"Retail Branding in India:

Past, present and future"

- by Shalu Jhunjhunwala & Shana Sood

XIM, Bhubaneswar .
KARAN BANGIA
PGDM-II A
Roll No.- 27
Brand :-A brand is the identity of a specific 
product, service, or business. A brand can take
many forms, including a name, sign, symbol,  
color combination or slogan.

BRANDING - The marketing practice of
creating a name, symbol or design that
identifies and differentiates a product
from other products. An effective brand
strategy gives you a major edge in
increasingly competitive markets. 
 Branding and Retail
Branding:
• Retail branding is different from just branding
because here the store has to match the branding
with performance. Thus retail branding has to
deliver both tangible and intangible benefits all in
one and all at once.
• The development of the "whole branding view"*
entails creating the store as brand and enforcing
this "retail brand" at every point of contact between
the prospect and the store.
• The very essence of this concept is that branding is
not merely a synonym for marketing a product, but
it is rather the whole host of activities that define
and deliver a purchasing experience.
 Retailing and India
Consider success stories like Shopper's Stop, Subhiksha,
Foodworld etc. and the following statistics:
• Retail is India's largest industry, largest source of employment
after agriculture, has the deepest penetration in rural India, and
generates more than 10% of India's GDP.
• In India the retail market is large with sales amounting to $180
billion and accounting for 10-11% of the GDP.
• India has largest retail outlet density in the world with close to 10
million outlets today
All these points together collaborate to prove that Retailing is
going to go from strength to strength in the future.
In India the retail segment is still in the growth phase. Most of the
retailers are new entrants. Most of the growth has been in the big
cities and slowly the same cult will catch up in other cities.
 The concept of Power Shift
 In the Industrial age 'knowledge economy' was
the focus area.
 Today, the economy is customer driven.
Concepts like CRM are becoming very important in
the field of management.
 In such a situation the manufacturers have no
way but to be dependent on the retailers to provide
them with customer information.
 The retailers are the only people in the entire
value chain that have direct interaction with
customers.
 They maintain databases of customer
requirements, complaints, etc. Such databases are
priceless for manufacturers and so there is a clear
shift of power from the manufacturer to the
retailer.
 Important Criteria in Retail
Branding
• In today's customer driven economy the
power has shifted from the manufacturer to
the retailer. He has gained prominence and
the entire economy is becoming retailer-
driven.
• Supply chain management is a very
important criterion for successful retail
branding. It is the core of retailing and
firms like Wal-Mart have successfully used
IT to improve their vendor management
 Different Branding Strategies
• Integrated branding:
Here the retailer is in direct link with the manufacturer. He is required to
possess complete knowledge about the possible developments in the
product in the future. The retailer is involved in process beginning from
idea generation to branding the product.
• Contract Branding:
The retailer outsources from an existing supplier. The supplier is
completely responsible for the product. The participation of the retailer
is limited to the specifications regarding quantity, price and brand.
• Independent Branding:
Here the retailer simply procures from the supplier at the lowest
possible cost and the entire branding investment is his own. The retailer
is like the owner of the brand and holds complete responsibility for it's
performance. Such brands are known as 'Private Labels'.
 Private Labels

Today since retailer margins are

falling all over the world, they
are looking for alternative
sources of income. Private labels
are one such source due to
which they are gaining
prominence. In the article they
have developed a checklist for
what is important for successful
Private Labelling.
 Different Pricing Strategies
for Private Labels
1. Copycat pricing: Here the retailer simply
prices his brand lower than the other existing
brands 

2. Parallel pricing: Here the retailer prices his

brand equal to the other competing brands

3. Premium pricing: Here the retailer prices his

brand higher than the other competing brands
since he wants the brand to have a snob value
attached to it
 Positioning Strategies
Retailers can adopt different positioning
strategies based on product, price,
experience and service.

 Product 

This refers to the category mix, and within

each category - the width and depth of
merchandise on offer, and its quality related
selection. It also refers to the choice of
merchandise - whether it is on the leading
edge or trailing edge of innovation or fashion..
 Service 

This refers to operational parameters such as

"availability" of the promised merchandise at all times -
in expected sizes, shapes, colours and assortment.
Service can also refer to policies such as "returns" or
"exchanges", "warranties and guarantees" and
availability of qualified personnel to assist customer
queries.
 Experience 

This is a crucial intangible and can be a function of

several factors like overall store ambience, ease of
shopping in terms of layout of merchandise, labelling,
check-out convenience and speed, access to the store
itself including parking, customer relationship effort
from the store management etc. Lifestyle and Shoppers
Stop have differentiated themselves on this attribute.
 Price 

Low price itself can be the most important

parameter in some instances, but more
importantly, it can also imply the
"appropriate price" as perceived by the
consumer after subjectively assessing the
impact of the other three variables
mentioned above. Outlets like Wal-Mart in
the US and Margin Free in Kerala have used
low prices as their USP.