Sales Promotion Activities of Reliance Retail

Manish Kumar Khare, Research Scholar, MBA Department, RKDF Institute of management
Prof. Milind Limaye, SRK University

Introduction: Promotion is one of the key 4 P’s in marketing mix and as such has a key role to
play in market success. It is concerned with ensuring that customers are aware of the products
that an organization makes available to the consumers. The different types of benefits to the
customer are: monetary saving, quality, convenience, value expression, exploration and
entertainment.

Reliance Retail Limited (RRL) :

RRL is subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited and it opened its first retail store in Nov 2006
and today operates 800 stores in 60 cities, spanning 14 states with over 3.8 million sq ft. RRL is a
multi format retailer that operates Reliance Fresh (a neighborhood store concept); Reliance
Digital ( a computer durables and information technology concept) ; Reliance Mart (a hyper
market concept). Reliance Trends ( an apparel specialty concept); Reliance Wellness ( a health,
wellness and beauty concept), iStore (an Apple specialty store concept), Reliance Footprint( a
footwear concept); Reliance Jewels( a jewelry concept); Reliance Time ( a books, music and
entertainment concept); Reliance Super( a minimart concept), Reliance living homeware (a
household utility specialty store concept), Reliance home kitchen ( a kitchen solution specialty
store ) Reliance AutoZone( an automotive specialty concept)
Reliance is gearing up to revolutionize the retailing industry in India with pan-India network of
retail outlets in multiple formats with a world class shopping environment, state of art
technology, a seamless supply chain infrastructure, a host of unique value-added services and
above all an unmatched customer experience. The initiative of Reliance will be without a parallel
in size and spread and make India proud. It would be ensuring better returns to Indian farmers
and manufacturers and greater value for the Indian consumer both in quality and quantity.
Plans include providing some innovative and unique services to the shoppers such as tailoring,
shoe repair, watch repair, a photo shop, laundry services and gifting services under a single roof.
The facility of fresh bakery services will be all time available under the brand name “hot off the
oven”.
Vimal, a well known fabric brand of Reliance Industries will have store within its hypermarkets
and will offer custom tailoring services. Reliance Retail is building a vigorous and state of art
supply chain infrastructure to cover the entire country along with setting up its own cold storage
chain . It is expected to provide direct employment for half a million people and indirect
employment to two million.
To woo the customers, Reliance Mart will keep on offering versatile offers to all its customers
with “Reliance One”,a common membership and loyalty programme across all its formats which
follow the philosophy of “ Earn anywhere, spend anywhere”

Objective of the study:

To analyze the sales promotion activities of Relaince Retail
To analyze the customers view towards sales promotional offers
To analyze sales promotional tools within the retail store

Methodology:
 • Preparation of Instrument for a sample of 100 respondants using convenience sampling
method
• Undertaking data collection from 100 respondents
• Data Analysis and Interpretation
• Documentation of findings

Customer Instrument and Findings

A B C D E Significant Findings
1 Do you Yes No 78% Yes
frequently visit 22 % No
Reliance retail?
2 Reason for Promotion Discount Range Locatio Other 22 % Promotional offers 20%
your visit al offers Offers of n of the reaso Discount Offers 36 % Range of
items store ns items, 16 % Location of the
store 6 % others
3 How did you Through Through Throug Other 22 % Advertisements 36 %
come to know Advertise friends h mediu Friends and Relatives 20 %
about Reliance ments and hoardin m hoardings/ newspaer
Retail? relatives gs/
newspa
per
4 Rating the Very Less Not at 88 % very attractive 10 % less
attractiveness attractive attractive all attractive
of the attracti
advertisement? ve
5 Rating the Highly Satisfactor Averag Dissatis Highly 38 % highly satisfactory 56 %
quality of items satisfactor y e factory dissati satisfactory 4% Average 2 %
as per the y sfacto dissatisfied and 0 % highly
advertisement ry dissatisfied
6 Does the Yes No 88% Yes
advertisement 12 % No
attract you to
purchase items
How do you Great Good Not Not Not 62 % Great 20% Good 10 %
7 feel while satisfie satisfie satisfi Not satisfied with
shopping in d with d with ed arrangement of product and
Reliance arrange the with 6% Not satisfied with the
Retail? ment of promoti range promotional offers 2% Not
product onal of satisfied with range of
offers produ products
cts
8 How do you Good Average Poor 76 % Good 20 % Average 4 %
rate the Poor
presentation of
products?
9 How do you Good Average Poor 88 % Good 10 % Average 2 %
 rate the Poor
arrangement of
products?
10 Is price clearly Yes No 98 % yes 2 % No
written on the
product / shelf
11 Do you think Yes No 82 % yes 18 % No
offers are
clearly
presented
through
displays in
Reliance Retail
12 How do you Good Average Poor 64 % Good 30 % Average 6 %
rate the range Poor
of products?
13 Does the Yes No 56 % yes 44 % No
display and
promotional
offers informed
in the store
attracts you ?
14 Which types of Discounts Extra 1+1 Adverti 34 % Discounts 22 % Extra
promotional offers offer sement Offers 24% 1+1 offer 16%
activities s Advertisements
attract
customers
15 How do you Good Average Poor 46 % Good 32 % Average 22 %
rate the Poor
customer
schemes of the
company?
16 Do you think Yes No 88 % yes 12 % No
due to displays
it is easy to
shop in
Reliance retail
?
17 Does the sales Yes No 72 % yes 28 % No
promotion
activities of
Reliance Retail
made you visit
reliance retail
again ?
18 Your overall Good Average Poor 56 % Good 38 % Average 6 %
shopping Poor
 experience due
to offers and
discounts?

Limitations of the Research:

• Limited Respondents
• Respondents may be biased
• Lack of time
• Limited Resources

Suggestions given were as follows:

• Company must concentrate on TV Advertisements
• Advertisements must be endorsed by celebrity
• Frequency of advertisement must be more
• Advertisement must be at right location and right time
• Regular customer feedback must be taken for analyzing the effectiveness of the advertisement
• Promotion strategy must be revised
• Sales promotion offers must be attractive
• Sales promotion activities must be more aggressive
• Customer Sales promotion activities must be increased
• Discount offers and free gifts offers must be increased

References:

Books:
Kotler Philip (2006) Marketing Management, Pearson PHI, New Delhi
Saxena Rajan (2007) Marketing Management Tata Mcgraw Hill, New Delhi
Malhotra Nares (2007) Marketing Research ( An applied orientation) Pearson PHI
Shankar Ravi(2008) Services Marketing (the Indian Perspective) Excel Book, New Delhi
Nargundkar Rajendra (2008) Marketing Research Tata McGrow Hill Publishing

Websites:
www.citehr.com
www.managementparadise.com
www.ibef.org
www.imature.in/didymous