“Watches” : Trends and Strategies in Fashion and Luxury brand of watches-Part 2

In this second blog, I am going to pen down my observations regarding the Luxury watch store “Longines” and a Multibrand watch store which I visted in EA mall some time back.

 Let me begin with the “Longines” store. On entering the store I was welcomed by the store manager. The first thing that I noticed in the shop was a huge poster of Aishwarya Rai, flaunting the “Longines” watch on her wrist. The poster was so enticing that anybody having enough money would end up buying a longines watch in that store. Besides, there was a video of the “Longines advertisement” featuring Aishwarya Rai, being screened in the shop to captivate the customers. On conversing with store manager I inferred that “Longines” uses referral strategy of promoting their brand in India.Presently, Aishwarya Rai is brand ambassador for Longines.Through her image Longines is potraying “Elegance” as its EVP.

I also gathered from the store manager that “Longines” is positioned as a Luxury watch and their target customers are women.Moreover, I found that in India the distributor for the Longines is Swatch Group India Pvt Ltd and they are located in Delhi. In the “Longines” store at EA mall, the price started from Rs 40,000.They provide warranty of around 2 years on the watches. The ambience and the décor of the “Longines” store at EA mall emphasized class and luxury in every way. It was perfect to attract the people who like to purchase the unique and luxurious watches.

From Longines, I moved to a multiband watch store in EA mall. On entering the store, I saw that they have placed watches of different brands in a very orderly manner. There were vertical blocks on the wall; each block was having a watch of different brand. Some of the Brands which were present there included Fossil, Tissot, Armani, Casio, Citizen and Timex.

On conversing with the store manager, I inferred that since their shop is in EA mall they usually have a very good sale. As per him they are able to sell in the range of 5-10 watches in a day. But their peak sale period is Pongal and Diwali time. One striking thing which the store manager mentioned was that Indian people coming to his shop are less fussy in making purchasing decision as compared to the foreigners. He implied that Indians don’t negotiate much on the price offered in his store whereas foreigners create lot of fuss on the taxes being charged on the watches sold. He also mentioned that among all the brands present in his store Fossil and Armani are the most innovative brands. He also commented on the approach of customers from different segments of society. As per him, people coming from rural part of Chennai mostly purchase watches of Citizen and Casio. The reason behind it is, they usually follow the traditional approach and like to buy watches recommended by their father or older generation. As per the store manager they keep changing the shelves with newest and most popular watches in the market to attract customers. They give special greetings to their loyal customers.

In the end, I can say that my First blog was observations on the store of Fashion brand of watch (Tissot) and this blog is about store of Luxury watch (Longines) and multiband watch store. It was a great learning experience for me as I was doing it for the first time.

Thanks for reading this blog.


regards
Smriti Saran
FT13477

Biscuits: The Product for all  age Groups

We have them with our early morning tea or coffee, sometimes they are our breakfast, lunch or dinner.  They have become an important part of our lives. There is probably no one who can say that he or she has never had a Biscuit. Our association with biscuits dates back to childhood and continues even today.

The Biscuit market has something or the other for everyone, right from small kids to the elderly. The producers of biscuits have developed product to cater to the taste buds of all of us. The Product portfolio ranges from the general Glucose to healthy Marie, from Crackers to Creams, from Diabetic friendly to the more indulging creams like Pure Magic and Dark Fantasy.

The major players in this market are Parle, Britannia, ITC, Priyagold and many local players. The Market of Mahabalipuram is seemed to be dominated by Britannia, as at most of the shops we can see a wide variety of Britannia biscuits.

Demand Pattern

 Upon the interaction with the Retail shopkeepers I found out that the peak time for the demand for the biscuits is during the early morning and the evening  as most people prefer having biscuits with tea. Nevertheless the sale keeps on happening throughout the day.

Visibility

 The main thing that plays an important role is the arrangement of the biscuits. The more the visibility the better the prospect of sale. As can be seen from the picture the biscuits are neatly stacked in the shelf which is placed right at the entrance of the shop. The shopkeepers told that this arrangement were done by the people from the company.  The salesman who come for taking the order is accompanied by another person who does the arrangements while the salesman takes the order. Also we can see the stickers of Britannia around the shelf. All this is done to make sure that there is a good visibility of their product which in turn will boost the sales. Thus we can see that the job of the company is not finished just by making the product available but they also ensure that the visibility is good.  

