Links

https://casesteam.com/darden/retail-strategy-at-spencers/

History

Spencer has a rich history in Indian retail market. It started its operaons in
Chennai in 1863. Currently the brand is owned by RP-Sanjiv Goenka group.
Spencer’s approach to retail is through four store formats – Spencer’s Express,
Spencer’s Daily, Spencer’s Super and Spencer’s Hypermarket. Spencer had a
strong presence in AP & West Bengal with a total 180 stores in the country. The
number of Hyperstores were 28 as on 2011-12. 67% of the total sales of Spencer
came from Sec A1 & A2 customers who represent 10% of the Indian Urban
populaon. Spencer’s sales from Sec B & C segment of customers who
represented 37% of Indian Urban populaon was only 33% of its total revenue.
This segment represented the future growth in the organized retail

Competition:

1. Big Bazaar was owned by Future Group and had 162 Big Bazaar stores and
43 Food Bazaar stores across 93 cies in the country. Big Bazaar ulized a
low price and high volume strategy.
2. Reliance Retail included Reliance Fresh, Reliance Retail and Relaince Mart.
Their core strategy was focussed on backward integraon.

Brand Posioning

The goal of the exisng posioning Taste the World(TTW) was to provide the
Indian Shoppers a Futurisc and Internaonal Shopping Experience. Main
takeouts of this posioning are
1. High Quality and Service image.
2. Di&erenang elements like Gourmet centre.
3. Exclusion of opening price points and rare price promoon.

However TTW posioning lead to following concerns.

1. Precepon of high prices and ‘not my store’ image among Sec B & C
customers.
2. Only a small segment of customers were loyal to Spencer.
3. Large segment of shoppers shiFed across retailers.
4. Big bazaar was perceived to be a beGer value for money store.