growth in next few years driven by favorable demographic patterns, changing lifestyles, and strong income growth. This organized retail sector mix includes supermarkets,

 

hypermarkets discounted stores and specialty stores, departmental stores. For example, Spencer network has 69 stores, which includes seven Spencer hypermarkets, three Spencer super markets and 49 Spencer Dailys. Now the company is planning to open 20 stores in 10 cities in six months. The top 10 retailers account only for 2% of total market, today modern retailing is expected to enter a boom phase, which has major players and these players might capture 10% of total market, within next five years

But In India the Retailing industry has a long way to go,and to become a truly flourishing industry, retailing needs to cross the following hurdles:

* The first challenge facing the organized retail sector is the competition from unorganized sector.

* In retail sector, Automatic approval is not allowed for foreign investment.

* Taxation, which favors small retail businesses.

* Developed supply chain and integrated IT management is absent in retail sector.

* Lack of trained work force.

* Low skill level for retailing management.

* Intrinsic complexity of retailing- rapid price changes, threat of product obsolescence and low margins.

* Organized retail sector has to pay huge taxes, which is negligible for small retail business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW ERA IN RETAIL-THE ROAD & CHALLENGES AHEAD

 

Retailing involves all activities incidental to selling to ultimate consumer for their personnel family and household use. It does this by organizing their availability on a relatively large scale and supplying them to customers on a relatively small scale. Retailer is any person/organization instrumental in reaching the goods or merchandise ore services to the end users. Retailer is a must and cannot be eliminated.

The Indian retailing industry is becoming intensely competitive, as more and more payers are Vying for the same set of customers. The major retail players are Pantaloon Retail, Shoppers Stop, Reliance, etc..,

Retailing is one of the biggest sectors and it is witnessing revolution in India. The new entrant in retailing in India signifies the beginning of retail revolution. India’s retail market is expected to grow tremendously in next few years. According to AT Kearney, The Windows of Opportunity shows that Retailing in India was at opening stage in 1995 and now it is in peaking stage in 2006. India’s retail market is expected to grow tremendously in next few years. India shows US$330 billion retail market that is expected to grow 10% a year, with modern retailing just beginning. India ranks first in 2005. In fact, in 2005 and 2006, India is the most compelling opportunity for retailers, because now India is in peaking stage.

Challenges in the Retail Industry:

 

“Retail today is all about being better, faster, and leaner. Columbus IT helps you overcome the challenges of the retail industry and write your ticket to success.” — Dmitry Davydov, Key Retail Acount Manager, Columbus IT Russia.

The retail industry faces challenges similar to those in other industries. What’s different is that they combine together to put a great deal of pressure on retailers in today’s modern economy. With a fast-paced society and faster-paced

 

 

Technological changes, customers want new, different, and customized goods now, and they’re not willing to wait.

 At the same time, pressures on the backend are mounting, too. Larger retailers, with their efficiencies of scale and international scope, are pushing prices down and slashing margins.

To compete, you have to think like a Wal-Mart, even if you are a medium-sized retailer. Technology offers your company a way to apply modern ERP and CRM techniques on a global scale, whether through bricks-and-mortar stores, or over the Internet.

 Face and overcome these retail challenges with Columbus IT Retail solutions.

 Decentralized Operations

As a manager, ideally you’d like to be able to walk down the hall from your office and into any one of your stores or warehouses. In reality, that’s not possible. You have to hire the right people, staff your other locations, and rely on them to do the job right.

Technology has the advantage of being able to bring you and your employees together – whether they’re located in Minsk or Montana. Columbus IT retail solutions provide you with a centralized solution for your decentralized business.

Data flows from your stores and warehouses to your head office every night, so you have up-to-date sales and inventory information. You can make pricing changes across the board, or implement a new sales campaign to reflect the success or failure of one of your major products at one store – or all of them.

 Staff Turnover

There’s a higher rate of staff turnover in the retail industry, compared to other industries. This varies by country. European countries, for example, tend to retain store-level personnel more successfully. North America has a turnover rate of 200-300% of front-end employees in certain segments.

 

What does this mean for your business? While you can implement and pursue staff retention programs – and it makes good sense to do so – you’re going to have new employees coming through your doors on a regular basis. Getting them trained on your systems rapidly and cost-effectively is critical so that they can become productive members of your team as soon as possible.

