Retail management

assignment
on
Pantaloons retail limited

9/4/2009
IBS-PUNE
SUBMITTED BY- NAMITA BHAIRAVIYA
Contents
About pantaloons...................................................................................................................................... 3
Target market and Positioning of Pantaloons .......................................................................................... 3
Store location ............................................................................................................................................ 4
Traffic .................................................................................................................................................... 4
Accessibility of the market .................................................................................................................... 4
Visibility ................................................................................................................................................. 4
Total number of stores and the type of stores that exist in the area ................................................... 4
Product Mix Offered ............................................................................................................................. 4
Pricing.................................................................................................................................................... 4
Store layout ............................................................................................................................................... 5
Store design- Store Exteriors & Store Interior .......................................................................................... 7
Music ..................................................................................................................................................... 9
Store security ........................................................................................................................................ 9
Space Allocation and Utilization ............................................................................................................... 9
Furniture and fixtures- .......................................................................................................................... 9
Walk Ways and Entries:- ....................................................................................................................... 9
Merchandise ....................................................................................................................................... 10
Display Areas, Walkways & doors ........................................................................................................... 10
Categories and private labels .................................................................................................................. 11
Assortment and Variety .......................................................................................................................... 11
SWOT analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 12
Marquees ................................................................................................................................................ 14
Promotion Strategy ................................................................................................................................. 14
Gift vouchers ........................................................................................................................................... 15
IT System ................................................................................................................................................. 16
Maintenance & Hardware................................................................................................................... 16
Future projects .................................................................................................................................... 17
Analysis ................................................................................................................................................... 17
Conclusion and recommendations ......................................................................................................... 18
References .............................................................................................................................................. 18

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

About pantaloons

Pantaloon Retail is the flagship enterprise of the Future Group, with a presence across multiple
lines of business. The company owns and manages multiple retail formats that cater to a wide
cross-section of Indian society. Headquartered in Mumbai (Bombay), the company operates
through four million square feet of retail space, has over 140 stores across 32 cities in India and
employs over 14,000 people...

Pantaloon Retail forayed into retail in 1997 with the launching of its fashion retail chain,
Pantaloons in Kolkata. In 2001, it launched Big Bazaar, a hypermarket chain. This was followed
by Food Bazaar, a food and grocery chain. Next up was Central, a first of its kind located in the
heart of major Indian cities. Some of its other formats include, Collection I (home improvement
products), E-Zone (consumer electronics), Depot (books, music, gifts and stationary), ALL (a
Little Larger, fashion apparel for plus-size individuals), Shoe Factory (footwear) and Blue Sky
(fashion accessories). It has recently launched its e-business venture, futurebazaar.com. The
group's subsidiary companies include, Home Solutions Retail India Ltd, Pantaloon Industries
Ltd, Galaxy Entertainment and Indus League Clothing. The group also has joint venture
companies with a number of partners including French retailer Team group, Lee Cooper,
Manipal Healthcare, Talwalkar's, Gini & Jony and Liberty Shoes. Planet Retail, a group
company owns the franchisee of international brands like Marks & Spencer, Debenhams, Next
and Guess in India.

Target market and Positioning of Pantaloons

Pantaloons are positioned as a department store catering to the middle and upper-middle class
sections at each of its locations. Its core offering is branded merchandise, retailing international,
national and regional brands as well as private and proprietary labels.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Today, a leader in Fashion Pantaloons promises Fresh Fashion for the entire family as well as the
young and the young-at-heart. The belief is that they will be the key drivers of fashion.

Thus it is a store focusing on providing a value for money proposition as it provides quality
fashion products at an affordable price as compared to the competitors.

Store location
The location of a retail store occupies an important place in retail strategy. It not only conveys
the image of the store, but also influences the merchandise mix and the interior layout of the
store. While the merchandise mix can be changed and prices can be adjusted, it is difficult to
change the decision on store location.
Traffic
The traffic – pedestrian as well as vehicular – that passes the site is an important determinant of
the potential sales that can be generated from a store. A pantaloon is known to have good parking
space wherever it’s located.
Accessibility of the market
Accessibility of a market is defined in terms of the availability of public transport and road/local
trains connections to the markets. It is mostly located in posh locality in the center of the city.
Further the easy availability of transport facilitates makes the location really accessible for
shopping.
Visibility
Pantaloons is situated very close to the main road. Pantaloons being a three floor building have
great visibility. To enhance the visibility pantaloons has put its sign board on the top of the
building.
Total number of stores and the type of stores that exist in the area
Its presence area encompasses stores like Lifestyle, Trent; Adidas….which directly compete with
Pantaloons. This is really disadvantageous for Pantaloons.
Product Mix Offered
The kind of product mix to be offered by the retailer is another important consideration. As
mentioned earlier the main product line of Pantaloons is men’s and women’s clothing and other
accessories comprising a vigilant mix of private as well as other labels...
Since Pantaloons provides products to a potentially large number of customers at affordable
prices, it falls in the High Turnover - Low Margin Category
Pricing
Pantaloons visual merchandising is creative, innovative and outstanding which can be seen from
its own in house private brands such as John Miller.