(To be Contd...)

DakshinaChitra Heritage Centre: A Celebration of South India

One of my friends from Chennai suggested me this beautiful place for my Marketing Project and what pleasure it was to visit here!

Here's for the introduction as per their official brochure :

'Dakshinchitra is an attempt to preserve some of the traditional south Indian ways of life by constructing a "living" village containing some of the various traditional homes of south India.'

 
The 30 km drive from our institute to here seems to take you back 150 years to a bygone era!

The place has beautifully recreated the the 'picture of the South' over an area of 10-acre.

Established by the Madras Crafts Foundation, the institute promotes the culture and legacy of the four South Indian States of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Looking around, I could see accurate reconstructions of houses & streets from the states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Some houses have special showrooms which also exhibit certain artifacts and give details about those times from that region.

 In addition to the heritage houses, traditional artisans have  set up demo booths. Visitors are in this way introduced to traditional handicrafts like kalamkari, pottery and even silk weaving. The demonstraters were very friendly and passionate in explaining the intricacies of their art.

Also I could catch exciting puppet plays, consult palmists and parrot astrologers, tried hand at spinning traditional tops!

For those interested in purchasing souvenirs, Dakshinchitra also has a well-stocked gift-shop and an arts & crafts marketplace. An alfresco restaurant on the premises ensures visitors won't go hungry.



 

Food Journey (Part 1) - The Chinese Dhabha

“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” – This famous quote by George Bernard Shaw has been the bedrock of my existence all these years. When the opportunity presented itself to conduct a marketing study, I thought there could be no subject better than the food service industry. On the 22^nd of May, I left for Mahabalipuram searching for restaurants & dhabas.

The first one that I encountered was Aigen’s Chinese Dhaba. The owner Mr Aigen seemed well educated and was able to converse in english fluently. I asked Aigen a few open ended questions and the answers gave me an insight into how a bottom of the pyramid food business works.

Aigen is the owner and also the head cook. The 100sq ft room that he runs his enterprise from has been rented along with the furniture. The daily rent is Rs 150. The shop has no signboard. Infact, if it had not been for the typical cut vegetables and cooking wok placed at the entrance, it would have been difficult to figure out the exact nature of the business!

When I asked Aigen for menu, he quickly recited names of 4 dishes that sold the most which were Beef Noodles (Rs 50), Chicken Noodles (Rs 60), Chicken Fried Rice (Rs 55) and Egg Fried Rice (Rs 40). According to him, people who frequented his place didn’t prefer looking through long menus and hence it was most prudent to have only about 4-5 dishes on the menu at any given time. This also saved the time to place orders.  

Aigen works as a day worker at Kalpakkam. He returns by 2 PM and starts his preparation which includes buying the vegetables, beef ,chicken etc and cutting, boiling and pre-cooking the necessary ingredients. Since he does not own a deep freezer, this method of buying as per his daily needs makes sense. His daily expenses towards raw materials is about Rs 1200 – Rs 1500.  He opens his restaurant to customers at about 7PM and keeps it open till 11PM in the night. The customer segments that Aigen targets are low wage workers, nearby shop-keepers and locals from Mahabalipuram. He usually has about 40 -60 patrons coming in every evening. Using all the information, I estimate that Aigen must make a profit of about Rs 900 – Rs 1500 daily during the 5 hours that he runs his restaurant.

I am intrigued by the fact that a BOP business can make profits comparable to the salaries of some junior software engineers in multi-nationals! Aigen’s keen sense of how to keep running costs low and most importantly how to target the correct population are the key ingredients of his success. In a candid chat I proposed that he put up a flex banner for his shop and put up details on a free website to attract more customers. In an effort to understanding marketing strategies in a BOP scenario, I have decided to help Aigen throughout this year by handling his branding & marketing work (pro-bono). It will be interesting to see this pans out!

Next time we’ll see how bigger Hotels (Hotel Mammala and Hotel Bhavan) & food chains like KFC operate.

