ASSIGNMENT-2

of

Retail Management

Topic: Comparison Of Two Indian Retail Stores

Submitted To: Submitted By:

Prof. Kanwal Gurleen Dikshita Jain

181212

MBA-4B
 Introduction: Reliance Retail
Reliance Retail Limited is a subsidiary company of Reliance Industries Limited. Founded in 2006,
it is the largest retailer in India in terms of revenue. V Subramaniam is the CEO of the Venture. Its
retail outlets offer foods, groceries, apparel and footwear, lifestyle and home improvement
products, electronic goods, and farm implements and inputs. The company’s outlets also provide
vegetables, fruits, and flowers. It focuses on consumer goods, consumer durables, travel services,
energy, entertainment and leisure, and health and well-being products, as well as on educational
products and services. It had a total of 3,837 stores in April 2018 in India with an area of over
17.7 million square feet across 750 cities, with yearly revenue of over 690 billion ($10 bn US).

It had a turnover of 337 billion in the financial year 2016-17. Reliance Retail has
announced revenues of 450 billion for the nine months ended December 2017 for
financial year 2017-18, showing of over 90% jump from the corresponding previous
period. The company also reported a profit of 7 billion for the period.

Product Assortments of Reliance Retail

There are different Reliance Retail which are:

1. Reliance Smart: Reliance Smart is a new age supermarket serving the needs of today’s smart
and value seeking customers. Reliance Smart offers a one-stop shopping experience by
offering fresh produce, bakery, dairy products, home and personal care products, general
merchandise and in many cases are co-located with our fashion & electronics store Reliance
Trends and Reliance Digital, making it a complete shopping destination. Reliance Smart’s
incredible value proposition rewards shoppers more & more for bigger purchase, every single
time they shop with 100% assortment being offered below MRP all year round, while
delivering a world-class shopping experience. We started our journey from Mumbai & Pune
and soon will be extending our network in other cities.
2. Reliance Market: Traditional retail is characterised by presence of over 15 million kirana
shops in the country. These kirana shops operate their retail business on a fragmented
distribution network with presence of a number of intermediaries. Reliance Market, the
wholesale cash and carry store chain aims at supporting their growth and providing them with
a modern distribution system. Reliance Retail opened the first Reliance Market in 2011 and
since then Reliance Market has grown rapidly with 52 stores serving over 4 million-member
partners. Reliance Market operates on the principle of 'less is more'i.e. 'buy for less' – 'operate
for less' – 'sell for less' relying on higher efficiency of asset utilisation and passing on higher
value to customers. The societal value thus created by Reliance Markets helps in supporting
 member partners to be more profitable.
3. Reliance Trends: Reliance Trends is a leading lifestyle retail chain with over 777 retail
stores across India. Reliance Trends offers stylish, high-quality products across Women
Wear, Lingerie, Menswear, Kidswear and fashion accessories through a diversified portfolio
of own brands, national and international brands. The uniqueness of the store is the core,
which delivers "fashion at great value". Spread over 8,000 – 24,000 square feet of shopping
area, each Reliance Trends store is designed to offer a unique shopping experience for the
entire family through wide aisles, coordinated displays and highly trained fashion
professionals offering best in class customer assistance.
4. Reliance Jewels: Over the years, Reliance Jewels has catered to wide range of audience.
With maximum focus on consumer outreach and innovative jewellery, Reliance Jewels has
expanded its horizons rapidly. Available in Standalone and Shop-in-shop (SIS) formats,
Reliance Jewels currently has a consolidated presence of 93 showrooms and 110 SIS across
105 cities in India.At Reliance Jewels, customers are assured of the widest range, stunning
designs, guaranteed purity & quality and a pleasant shopping experience. The product
collection hosts an extensive range starting from traditional gold jewellery including Kundan,
Polki, Filigree and Temple that showcases the legendary design and craftsmanship of various
parts of India right up to contemporary diamond jewellery & solitaires.
5. Reliance Digital: Reliance Digital is a consumer durables and information technology
concept from Reliance Retail. It is a subsidiary of Reliance Retail, which is a wholly owned
subsidiary of Reliance Industries. Reliance Digital is a consumer electronics company
in India. The first Reliance Digital Store was opened on 24 April 2007 in Delhi. Currently
there are around 2,000 Reliance Digital and Reliance Digital Xpress Mini Stores in around
600 cities in India. Reliance Digital Stores are bigger in size than the other format Digital
Xpress Mini Stores. The company plans to ramp up its current store count of 1,200 stores to
2,500 by the end of 2017. Digital Xpress Mini Stores are relatively smaller in size than
Reliance Digital. These stores are about 250 square feet and mainly sell the company's
telecom services, smartphones, tablets and also accessories of other brands. There are around
more than 1,700 Digital Xpress Mini Stores as of Feb 2017.  These stores have since been
rebranded as 'Jio Stores' after the launch of Jio.