All the merchandise is placed at both 360 degree and 180 degrees.
The new launched products are showed by prominent color back ground.
Window display is highly interactive for impulsive buyer.
Price range is average.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Store layout

Pantaloons follows a free form store layout. No particular format is followed anything is placed
anywhere but strategically. Pantaloons fall under following categories- Departmental stores,
Malls, E-retailers Here when it comes to arranging the clothes, same type of clothes are put up
together in different sizes so that same clothes are available for every size at one point only.

First level Second Level

Ground Level
Spring (Designer wear for men Men’s Occasion’s Wear
Ladies Formal and women)Ladies Formal
Ladies Denim Men’s Formal
Cosmetics and Fragrances Ladies Ethnic
Men’s Ethnic
Fine Jwellery Night ware and Lingerie
Blue Sky (Sunglasses and Denim Wear
Watches) Kids Wear
Men’s Casuals
Fashion Accessories Infant Necessities
Customer Service Desk
Layout
Toys of Pantaloons store Active Wear , Sporting Goods

Footwear Teen Boys

Ladies Wash Room
Men’s Washroom
Drinking Water
Drinking Water

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Being a department store, Pantaloons exhibits an arrangement of merchandise in a freeform
layout. Such a layout allows free movement and also encourages people to browse and shop with
convenience.
The floor space is allocated on the basis of the contribution of a particular department to
business. As such, the Men’s department has been assigned an entire floor. The total area of the
entire store is approximately 50000sq.ft.
However the most disappointing aspect about the layout was the presence of Toilets, Trial rooms
and drinking water at adjacent places. This format was exhibited by all the three floors of the

store.
The layout of the store is modified on a regular basis by shifting the fixtures and display of the
merchandise so that the customers develop a feel of novelty in the store.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Store design- Store Exteriors & Store Interior
Pantaloons follows a theme based interior, like a corner is assigned to every brand and that brand
put up its product as per its liking. Also the posters and ads for discounts and offers for them are
put up there only Exteriors of pantaloons stores are very attractive & eye catchy. They put up
fresh fashion collections on the dummies on
the entrance.

The exterior appearance of a store silently announces what customers can expect inside. Good
exterior visual merchandising attracts attention, creates interest and invites the customer into the
business
Exterior Store Design

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

 The location of the building is very prominent. It is
very much closer to the main road. It has a modern
look which is further enhanced by the silver finish
as well as the green color appropriately resembling
the brand. The name Pantaloons Urbania at the top
of the building further enhances the store’s
visibility.
The clothes and accessories available in the store
are nicely put up at the windows of the building.
At night the building is brightly lit up. The focus is
largely on the name plate at the top. The entrance
has an automatic door closing system. There is
always someone to greet the customers entering
the shop. Towards the immediate right of the
entrance is the baggage counter. Also a wheel
chair is kept for the disabled. As one proceeds,
there is a customer grievances desk and a counter
for green card members. A couch has also been placed near the desk, which is really comforting
in case of a queue.
Interior Store design
Flooring and Ceiling

The interior layout generates good brand associations through

appropriate color combinations. The white color of the walls
and floor coupled with the green color of the visual
merchandise helps in portraying the brand effectively.
Graphics and Sign ages

Exactly opposite to the entrance gate of the store is a store

directory mentioning the various sections/departments of the
entire store (Ground, First and Second floors). On the right
hand side wall is a sign gage (exactly opposite to the customer grievances desk) indicating the
promotional schemes? However the directional signs are not quiet visible.
Lighting

Good lighting in a store involves more than illuminating space. Lighting is used to highlight
merchandise, sculpt face and capture a mood feeling that enhances the store image. White
lighting has been majorly used in the store so that the customers can identify the requisite colors
of the apparels. For lightening mostly focus lights are used for the clothes that are hanged on
wall white lights are used but for toys section as well as shoes section yellow lights are used and
even for the traditional wear yellow lights are used as this light match with the color of the
products put up there and even make them look more eye catchy and attractive. Stores have
transparent flooring furnished floorings.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Music – mostly there is rock as well as soft music no particular music beat is followed.

