Sunday, August 10, 2008

Indian Retailers : Take the money quickly

One common feature that retail outlets in India have to get right it to take your money fast. In the US when you go to pay for the stuff you buy, most retailers will bend backwards to make sure the payment transaction is as quick as possible. If necessary calling additional employees to man the cash lines. This is logical, if you find the lines to pay for the stuff you bought is long you may be tempted to abandon your purchase or discouraged from buying additional items that you may have overlooked.

The retailers in Hyderabad who have the potential to improve their money taking process in my opinion are LifeStyle, Reliance World Ameerpet, FoodWorld Ameerpet, Reliance Fresh.

How can they improve:

a) Cross train staff , sometimes there were people designated as Sales who would not do anything to help out busy counters.

b) Make the process better, seems like places like Reliance World had too many fields to fill up in the forms.

I think in general people are savvy at jumping lines. I would find people walking directly into the front of the line, I guess that's something that needs to change .

On a positive note the growth of retail grocery stores in India amazes me. I would never have believed that multi nationals and chains entering the arena would out the local vendors on carts and local stores out of business. The prosperity of the Indian middle class has a lot to do with it I bet. My neighborhood in Ameerpet in Hyderabad the Nagarjuna grocery store abandoned their business and leased the store to different vendors.

Reliance seems to have expanded to a lot of businesses. This was a company I remember started off with textiles in the 70's and now are in telecom, petroleum, retail grocery, Jewelry, Shoes. They have a endowment in the Wharton School where most of the family now goes to study.

Another observation about Hyderabad is that Pharmacies( medicine shops) and Liquor stores seem to have the most concentration. :)

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