Marketing Management

Hindustan Unilever Limited

Area – Mumbai (Maharashtra)
Main distributor – Mr. Rajesh Thakkar
Area Sales Manager- Mr. Vishal Phate
Most selling products – Lux, Dove, Ponds, Clinic +, Fair & Lovely, Sunsilk

Q. Number of retailers, wholesalers and distributors in Mumbai. 

Ans: The numbers are as follows;

 Retailers – 10000 (approximately) including pharma stores

 Wholesalers – 350 (approximately)
 Distributor – 12 (Thakkar Enterprises in Gowandi, Shrishti Enterprises in Turbhe,
Leeladhar in Andheri)
Q. Distribution channel in Mumbai.
Ans: The distribution channel in Mumbai is;

 Shikhar – for Wholesalers (45 from Thane to Mankhurd)

 Modern Trade – for Supermarkets (74 in West Zone approx. 320 in all zones)
 General Trade – for Retail outlets (1200 in West Zone)
Q. What are the distribution gaps in this territory?
Ans. The following mentioned are the different types of distribution related gaps that have
been identified so far;
1. Few of the issues faced by HUL are that the retailers do not agree or refuse to buy
few products which are not leading in the market or which has some better
alternative as a retailer has multiple products of various companies.
2. Another major problem faced by the company is that some of their products are not
known in the market by the consumers very well such as Kotex (a sanitary napkin
product by Kimberly Clark which has stake in HUL) is rarely known because of other
big players products such as Whisper (a sanitary napkin by P&G) is well known
amongst the consumers.
3. Amidst this COVID 19 due to various government restrictions customers didn’t
preferred any brand as they just wanted to purchase the necessary groceries and not
going for any specific brands.
4. Local products or companies with only one product in their basket such as Ghadi &
Nirma are eating up the market share of Wheel & Rin as the former brands are
preferred by many consumers being an old and heavy marketing such that
consumers even remember the jingles of the advertisement.
5. Products such as Lifebuoy is preferred less in Mumbai whereas Dettol is preferred
more though Dettol came up with its disinfectants and antiseptics very late than
Lifebuoy also Lifebuoy being cheap is not considered as a quality product.
Q. What are the way forward to fulfil this gap?
Ans. The company is right now focusing on 2-3 major issues in the region, such as;
1. Providing better and more profit margin to the retailers than the competitive brands
as doing so will lure the retailers to keep the company’s product first, they are the
ones who deal with the consumers directly and face to face, and hence they can
introduce the products directly and make them purchase the product.
2. The company is not focusing more products which are not providing better sales or
are not being sold despite of great efforts rather the company decides to go with the
products which are market leader or act as a competitive product in the FMCG
market such as Domex (a disinfectant toilet cleaner product by HUL) is not focused
more as Harpic (a disinfectant toilet cleaner by Reckitt Benckiser) is the market
leader.
3. Better marketing and heavy advertising is being taken up by the company to compete
with its competitors such as “Rin Safedi Ki challenge”

# Some suggestions: -
1. To make sure that their products are well known to its customers they can go for
sponsoring various events and come up with campaigns too
2. Huggies (a baby care diaper product by Kimberly Clark) is well known by the
consumers. The product enjoys a huge market share by brand building and heavy
advertising which can be done for other products too.
3. Finding out the successful retail outlets which are selling products at a larger scale
can be reached out by the company so that they can be introduced in the area very
well by them. As simply providing more profit margin wouldn’t work.