Store security- well they have ample staff available with them to guide as well as to keep a
check on the customers. Also they have cc cameras put up at various spots.

Space Allocation and Utilization

Furniture and fixtures-
Goods are effectively displayed on a variety of fixtures such as gondolas, tables, cubes,
mannequins, waterfalls and other racks, display cases and manufacturer point- of -purchase
display.
Walk Ways and Entries:-
Approximately 75 % of first time customers remember a store’s entrance, which provides the
first and last view of the store’s interior. A cluttered entryway cause’s shopper’s to indefinitely
postpone entering a store, while an attractive, well designed entrance is inviting to the customers
and that’s what pantaloons provides.
Sound type and density
Instrumental music is played over loud music in the store making the shopping environmental
more serene and calm
Odor type and density
Like sound, odor too has a negative or positive impact on the atmosphere of the store. The
strength (density) of the odor is also important. This is because, even if the odor is right but too
strong or intense, the ultimate impact generated by it is negative. Considering pantaloons,
perfumes or room fresheners are aired through the air conditioners.
Visual merchandising- Merchandise Type and Density
One can come across campaign graphics in the store with merchandise places near them.
Mannequins are displayed with accessories to generate impulse purchases. Spot lights are also
focused on the visual merchandise so as to gain the attention of the customers.
Pantaloon focuses on the latest fashion apparels. No rack is kept empty as it may create a
negative impression in the minds of the customers. E.g. Concerning the T shirts department
(especially in case of UMM Brand), one t shirt of a particular color or design is displayed, while
next to it, on a shelf the same T shirt but with different colors is displayed.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Fixtures
Detachable fixtures with smooth edges are maintained in the store especially in the kids segment.
Packaging
The Products purchased by the Customers are packed in green colored Recyclable Plastic Bags.
The bag is sealed with a tape bearing a statement “Thank you for shopping ant Pantaloons” on it.
Merchandise
Pantaloons have applied the concept of category management in its day-to-day merchandising
function as against the traditional brand management merchandising practice followed by most
retailers. Category managers look at sales and margins of each brand in a category. The whole
idea of category management is to create products across length and breadth of a category at
different price points, fabrics, design, shape, seasons, color and size.

They are characterized by a broad variety, deep assortment.

The Category manager develop a merchandising strategy for the category taking into
consideration customer profile, classification, resource structure, vendors, fashion trends, items
and price points. The category manager visit stores regularly to check assortments of
merchandise displays, stock levels and old season merchandise, consult with team leaders and
sales people on problems and suggestions. Although no concrete information was provided with
respect to the ways of forecasting the sales and inventory planning, it was highlighted that a
buffer stock of approximately 10-12% of the total stock is maintained in the store.

Display Areas, Walkways & doors

Pantaloons stores have very attractive display areas, in which they put the dummies, accessories
& all. They have a broad walkway & doorways.
Also there are small screens put up at various corners which are most visible, and which they
show case ads of their own as well as other brands available
there. Here each rack are placed in such a way so that consumers
can easily take their wanted products. Pantaloons have their own
in house brands in Apparel as well as different sections.
Pantaloons visual merchandising is creative, innovative and
outstanding which can be seen from its own in house private
brands such as John Miller. All the merchandise are placed at
both 360 degree and 180 degrees. The new launched products are showed by prominent color
back ground. Window display is highly interactive for impulsive buyer.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Categories and private labels
serial no. Private Label Category
1 Pantaloon Trousers Men’s Wear
2 Bare Denim Jeans, Knitwear, gabardine, jackets, and other
accessories.
3 John Miller Shirts
4 Shrishti Ladies wear

5 Scotsville Winter wear, sweaters and blazers

6 Scotsville Ladies western wear
7 Annabelle Ladies western wear, formal wear
8 Agile Sports wear
9 Mix n match Buying separates and combining

10 Honey Western wear brand for young girls

11 Akkriti Men’s ethnic wear

12 Lombard Classic English formal wear

13 Trishaa Stitching salwarkammez

14 UMM Trendy sports and utility wear

15 Ghagroos Men’s Ethnic wear

16 Remanika Ladies wear, kurties

17. Urban Yoga Men’s wear

18. Jealous Girls wear

Assortment and Variety

Pantaloons typically fall in the High Assortment – High Variety quadrant. Although the
assortment and variety in each of the categories is high, depth is emphasized upon in case of core
merchandise categories such as men’s formal wear, men’s casuals and sportswear. Conversely,
the typical fashion apparels and accessories are dominant on the Width front.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

 High Variety

Low assortment High assortment

Low Variety

SWOT analysis

Strength: -Brand equity and early mover advantage;

