Interview Prep

Gargi Ghosh-8641006

Q1. Summarize what you did in your projects starting from the objective to solution and
the approach used in the project.

Retail
Objective The objective is to identify opportunities & suggest solutions to grow Hershey’s Milkshake in the stores around
me.

Approach We used the following step by step approach for this project:
● Working the market & category landscape
● Identifying growth Opportunities
● Shopper behavior and Understanding
● Crafting Shopper Solutions

Data sources The major data sources we used were:

● SKU level data (for Kirana, Modern Trade and Food Store)
● Retail immersion data
● Shopper Engagement Funnel Data
● Ecom brand level data
● Creating the Shopper Questionnaire and Conducting in-depth shopper immersions to find target Shopper
Profile and their shopping missions

Opportunities The opportunities that we gathered from the analysis of the data are:
● Low forward stock share
● Less availability of flavors and SKUs
● Leak from category aisle level
● Low priced competitors

Solutions The solutions that we derived from the data analysis were:
● Enhance shelf share & availability through incentivising retailers
● Strategic placement of products to enhance visibility
● Campaigns to justify the price, increase brand awareness and benefits of the product
● Sampling and bundling to increase offtake

Ecommerce
Objective As the category manager for the Baby Care Category at Flipkart, the objective is to grow sales of the category by
focusing on online shoppers who already use E-commerce, but not necessarily for the baby care category.

Approach We used the following step by step approach for this project:
● Understanding the Category Landscape
● Finding your target audience
● Identifying growth Opportunities
● Shopper behavior and Understanding
● Crafting Shopper Solutions
Data sources The major data sources we used were:
● Ecom research
● Google Trends data
● User journey funnels
● Keyword Research
● Shopper immersion based on TG

Opportunities The opportunities that we gathered from the analysis of the data are:
● Improving landing page in comparison to competitor platforms
● Unavailability of top searched brands
● Maintaining seasonal balance for categories like baby bathing and grooming
● Driving conversions with content marketing similar to firstcry
● Lack of retargeting

Solutions The solutions that we derived from the data analysis were:
● Improving delivery time by asking sellers to partner up and have warehouses in major metros
● Improving landing page with better filters, videos, sizing guides, accurate product information
● Creating content on high volume search categories to drive traffic and conversions

Q2. Describe how you analyzed the information collected from different sources to reach
different solutions in your project.

Retail

The major data sources we used were:

● SKU level data (for Kirana, Modern Trade and Food Store),Retail immersion data,Shopper
Engagement Funnel Data. The SKU level, retail immersion and shopper engagement funnel were
provided to us by Kraftshala due to the ongoing lockdown situation.

● In the SKU level data we were given 3 parameters to judge. These were price, offtake/month, and
shelf share for three kinds of stores.From the SKU level data we compared the forward stock
share,availability of SKUs,flavors and price of Hersheys and other brands across the 3 stores.
The objective was to find out if Hersheys had an optimum forward stock share of 1, proper
availability, and price advantage.The shopper engagement funnel had data based on 200
customers who visited a modern trade and percentage wise division of the customers at each
level of the funnel.In the shopper engagement funnel, the objective was to find out at which level
the maximum leakage of customers was happening

● Ecom brand level data-We collected data like price and SKU availability for Hersheys and its
major competitors across 3 major ecommerce platforms, namely Amazon, Flipkart, Bigbasket,
and Grofers

● Creating the Shopper Questionnaire and Conducting in-depth shopper immersions to find Target
Shopper Profile and their shopping missions using telephonic interviews.We conducted in depth
shopper immersions on 30 consumers and asked questions on demographics, identification of
mission, choice of channel, category level and visibility.our objective was to find out the major
shopper profiles and missions so that we can curate the solutions according to those profiles and
missions
The opportunities/areas for improvement that we gathered from the analysis of the data are:
○ Low forward stock share
○ Less availability of flavors and SKUs
○ Leak from category aisle level
○ Low priced competitors

Ecommerce
The major data sources we used were:

● Ecom research-For the Ecom research we collected data for top 5 competitors for 15 baby care
categories like baby food, bathing, diapers,etc. This research was done across 3 platforms,
Amazon, Flipkart and Big Basket.We collected data like price, offtake (estimated by reviews),
SKU, for top 5 products for each category. The objective was to find opportunities or gaps in
terms of availability, price and offtake differences, SKUs, top brands etc. The opportunities we
could find were ability to scale up on categories like bedding , accessories gears etc and increase
their share for categories like baby health and safety.

