business

We did same-day grocery home delivery way back in 2013!

Couple of weeks ago one of my colleagues from KLISMA connected back after almost 7 years. Kunal Vora worked with me as an intern for 6 months in 2013 and he now works for Tesla in the US. Since Kunal was very keen to work on a supply chain project, I chose to deploy him

business

Will E-Commerce be ever able to match In-store shopping experience

Over the last 5 years variety of e-commerce platforms are trying to cater to each of these shopping needs but most of them are offering similar experiences. Instead of trying to offer category specific experience all of them are trying to catch consumer attention using deals and discounts and that too on big ticket items which actually deserve planned shopping experience.

business

Brick & mortar to click & mortar: Convenience steers sales

Food has always been one of the largest segments of retail. As much as 42% of the Indian retail industry is dedicated to food. It holds similar market shares internationally and is also the largest growing segment. After all, we think about food at least three times a day, if not more. We wonder what

business

A personal touch to retail can work wonders for sales

Replicating similar experiences to shoppers over the Internet, however, remains a tough challenge for players Last weekend, I was in Mahabaleshwar, and on the way back, my wife realised that the trip would be incomplete without any Strawberry Cream. We had just had breakfast and were quite full, but knew we couldn’t leave without having

business

Mastering new channels for enhanced shopping experiences

Shopping has never been more exciting than it is now for the modern Indian consumer. There is a lot more to shop for, a larger choice of products and services, as well as different ways in which we can shop. We are moving away from the traditional and are looking forward to new shopping experiences.

business

Simple ways to make shopping a pleasant experience

Over the weekend, I decided to visit a few stores of different formats, looking for situations that could put me off shopping or even make me feel like never visiting those stores again. I’ve always believed that it’s much less expensive to retain existing customers than to attract new ones. Identifying negative shopping experiences is

business

‘Value-for-money’ is acquiring a new meaning

I learned the most valuable lessons in retail by spending time in stores. A great way to enhance that learning is by attending conferences. I try to attend as many as I can afford (since I never seem to get any free invites!) and my most favourite events are the NRF Annual Convention and the

business

Customer joy, not sales is the key to retail success

Most modern retailers rely on simple logic to measure their success: if sales are up, business must be doing well. What they don’t consider is, you don’t have to do much to grow in India today. Modern retail accounts for 4-5% of overall trade while the number of consumers who want to shop in this

business

Rising online shopping, and not FDI, is the real threat to traditional retail

I am a big advocate of FDI and feel that the impact of FDI in India will be much larger than just benefiting farmers or adversely affecting small traders. So, when I was told that in my last piece my views on the subject seemed ambiguous, I thought I should make them more clear. Two