Bhavik Kaul

(FT13418) 

Food Outlet – Domino’s Pizza

There was a time when fast food used to sell by hawkers on the streets of city, outside historical monuments, zoo etc. Time changed and with the entry of McDonalds, Pizza Hut etc. The market of fast food chains started with a bang and people started enjoying the super quality burgers, fries, iced tea and other items. This move started a trend of Friday/Saturday evening dine-ins at these places with friends, family, dates and it soon become a habit for people living in urban areas. But then came the ‘Game Changer’ – Domino’s Pizza, The Pizza Delivery Experts.

Introduction

Domino’s Pizza chains started the business by delivering the pizza at your door step. No need to wait for Friday’s/Satyrday’s and go out to have delicious food or wait for the evenings. You just need to give a call to your nearest Domino’s Pizza delivery center and it will be delivered at your doorstep in just 30 miutes that too hot.

Observations @Domino’s Pizza (Adayar, Chennai)

The outlet is situated at a nice location in Adyar area of Chennai. It is located in a well established market place having various types of brands nearby. The outlet was titled in both Enlish and Tamil language to facilitate the local people who do not understand English. Nearly 18-20 bikes were standing outside for delivery purposes.

The Ambience

As soon as you enter the outlet a very nice smell of cheese and garlic comes which actually makes you drool and more hungry. However, the ambience is not so attractive or catchy. This is per their requirement although as they prefer and expect more orders to come by for delivery. However, Domino’s is changing their mindset and starting opening up new outlets with attractive ambience and couches to sit facility. The texture of the wall was matching with the color of their logo i.e. white and red. It was a fully air-conditioned outlet to provide a pleasant atmosphere to customers.

The seating capacity is 25-30 people at a time with separable tables. With soothing music playing in the background makes it better. Cleanliness in the house is good and no table was found to be unclean.

Operations

Domino’s Pizza outlet has three counters, all with tele-orders facility, one dedicated for dine-in customers and two especially for taking delivery orders. Nearly 75% of the orders are bound for delivery and rest comes from customers who wants to have the food inside the outlet. 

Menu, new arrivals and special items are on display at the counters. Kitchen and packaging operations are carried out at the back side of the counter. All the employees are well dressed with their trademark blue and black colored uniforms with red collar. Small banners were hanging all over the dining area to make customers aware about most preferred and other items. A water cooler is also put up in the area for customers to help themselves unlike pizza hut where waiter delivers the water, food and every other thing.

A proper distribution of staff is there with their roles and responsibilities clearly specified. Staff includes people for cooking, for cutting bases and rotating it, for delivery and for handling counters.

30-min Delivery else Free

Domino’s major marketing or USP is 30 min delivery else food will be free.

All the delivery staff is told from the day 1 to understand all the routes, shortest paths and alternate routes from the local area map. They follow the strict processes to complete the order. As per the process, order should come out of stove within 10 miins and should be delivered in 8-20 mins. They decide their service area on the basis where they can reach in 8 mins. If at the 1^st checkpoint they do not reach within 30 mins they give pizza for free. They do not cut any salary of their staff members for this. Moreover, they have taken measures to ensure their welfare and safety. In every bike they are using for delivery, they have mechanically fixed the speed at 40 Km/hr so that in case of urgency the delivery boy do not rush or speed up and take a risk.

This point is something which is very important which Domino’s do to their employees. The delivery boy carries chilli flakes and oreganos in case customer wants more of these. In case your area is outside the service area of Domino’s then the nearest outlet will still be ready to provide order if that place is reachable in 45 mins and the customer is informed, while taking the order, that your area is outside the service area so 30-min delivery will not be applicable.

Domino’s gets the raw material in every 4 days which they store at -4^o C. If any food item remain after 4 days then it is thrown out. The pizza boxes has expiry of 1 month. Domino’s follow First-In First-Out (FIFO) inventory system, whichever item comes first is used first.

Employees do have motivational sessions when they motivate each other. Also, they shout “Hip Hip Hurray” as part of their 1 minute activity to encourage others to deliver faster and better.