● Google Trends data-For google trends we used seed keywords to find the trends across
categories, brand, locations and seasons wrt to baby care. The objective was to find out trends
wrt to our category and identify opportunities. The opportunities we found was the need to create
a seasonal balance for categories like baby bathing, grooming and bedding.

● Keyword Research-For keyword research we used google Keyword planner to find the high
volume keywords for each baby care category keywords having at least 5000 monthly searches
were noted. The keywords were divided into categories of problem aware, solution aware and
brand aware. For each category we checked which of the brand aware keywords were visible on
typing the solution aware keywords. The opportunities we found were that some of the top
searched brands were not coming up automatically on the flipkart baby care page. Another
objective was to have the high volume keywords for suggesting content marketing for flipkart
baby care.

● Shopper immersion based on TG and User journey funnels-We conducted a preliminary survey to
find out the TG for our category and used this TG to form a smaller group for conducting shopper
immersions .The user journey funnel data was created by taking a sample of our TG through the
Flipkart baby care category and noting their behaviour at each stage. The objective was to note
the problems of the consumers at each stage of the funnel and improve the landing page on the
basis of those problems. The opportunities identified were delivery issues, size problems, lack of
filters,accurate product information and videos.

Q3. Describe the various challenges you faced while working on the project, and how did you
overcome those?

Retail

The major challenges faced were:

● Lack of face to face interaction while explaining my ideas to the team mates. To tackle this we
used examples from the modules and case studies to explain our views to each other.

● Getting sufficient responses for surveys during the shopper immersion surveys due to the length
of the interviews.We recorded the interviews so that the time to write down their responses are
saved. The lesson was to use technology to save time.
 ● Lack of knowledge about presenting data in the PPTs. We took guidance from the expert about
data presentation during the feedback session and the lesson was to fine tune our presentation
skills for the future.

● Time management while juggling multiple projects at the same time. We scheduled the tasks
according to priority and had a bias on action approach.

Ecommerce

The major challenges faced were:

● Lack of a free tool for suggesting content marketing ideas- we used Ubersuggest for getting
content marketing ideas was difficult as the daily search limit was 3. To tackle this we went into
incognito mode and could bypass the search limits to some extent. The lesson was to keep
looking for alternatives to ubersuggest which are free.

● Getting responses on such a niche TG-Our TG of married women of age 20-29 with graduation
and minimum household income of 5 lakhs was difficult to find. But we approached social media
groups to find such women and conducted our survey. The lesson was to improve our networking
skills.

Probing questions
Retail Ecommerce

Deciding Since it was not possible for us to actually visit the Based on the highest offtakes which were estimated on
competitor markets, Kraftshala’s charter contained the major the basis of no. of reviews.
brands competitor brands of Hersheys which was Amul,
Britannia and Cavins

Shelf space of forward stock share is a major parameter to look out for NA
different SKUs in retail sales. To make sure that Hersheys has a forward
stock share of 1 or more, it was important to calculate
the shelf share.

Insights from We focused on the comparable parameters that might NA

retailer create an opportunity or gap with competitor brands.
conversations These parameters were salesmen visit, schemes,
margins, delivery time and credit days.

Structuring the The questions in the shopper immersion questionnaire The questions in the shopper immersion questionnaire
consumer were decided so that they help us in identifying the were decided so that they help us in identifying the
immersion shopper profiles and missions. The questions were shopper profiles and missions and also noting the
research focused on bringing out the inherent behaviour of the problems they faced while shopping for baby care on
consumers. flipkart.

Other Behavior The other behavior insights we could find were that more The other behavior insights we could find were that 20%
insights than 40% didnt remember seeing Hersheys on their had issues about damaged products being delivered and
shopping trips. About 20% had doubts about the health, 13% had issues related to unknown brands being shown
safety and taste of milkshakes in general. on the flipkart babycare category.