 Reliance Retail Promotional Strategies

Marketing Mix of Reliance Retail analyses the brand/company which covers 4Ps (Product, Price,
Place, Promotion) and explains the Reliance Retail marketing strategy. The article elaborates the
pricing, advertising & distribution strategies used by the company. The Reliance Retail Strategies
are:

1. Product: The product strategy and mix in Reliance Retail marketing strategy can be
explained as follows: Reliance Retail is one of the most prominent retail brands in India.
Under the umbrella of Reliance Retail, comes a number of companies like Reliance Fresh
(contain products from fruits and vegetables, groceries, daily products, stationery, detergents
etc.), Reliance Trends (the dress and apparels division), Reliance Footprint (the shoes and
footwear division), Reliance Jewels (jewellery and diamonds shop), Reliance Smart (for
bakery and fresh products and home care products), Reliance Digital (electronics
showrooms) and Ajio.com (online clothing store). It has a diverse offering under its
marketing mix product portfolio.
2. Price: The pricing strategy in Reliance Retail marketing are: Reliance Retail stores offer
goods at extremely competitive prices. At a place like India, where there are about 7 million
retail stores, pricing plays a big factor of differentiation. With setting up big and attractive
supermarkets, the number of people coming inside wish to buy in bulk. Reliance offers them
a price which is generally lower than general stationery stores. This strategy is mostly applied
in FMCG sector. This is possible from getting the products directly from suppliers in bulk
and their connection with the farms. However, in the clothing sector and in footwear,
Reliance Retail offer mid-range to premium pricing, this is because they offer premium
quality products from well-known brands. In jewellery business, they keep pricing similar to
their competitors and rely upon their designs for differentiation. They have the dedicated
Card named Reliance cards where they give discounts on multiple buys.
3. Place: Following is the distribution strategy of Reliance Retail: Reliance retail stores are
across 750 cities in India, and the number of stores are around 3800. They being an age old
established brand in India, cater to a wide spread base of customers from around the corners.
They haven't driven in to the rural sectors in India as they have primarily focused upon
medium to high earning part of the society. The Reliance Retail stores are generally spread
across big area with proper parking facilities.
4. Promotion: The promotional and advertising strategy in the Reliance Retail marketing are is
as follows: Reliance Retail has invest in many advertising sources ranging both on online and
offline. Their discount offers in clothes and footwears attract a lot of consumers. Big
hoardings can be seen all over the cities. The Reliance Fresh has all time offers going on
where their products are usually on 30-50% discount which is a very eye-catching number to
indulge audiences. They also use print media and simultaneously social media to reach to the
customers. Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it the
 7Ps marketing mix of Reliance Retail.
5. People: Reliance being one of the largest employers in the country has around 1,20,000
employees working for Reliance Retail. This includes talented people who are inclined in
sales jobs. Proper care is taken to make every worker familiar with the product and be expert
about it. Headed by Mukesh Ambani, the hierarchy structure of the company is very long.
This is because the shops are at every corner of cities appointing numerous workers who are
familiar with local language and sales methods for particular regions.
6. Process: The main focus of Reliance Retail from beginning was to never be stock out for
which it had to have a very efficient logistics division. Reliance fresh which sells vegetables
and fruits have daily replacement systems where the inventories are rotated throughout the
day. In Reliance Digital they feature one of the largest tech markets not only in terms of
product varieties but also in terms of easy availability which is achieved through company's
connection to main suppliers and rapid distribution system.
7. Physical Evidence: Reliance Retail stores have been trying to reach each and corner of the
country. Reliance fresh has been successful in being the daily Retail store for a majority of
consumers in Tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Their presence in fashion retails can be seen from big
hoardings in major streets. The outlets those are chosen for set up are usually big spaces
which portray a display of the store varieties. They usually take multiple floors with multiple
retails all at one stop. Such as Reliance trends, footprints and digital are often clubbed
together. This concludes the marketing mix of Reliance Retail.

Reliance Retail Store Layout

Merchandise Plan
“A systematic approach . It is aimed at maximising return on investment, through planning
sales and inventory in order to increase profitability. It does this by maximising sales
potential and minimising losses from mark- downs and stock- outs.”