Entrepreneur led, professionally managed by an experienced team;

Project execution and operations capabilities;
Vast range of lifestyle and value retail products and services; Strong distribution and logistics
network and supply chain; strong distribution and logistics network, with our 21 distribution
centers covering; and Large base of customers and Strong focus on systems and processes;

Retailing is a "technology-intensive" industry. It is technology that will help the organized

retailers to score over the unorganized retailers. Successful organized retailers today work
closely with their vendors to predict consumer demand, shorten lead times, reduce inventory
holding and ultimately save cost. Example: Wal-Mart pioneered the concept of building
competitive advantage through distribution & information systems in the retailing industry. They
introduced two innovative logistics techniques, cross-docking and EDI (electronic data
interchange).

On an average a super market stocks up to 5000 SKU's against a few hundred stocked with an
average unorganized retailer.

It is the main sponsor in Femina Miss India.

Strong management team

Brand recognition and reputation and Diversity and variety in products offered on the web
(footwear, apparel, sporting equipment etc.)

Strong control over its own distribution channel

No bad reputation like child labor or environment pollution

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Weakness- Weaknesses found can be the opportunities of improvements. The No of outlets
available in the locations of pantaloons are very low. It does not have a strong presence
everywhere.

Promotional Cost Vs Revenue

Less Conversion level: Despite high footfalls, the conversion ratio has been very low in the retail
outlets in a mall as compared to the standalone counter parts. It is seen that actual conversions of
footfall into sales for a mall outlet is approximately 20-25%. On the other hand, a high street
store of retail chain has an average conversion of about 50-60%. As a result, a stand-alone store
has a ROI (return on investment) of 25-30%; in contrast the retail majors are experiencing a ROI
of 8-10%.

Customer Loyalty: Retail chains are yet to settle down with the proper merchandise mix for the
mall outlets. Since the stand-alone outlets were established long time back, so they have
stabilized in terms of footfalls & merchandise mix and thus have a higher customer loyalty base.

High prices in some products

E-retailing is limited – limited variety of products available online
direct sale to consumers is creating conflicts with its own reseller’s
online customer service not "helpful" or easy to find

Opportunity- the Indian middle class is already 30 Crore & is projected to grow to over 60
Crore by 2010 making India one of the largest consumer markets of the world. The IMAGES-
KSA projections indicate that by 2015, India will have over 55 Crore people under the age of 20
- reflecting the enormous opportunities possible in the kids and teens retailing segment.

Organized retail is only 3% of the total retailing market in India. It is estimated to grow at the
rate of 25-30% p.a. and reach INR 1, 00,000 Crore by 2010.

Percolating down- In India it has been found out that the top 6 cities contribute for 66% of total
organized retailing. While the metros have already been exploited, the focus has now been
shifted towards the tier-II cities. The 'retail boom', 85% of which has so far been concentrated in
the metros is beginning to percolate down to these smaller cities and towns. The contribution of
these tier-II cities to total organized retailing sales is expected to grow to 20-25%.

Rural Retailing: India's huge rural population has caught the eye of the retailers looking for new
areas of growth. ITC launched India's first rural mall "Chaupal Saga" offering a diverse range of
products from FMCG to electronic goods to automobiles, attempting to provide farmers a one-
stop destination for all their needs." Hariyali Bazar" is started by DCM Sriram group which
provides farm related inputs & services. The Godrej group has launched the concept of 'agri-
stores' named "Adhaar" which offers agricultural products such as fertilizers & animal feed along
with the required knowledge for effective use of the same to the farmers. Pepsi on the other hand
is experimenting with the farmers of Punjab for growing the right quality of tomato for its tomato
purees & pastes.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Collaborate with other online retailers to offer its products
Possibility of outsourcing the web development and e-commerce to a third party developer
new avenues for opening of outlets. And Increase the promotional activities.

Threats- Increase in the Price of Raw materials

Pantaloon strong reputation in the apparel industry
Identify the Threats - competitors activities

More number of outlets of competitors available in the surrounding

If the unorganized retailers are put together, they are parallel to a large supermarket with no or
little overheads, high degree of flexibility in merchandise, display, prices and turnover.

Shopping Culture: Shopping culture has not developed in India as yet. Even now malls are just a
place to hang around with family and friends and largely confined to window-shopping.

Competition within vicinity-

Pantaloons is mostly located in same place as its competitors. Like in Baroda and even in Pune is
in a mall so it’s very much nearby its competitors. Its major competitors are Westside, Globus,
and central.

Marquees
A special type of sign is used to display the name of the store. It is used to announce a change in
season, sale, a special event or a promotion.

