Food for Thought

Shoppers’ Stop was started by C.L. Raheja in 1991 when organized retailing was unheard of in India. The retailer’s main focus was on the customer and to the person who attended the customer- the employee. At Shoppers’ Stop, right from the CEO to the front-end sales person, everyone was called  Customer Care Associate  This helped in boosting the self-esteem of the employees. It had specialized induction programs to groom the recruits, especially the first timers. The program included classroom training on the basics of retail, store design, store space planning, visual merchandising, selling and cashiering. This was followed by two weeks ‘mentoring’ program. Under this program they were attached to a senior in the workplace. Finally, to give the new recruits the sense of belonging, their parents were invited to breakfast to get a feel of environment at Shoppers’ Stop. In 2002, Shoppers’ Stop realised that the customer care associates were not performing up to the mar...

In India, the retail industry is broadly divided into the organised and unorganised sectors. Organised retailing in India started picking up in South India in cities like Chennai and Hyderabad, where real estate at prime location was available at cheaper rates than in cities like Mumbai and Delhi. In the early 1990s, leading Indian business houses started taking a keen interest in retailing sector. Several business houses like Tatas, Piramals, RPG Group and Rahejas forayed into this sector.    Organised retailing in India can be classified on the products or services offered. There include (but not limited to)  Apparel retailing  Food retailing  Health and beauty products retailing  Footwear retailing  Music and entertainment retailing  Book retailing  Watches and jewelry retailing  Petrol and diesel retailing  Home furniture  Luggage Let’s have a look at what kind of strategies these pioneers in organised retail...