It is a “systematic approach” in many ways. You need the systems to ensure that you have the
right people, the right processes and the right computerised support. Without the people and
processes you will get nowhere. The software in merely an enabler- the final piece of a
jigsaw.

It is “aimed at maximising return on investment”, but where is this investment made? Most
obviously we are talking about a financial outlay in stock, but less evidently there is also
considerable financial investment in retail space, people and corporate infrastructure. Again,
whilst financial investment is the most obvious type, we should not overlook the “opportunity
cost” of the investment in time that is required by planning.

We achieve the goals “through planning sales and inventory”. These two elements are
inextricably linked and finding an optimum balance is the key to retail success. We are doing
more here, though, than merely calculating a purchase quantity. We need to balance carefully
the requirement to support sales with the constraints and tensions imposed by store layouts
and warehousing transportation issues.

We put the effort into Merchandise Planning “in order to increase profitability”. Profitability
is the key driver of most businesses. Effective merchandise planning delivers margin
increases directly to the bottom line. We achieve the increase in profitability “ by
maximising sales potential and minimising losses from mark- downs and stock – outs”. There
are two major areas of profit leakage in retail. Firstly lost sales resulting from lack of stock
and secondly forced margin reductions due to excessive stock.

The Implementation and monitoring of a plan to meet these success factors will hopefully result in the
eventual purchase by a customer of a specific item in a store. Merchandise planning needs to span the
activities between setting long term , high level goals for sales, margin and investment for the
business, right down to the allocation of space within an individual store. At each stage of the
planning process the high level goals are tested and inputs from functional management enrich the
detailed versions. Gaps are analysed and variances are explained or reconciled.
 Introduction: Pantaloons Fashion retail

Pantaloons Fashion Retail Limited is an Indian clothing retail chain. The first Pantaloons

store was launched in Gariahat , Kolkata in 1997. As of November 2013, there were 76
Pantaloons stores in 44 cities.

 Pantaloons was previously controlled by the Future Group, and was taken over by Aditya
Birla Nuvo Limited (ABNL). According to the Brand Trust Report 2014, a study conducted
by Trust Research Advisory, Pantaloons featured among 100 most trusted brands in India.

Voted as 'India's Most Trusted Apparel Retail Brand,' (Brand Equity Survey 2014/2015),
Pantaloons, a division of ABFRL has always been one of the most loved large format fashion
retailers in India. Pantaloons is today the fastest growing large format retailer in the country.
The rate of new store openings has increased from one every two months to one every two
weeks. The brand is now present in 78 Indian cities / towns.

Pantaloons has 130 fashion stores in 40 cities and towns in India. It has retail space of 1.7
million square feet. Pantaloons offers the loyalty programme Greencard to over 4 billion
members. The programme entitles members to discounts and shopping privileges. Pantaloons
retails approximately 200 brands which comprises a mix of private labels and licensed brands
in apparel and accessories. Pantaloons brands are aimed at men, women and children.

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited, formerly Pantaloons Fashion & Retail Limited, is a
fashion and lifestyle company. The Company is engaged in providing branded fashion
apparels and accessories, and the retail sale of clothing, footwear and leather articles in
stores. It operates through two segments: Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, and Pantaloons. Its
Madura Fashion & Lifestyle segment is engaged in manufacturing and distribution of
branded fashion apparel and accessories, and comprises over 1,800 exclusive brand outlets
(EBOs) and approximately 150 value stores. Its Pantaloons segment is engaged in retailing of
apparel and accessories, and comprises over 160 stores, including one Pantaloons Kids store
and approximately 30 Factory Outlets. The Pantaloons segment has a diversified customer
base with men, women, kids and non-apparels. The Company's brands include Louis
Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly and Peter England.
 Pantaloons Product Assortments

Home & Electronics: Options Includes: Collection I – a lifestyle furniture store; Electronics
Bazaar – offers branded electronic goods and appliances; e-zones – trendiest electronics
items; Furniture Bazaar – entire range of Home Furniture; Home Town – one stop destination
for all the home needs.

Leisure & Entertainment: Options are: Bowling co. – state-of-the-art premium family
entertainment centre, offering multiple, novel and unique leisure and entertainment options; F
123 – offers a wide range of gaining options ranging from bowling and pool to redemption
and interactive video games to bumper cars.