Promotion Strategy
Hoardings:

Pantaloon puts its hoarding at prime locations, featuring the upcoming Fashion events or
its brand ambassadors who are generally eminent celebrity.
Category manager plans promotions / brand or product building schemes. The category
manager identifies slow movers and also disposal plan for the same.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Loyalty program

Gift vouchers

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

IT System
IT system at Pantaloon stores is fully centralized; the report of daily sales is being
reported to head office in Germany. Pantaloon Retail selected the entire suite of
Connected Retailer solutions to take them into the future of retailing. They purchased
Connected Retailer Store, Merchandising, Planning, Sales Analytics, and CRM. At the
core of their systems is the Connected Retailer Merchandising Solution, which
streamlines operations, unifies asset management, and helps retailers learn the truth about
their business. This powerful retail enterprise solution features an open-architecture
design that provides unprecedented flexibility, scalability, power, and control
merchandising’s centralized transactional database and support tools enable retailers to
make and execute better decisions based on accurate, current, and shared information. By
using consistent data to guide all processes, the solution automatically synchronizes and
integrates all key functions, including planning, ordering, pricing, flow, sales, margins,
and inventory management Connected Retailer.

Bar Coding and Scanners: Point of sale systems use scanners and bar coding to identify
an item, use pre-stored data to calculate the cost and generate the total bill for a client.

Payment: Payment through credit cards has become quite widespread and this enables a
fast and easy payment process.

CRM Systems: Data warehousing & mining technologies offer consumer data and apply it to
business. This, along with the various available CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Systems, allows the study of the buying behavior of consumers in detail and grows the value of
individual consumers to their businesses.

SAP implementation is not a single phase process. The project was divided into three phases.

The first phase involved blueprinting existing processes and mapping them to the desired
state. In this phase, the entire project team worked on current processes within the
structure of the organization, analyzed and drafted them. This blueprint was later used in
the formation of new states of the solution. Since the SAP would combine all the
processes, each and every one of these had to be evaluated.
In the second phase, the SAP platform was developed with the help of Nova soft’s
template which was predefined by SAP after evaluation of Pantaloon’s needs and
expertise in retail solutions.
The last phase in this project was for stores to switch over to the new system and for
current data to be ported. Before the SAP implementation, all the data was unorganized.
This data had to be migrated to the new SAP application.

Maintenance & Hardware

This application is currently being used by around 1,200 employees across the organization. For
maintaining this implementation and its related applications, Pantaloon has an in-house team and
it has outsourced ABAP resources. They are also in the process of setting up a SAP Competency

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Centre. The system runs on a HP Superdome server on HP UNIX 11i and the database is from
Oracle. The cost of this project was about $10 million.

Future projects

After the successful implementation of SAP for its retail chain, Pantaloon plans to go ahead with
IT projects such as implementation of WMS with RFID, Customer Intelligence and CRM.
Inventory and Promotions Optimization will be pursued later this year.

More than eight years after it forayed into the retail business, Pantaloon Retail decided to
implement SAP to keep itself competitive in the rapidly growing Indian retail market.

Analysis
I have visited one prime store of Pantaloon at KP in Pune & got to know some specific features
of that store:

The store area was wide spread and was spacious.

It had a theme based corners. Themes were in accordance with the brands put up there.
While wall was for everything
The store was divided into two floors
First floor was for women and second one for men
There were many gondolas
There were hidden cameras fitted in the store, to monitor the customer’s buying behavior.
Main store was having all exclusive new collection.
There was centralized IT structure.
The store layout was free form structure.
Lightning was done in white in clothing section and yellow in traditional, shoes and toys
section.
All customer service executives were in light green color uniform on which pantaloons
logo is printed.
They were having a customer feedback form in which they use to get feedback from the
customers. Also this was to keep a track record of the customers who were interested in
getting updates and offers from the store.
They were having some small long mirror placed on ground in shoes sections so that the
customers can try the shoes better & have a better shopping experience.
Small space was allotted to billing counter.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Conclusion and recommendations
Pantaloons are the best bet in retail. The store has been well maintained in accordance with the
latest demands of the consumers.
However it still needs to focus on several parameters which are posing hindrances towards its
growth so that the store can retain its current Numero Uno position in the lifestyle segment.
The organization must strive for the development of new formats to facilitate a better shopping
environment for its customers. It can be undoubtedly stated the company has well planned retail
strategies currently but these must be updated with the continuously changing environment so
that it can sustain the competitive advantage.

References
www.pantaloon.com
Retail Management – ICFAI University Press
Marketing Management – by Kotler Keller & Koshy Jha
It Happened in India – by Kishore Biyani & Dipayan Baishya

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited