A practical gyan @Life style stores, Chennai

“Jo dikhta hai wohi bikta hai”. This was the DNA of different FMCG companies till 1990s. With the boom in the organized retail sector this statement has reached to its new heights. When ever i used to visit the retail shop, I used to wonder the reasoning behind the positioning of the products. Why are they kept, the way they are? In order to understand this i went to Lifestyle retail situated at EA mall, Chennai. It is a multi brand retail store with product line majorily in life style products catering to the requirement of customers of across age group.

I went to meet the store manager, Mr Nagraj and requested him to spare 15 minutes. He agreed with a “happy to help” smile and took me to the floor.

Ques .  Tell something about the hierarchy of the store?

Ques. What is his role in the store?

He takes care of Inventory and overall administration of the store. Every day, concept manager mails the requirement and he with the assistance of Inventory manager services it by ordering it from Regional distribution centres (2 RDCs in Chennai). He also takes care of the day to day administration, operations, security management and cash management of the store.

Ques.  Guide me through the positioning strategy vis-a –vis products with in store.

He readily introduced me to one of the concept managers, Mr. Prasanna who with the same “ Happy to help” smile mentioned the below points.

a)      They follow “dark to light or light to dark colour pattern policy while hanging the apparels.

b)      Life style stores are trying move base positioning to hanging up positioning for most of the products. It makes customer easy to feel and also for the employees to manage.

c)       Proper two tile space is kept as an aisle between candelas to move freely.

d)      Generally MNCs brand and Local brand are kept separately in a particular category.

e)      Every external brand pays for a space within the store. The better they pay, better is the visibility.

f)       Brands are generally subdivided in to Traditional and western

g)      The theme pattern normally changes within 90 days.

h)      Any garment not sold within 180 days has to be replaced.

i)        2-3 trial rooms per 6000 Sq of space.

Ques. How do spot schemes are identified and given?

Business Manager gets a quarterly scheme budget from HO and with the help of concept manager, decides the product and scheme that needs to given.

Ques. In such a tiring and monotonous job, how do you keep your staff smiling and motivated.

The supervisors and managers work as friend, as a teacher and sometime as a family member to CSRs. It is very necessary to work on employee personal relationship. Over this they have certain incentive schemes and employee engagement programs including outings, parties that happen on a regular basis.

I already took much of their time and their peak hours started so I moved on with the above learning’s on the lesson positioning vis- a- vis life style retail with a "happy to help smile"

Thank you.

Abhinav Verma

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