 Columbus IT has you covered. First, our retail systems, led by our flagship product Retail  Chain manager, are easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to train others on.

Second, we train as we go. While we’re developing and implementing your retail solution, we’ll be training your staff at the same. As soon as your retail solution is finished, they’re ready to use it – no downtime.

 Third, we can integrate with your existing third-party systems – such as a POS system. Existing employees don’t have to retrain on a new system, and since we can retain your best-of-breed components, new employees are more likely to have experience with them. 

The bottom line: It’s simply a fact of life that your staff turnover is going to be higher than in other industries. The good news is that Columbus IT Retail solutions help you manage that turnover sensibly, with training and easy-to-use systems, from the start.

 

Shrinkage

Consider these sobering statistics on shrinkage (also known as inventory shrink):

For every dollar lost to shrinkage, you can lose $11 to $15 in profits. (UK statistic) You’ll only detect 3% of the shrinkage when it happens – the other 97% you’ll discover later. (UK statistic) For every theft you detect, 46 others will go undetected. (UK statistic) In 2005, total inventory shrinkage cost U.S. retailers $37.3-billion US. Administrative error is responsible for 14.6% of shrinkage, and employee theft is responsible for 47.9% of shrinkage (National Retail Security Survey, 2001).

 

 

Loss prevention strategies and programs can be an important part of reducing shrinkage before it becomes a real problem. But did you know that your IT solution can also help minimize shrinkage?

 

Columbus IT Retail solutions help you control shrinkage from the ground up in five ways:

Studies show that increased employee satisfaction reduces employee theft. With a retail solution from Columbus IT, you get easy-to-use applications that your employees are trained on from the early stages of implementation. Studies also show that higher customer service results in less shoplifting. Columbus IT Retail solutions improves customer service and customer satisfaction by managing the supply chain so that your stores carry the goods customers want, at attractive prices. CRM capabilities also ensure that customers are treated on a one-to-one basis, whether in marketing to them or responding to them if they contact you. Columbus IT retail solutions enable you to accurately track and manage inventory and sales using technologies such as POS solutions, bar-coding, scanning, and RFID tracking. We will provide you with a retail solution that minimizes the chances of administrative errors. By only requiring employees to enter data once, and providing management with full reporting capabilities, data accuracy and integrity are increased across your retail enterprise. Lastly, you can reduce shrinkage by being on top of what’s going on in your business, and having access to key indicators that can show if shrinkage is becoming a problem. As you’ll see in the next section,  

Lack of Information

The amount of information available to you as a retailer can be overwhelming. Each one of your stores’ profits are influenced by daily sales, overhead, employees, shipping, campaigns, and traffic that change on a daily basis. At your head office, you worry about inventory levels, warehouse efficiency, key financial indicators, administration, and human resources information.

 

Your retail business generates an enormous amount of information that would be very valuable to you if you could:

Collect it quickly, reliably, and efficiently. Analyze it to make sense of the past and plan future decisions. Distribute it to the right people in your organization so they can act on it.

If you don’t have a system in place to track this information, you’re losing out on a powerful tool that other retailers use every day — the power of knowledge.

Whether you want to know if your latest marketing campaign was a success, or if your warehouse space is being used in an optimum way, Retail Chain Manager has the answers. And they’re answers that are error-free, rapid, and available to all the decision-makers in your company.

 

Future Uncertainty

The customer is fickle. Global market situations can also change the demand for your products. And unexpected problems at your warehouse or stores can also affect what you need to supply - and who may be buying it.

Retail is built on uncertainty - but victory goes to the business who knows how to manage that uncertainty and make allowances for it.

You need to be able to learn from the past so that you can plan for the future. Columbus IT Retail solutions provides you with sophisticated reporting and data mining about every aspect of your retail operation so you can make sensible choices about where your customers, suppliers, and your business are going.

Retail Chain Manager enables you to gather and analyze your past sales information so you can make the right decisions about what products to carry, where to sell them, and what price they should be.  

Columbus IT Retail solutions give you that power. By integrating your retail processes and systems into one comprehensive solution, we make sure that all of the information about your business is captured, measured, and available for you in flexible, powerful, yet easy-to-use reporting features.

 

 



Complex Pricing

It’s no longer enough to be able to stamp a product’s price and forget about it. Modern retailers are changing prices on goods daily, if not hourly. The benefit of flexible pricing is to be able to respond to changes in the market as they happen. Want to set a higher price for rush-hour customers and a lower price for off-hour ones? Or maybe you’d like to be able to run a test on a new campaign for one day and see how it compares to the sales results from the previous day. Columbus IT Retail solutions make it happen.

Whether you want to set prices for one shop or all of your retail outlets, you can do so quickly and consistently. It’s all handled automatically, from the central office.

 

Socio-Eco Impact of Large Scale Retailing in India:

 

There is no doubt that large scale Retailing has impact on socially and economically. In Social life the standard of living is raised because by these retailing a person can buy their daily needs from one place whereas this thing is also raising their extra expenses because human being has unlimited needs and when he see the different things at one time he is unable to stop him to buy them.

At economic level it is also effecting because at one place it is increasing consumerism where at another part it is damaging the earning or returns of the small salers who have not so much money and it is also effecting the small brands also because there is no place for these brands in malls.

 

 

Foreign Direct Investment in Retailing Sector:

 

 

‘No FDI in retail sector’

 

NEW DELHI: Food, agriculture and consumer affairs minister Sharad Pawar on( 15 Mar 2008, 0017 hrs IST,TNN  )said that the government was not considering any proposal to allow foreign direct investment in the retail sector.

 

 

Replying to supplementaries during question hour in Rajya Sabha, he said the International Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) was examining the impact of domestic organised (corporate) retail sector on unorganised retail sector. Only after the report comes in would the government be in a position to take a clear decision. But he said that the government was not allowing FDI in retail as it wanted to protect this sector. “There is no proposal to allow FDI in retail (and) government is not thinking of it because it wants to protect the interest of retailers,” he said.

 

 

 

Challenges Before Organized Retailing in India:

·        Difficult shopping experience for Customer : before the organized retailing in India costumers had to go different places to buy different things. ·         Less Return on space for the retailers :  vendors had limited items or some special items due to that they couldn’t get more return on space. ·         Tough reach of product for customer : same thing that costumers had to go different places for different things it was so tough and time consuming also. ·        More & More time for customer at the check out: it was more & more time consuming for the costumers to go for shopping for their daily needs.

 

 

 

Emerging Trends in Indian Consumer Market:

 

The annual market for consumer durables in India (excluding computers and communication products) is currently of the order of Rs. 25,000 cr. In recent years, intense competition has led to a decline in prices. Consequently, market growth has mainly been in terms of quantity, rather than value. Further, the increase in quantity is propped up by consumer financing, promotions and discounts. Distribution is fragmented, and there are 40,000 consumer durable dealers in India.

 

 

 

Organized retailing is catching on, but has overheads due to expensive real estate, air conditioning and higher manpower costs. One tries to offset this by negotiating lower prices with durable manufacturers. The Indian consumer is brand-conscious, but not necessarily brand-loyal, and might even pick up a reliable private label if it offers good price and quality values. Retailers such as Reliance, Future Group, Hyper City and E-Mart, therefore, plan to launch low-priced private labels by importing in large quantities from China and Thailand. Domestic durable manufacturers are responding by expanding their product range to ensure higher bargaining and shelf power with the trade. They are also exploring the possibility of cross-category tie-ups with non-competing partners from other industries to tap each others’ points of influence, particularly in smaller/rural markets. Consumer durable penetration is one of the lowest in India and the untapped potential is evidently enormous. However, as Indian consumers continue to attach a high degree of importance to value for money, both manufacturers and traders would be compelled to explore every conceivable method to improve operational efficiencies, in order to achieve substantial and profitable business growth.