Wellness & Beauty: Options are : Health Village – a state-of-the art spa and yoga centre: star
& sitara: Beauty salon for men and women; Tulsi – provides access to the best allopathic,
auyrvedic and homeopathic medicinal products; Turmeric – offers beauty products like
colour cosmetics, fragrances, herbal and specialty skin items, hair products and bath
accessories.

Books & Music: Future Groups brand- “Depot” offers Books, CDs, and stationery items.
 Pantaloons Promotional Strategies
Pantaloons analyses the brand/company which covers 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion)
and explains the Pantaloons marketing strategy. The article elaborates the pricing, advertising
& distribution strategies used by the company.

The Promotional Strategies are:

1. Product: The product strategy and mix in Pantaloons marketing strategy can be
explained as follows: Pantaloons is one of the leading fashion retail brands in India.
Pantaloons offers Apparel brands for Men, Women and Kids. Along with Apparel it
also features accessories. Some of the most popular brands offered are Indusroute, SF,
BYFORD, BARE, Ajile, Factor, IZABEL, Honey, Poppers, chalk etc. Pantaloons
offers accessories from watches to shoes, bags, jewellery and perfumes. The shops are
designed in an aesthetically appealing way with excellent customer support. The
tagline of Pantaloons is “In love with Fashion”. Pantaloons offer products from
traditional outfits to high end western outfits as part of its marketing mix strategy. The
target group is the middle and upper middle class residing in Tier I, II and III cities of
the country. The have dedicated outlets and also presence in shopping malls. They
launch new products every festive season. Pantaloons have a dedicated website online
that features collections based seasons like “summer” collection, “Winter” collection
etc. They have also featured an online catalogue which is updated regularly that is in
vogue with the latest fashion available.
2. Price: Pantaloons offers value for money strategy to all its customers. Pantaloons
offer discounts during festive season. They also have end of year clear off sales. All
the goods are procured from private small-scale producers and are bundled and sold
under private labels. Pantaloons follows relationship marketing where premium is
charged for the in-store service offered by the shop. Relationship marketing has
helped bring customer service, quality and improving visibility into closer alignment.
3. Place: Pantaloons offers sales through omni channel. They have an online presence
where items can be ordered from their home website. The website of Pantaloons is
designed in accordance with keeping e-commerce strategies in place. The items are
differentiated under headings suitably. Pantaloons currently has 130 fashion stores in
40 cities and towns in India. Pantaloons has a retail space of 1.7 million square feet,
which is among the largest in India. Pantaloons stores are present widely across many
big Indian cities and towns across India.
4. Promotion: Pantaloons uses a diverse range of promotional activities to market its
brands. Pantaloons uses media like TV, print, online etc as part of its marketing mix
promotional strategy. Pantaloons also offers its flagship Green card membership. It is
 available in 4 different offerings with one, three, five and seven-star. Discounts are
offered based on the type of card the user has purchased. This has helped in providing
loyalty points which can be redeemed at every next purchase. Loyalty programs are
one the best ways of promoting, especially in the retail apparel segment. Loyal
customers of Pantaloons are always cheap to serve, they are willing to pay more for a
service and they act as brand ambassadors for the product, by word of mouth
marketing. Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make
it the 7Ps marketing mix of Pantaloons.
5. People: Pantaloons values customer service and in-store service. Pantaloons have
excellent customer engagement skills. The higher management consists of people
sourced from reputed institutes and with years of excellent experience. Also, the sales
people at Pantaloons stores are very well trained and equipped to handle queries of
customers.
6. Process: Pantaloons has several processes in place for smooth execution of its
business. The clothes are shopped from manufacturers to warehouses to the
Pantaloons retail outlets all across the country. Also, the online model ensure online
purchase, online payment and delivery at the customer doorstep. Pantaloons has
installed SAP based software to track movement and sales of products through their
retail stores. SAP has helped them in implementing ERP services which has improved
their tracking and sales of goods.
7. Physical Evidence: Pantaloons’ stores are the biggest physical evidence of the brand.
The uniqueness of stores, store planning, colour & design etc are all unique across
stores. The physical evidence also includes its loyalty cards, carry bags etc.
Pantaloons is a winner of the prestigious North-East consumer awards. It is also one
of the most preferred Fashion Retail destination of the year. Pantaloons also received
the “Emerging market Retailer of the year” award. It has also received HR excellence
awards for some of its best industry people management standards. It has also
received awards for some of the best loyalty program awards. Hence this concludes
the Pantaloons marketing mix.
Pantaloons Layout
Pantaloons Merchandise Plan

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, resources 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 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 is placed in
such a way so that consumers can easily take their wanted products. Pantaloons have their
owing 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.