Customers who come and prefer dine-in are those who hanglout and come for shopping. Their experience for dine-in is neutral as first they get frustrated because Domino’s do not serve food one by one like Pizza Hut do (statres first and then the main course) but once the food is on their table they forget everything and enjoy the hot and delicious food.

Overall, the expereince of understanding the Domino’s through these observations was quite good and brought new dimensions to my thinking.

Lalit Agrawal

FT13434

Customer Relation is really the prime relation.

Happiness is what the ultimate goal is for both the customer and seller. This was evident from my visit at the small shops nearby our campus. These Kiryana shops located in the rural area of Pattikadu and Annapuram showcase their ability to gauge customer needs and store all essential products.

The Kiryana shops might have a board with a name but generally are popular by the owner’s name like Suresh Anna’s Kada (shop). The rural Life starts early and even the shops open up at 6 AM, as they have to collect the milk packets form the milkman who delivers the milk early in the morning. The shops have the newspaper, both English and Tamil, on display. The shop is generally the discussion table of all the community around. The daily needs of milk; biscuit and even fresh snacks like tea and bhajji are the regular items of sale. The shopkeepers are very attentive about the customer needs as even television sets are seen inside the shops to attract more customers. More the people hang around more is the sale.

All the products like shampoo sachets, chips, namkeen packets are showcased as hanging on a string just above the cash counter, and thus customer can take the packets on their own after making the payment at the counter. All the products that have the frequent buyers are placed in the racks which are easily accessible by the owner from his seats. Apart from providing general and Kiryana stuff, they also serve drinking water containers, as there is an issue with the supply of drinking water in the locality. These shopkeepers make money by selling these water containers.

Some shop keepers have diversified with a little fast-food counters and they serve the tourists. Even same is the case with the Kiryana shop near by our campus whose owner cooks non-vegetarian food so that people can come and enjoy the non- vegetarian food as non- vegetarian food is not available in the campus canteen.

By fulfilling the needs of the customer the shops have a regular customer base to run the shop in profit mode. It is true as observed that customer relation is the primary of them all.

Preeti

FT13442

Mahabalipuram: The land of the 7th century stone sculptures

It was a bright Thursday evening of May 31st, 2012. I along with some of my friends had gone to Mahabs in search of some good food. But what instead attracted me there was this one shop selling sculptures made of stone and wood. SORNA ARTICLES

The shop was at the dark end of the South Mada Street in Mahabalipuram. And it was empty. I just wanted to know more about it. I went in, introduced myself to the owner Mr Wasiullah Khan and expressed my intention. He is a very kind person and readily agreed to give me his time.

He shared with me a lot of information about his shop, his other businesses and the state of the sculptures' selling market in Mahabalipuram. He has been running this shop since last 12 years. Earlier the shop used to do a great business but now the market's not that good. 5 years back, he used to earn 50% profits from all his sale. But now, there are almost 150 big boutique kind of shops selling these stone and metal sculptures. Also, there are a large number of small shops in the area. All these have eaten his market share. Since last 15 days, he had not seen any sale in his shop. Fortunately, he also owns few lodges in Mahabalipuram which are doing pleasant business. 

The peak season for the sculpture shops here is in the months of Dec, Jan and Feb and during these months, he earns a profit of `15,000. Rest of the months do not see much of sales. He generally sells three kind of sculptures: stone, wooden and metal (peetal). He has karigars here to make the stone sculptures. The wooden ones are procured from some place in Andhra Pradesh. The metal sculptures come from Kathmandu, Nepal. The designs are provided by him to the artisans if they are new else whatever sells the most are procured. There is Govt. Arts College nearby and he employs the pass outs from this college as his karigars. There daily wage is `350 - `450. 

According to him, the locals generally prefer buying stone sculptures made of either marble or graphite or soft stone. Foreign tourists generally buy sculptures made of soft stones as they are lighter in weight and the tourists have a luggage weight constraint. For the individual temple purposes, granite idols of 1 feet height are generally in demand.

When some one so passionately talks to you about his ;life/business, you just get lost. It got too late that evening and it was my time to bid adieu to him. I just hope to visit his shop again and collect some more information about this business here at Mahabalipuram.

                                                                                                    (To be contd......)