 

 

 

Conclusion:

 

In India, the most of the retail sector is unorganized. In India, the retail business contributes around 11 percent of GDP. Of this, the organized retail sector accounts only for about 3 percent share, and the remaining share is contributed by the unorganized sector. The main challenge facing the organized sector is the competition from unorganized sector. Unorganized retailing has been there in India for centuries, theses are named as mom-pop stores. The main advantage in unorganized retailing is consumer familiarity that runs from generation to generation. It is a low cost structure, they are mostly operated by owners, has very low real estate and labor costs and has low taxes to pay. The retail sales in India for future are shown below (data from 2005-2008 is based on estimates):

PRESENT INDIAN SCENARIO

* Unorganized market: Rs. 583,000 crores

* Organized market: Rs.5, 000 crores

* 5X growth in organized retailing between 2000-2005

* Over 4,000 new modern Outlets in the last 3 years

* Over 5,000,000 sq. ft. of mall space under development

* The top 3 modern retailers control over 750,000 sq. ft. of retail space

* Over 400,000 shoppers walk through their doors every week.

 

Many agencies have estimated differently about the size of organized retail market in 2010. The one thing that is common amongst these estimates is that Indian organized retail market will be very big in 2010. The status of the retail industry will depend mostly on external factors like Government regulations and policies and real estate prices, besides the activities of retailers and demands of the customers also show impact on retail industry.

As the retail market place changes shape and competition increases, the potential for improving retail productivity and cutting costs is likely to decrease. Therefore it is important for retailers to secure a distinctive position in the market place based on values relationships or experience.

Finally it is important to note that these strategies are not strictly independent of each other; value is function of not just price quality and service but can also be enhanced by personalization and offering a memorable experience

 

 

 

 

References:

 

 

15 Mar 2008, 0017 hrs IST,TNN  

·       

  FDI and Retail Sectors in India: D Kumar (page 124)

·       

  Changing retail scene in India : R.K.Srivastava (Journal 2008 Page: 714 – 721)

 

Google.com

 

 

 

 



Lester

Sam Manfer asked:


Wal-Mart may conger up some images for you, yet one thing Wal-Mart does is to have a Greeter to make people feel welcome. Even the old K-Mart use to announces “Welcome K-Mart shoppers.”  Unfortunately, after the Greeter or the welcome message, you get lost in the sea of people and merchandise and it’s next to impossible to find someone to show you where to find what you’re looking for, because they’re too busy stocking shelves.

So always greet your customers.  If all your people are busy with other customers, someone should at least acknowledge the new entrant.  Even the post office gives you a number.  Don’t ignore them or make them feel like an intruder.  Let them know how long the wait will be and point them to a sitting area where they can peruse or sit with a bottle of water, look at a video promo or experience pleasantness.  This is a good captive advertising moment.  If your facility is big with lots to see, have a map with a numbered walking tour. 

Burn this into your staff’s heads.  People are coming into your establishment for ideas and/or to buy. Both are good for your business.  The better the experience the more they will buy and buy and buy.

Lose “Can I help you?”  

It’s like asking the Pope, “Are you Catholic?”  As I said above, people come into your place of business for a reason.  Of course you can help them.  However, to do this your front-line people have to: (1) Make them comfortable; (2) Find out why they came in (their motivation); and (3) Find out what their perfect something looks like, that they are willing to spend and spend and spend on.

Now let’s wrap this up.  Make your customer have a wonderful experience in your Center.  To do this you will have to first convince yourself that it’s all about the customer.  I’m not saying to succumb to abusive people that give no energy and waste your time.  I am saying, however, if they are a motivated buyer and they have a pleasant experience, they may buy a lot more than they originally intended and they will tell their friends how great it was. 

Second, show your employees what to do.  Don’t think for one minute they should know what to do, or that you will insult their intelligence by spelling it out.  This is your Center, and it should be done your way.  They don’t know your way unless you tell them, and it’s your responsibility to tell them explicitly.  Otherwise, they won’t succeed.  You’ll get upset and the demotivating cycle will begin. 

Finally, you have to monitor and give feedback.  Look for the positives. “That part of what you did was good.”  Don’t tell what was done wrong, but rather how to do it better the next time.  “In the future, try doing this or that.”  Realize, you cannot just instruct and turn your employees loose.  Until there is recognition, reinforcement and reward, the behaviors you desire will not happen.  So, to insure success make your business establishment a pleasant experience.

And now I invite you to learn more.

Bonus Tip:   FREE E-Book “Guide to Retail Selling for Store Owners, Sale Managers and Retail Sales People”.  Just click this Retail Sales Link    Sam Manfer makes it easy for any sales person to be effective and feel comfortable connecting with and selling retail shoppers.



Mathew