What is management?

Management refers to the process of bringing people together on a common platform and make them
work as a single unit to achieve the goals and objectives of an organization. Management is required in
all aspects of life and forms an integral part of all businesses.

Retail management
The various processes which help the customers to procure the desired merchandise from the
retail stores for their end use refer to retail management. Retail management includes all the steps
required to bring the customers into the store and fulfill their buying needs.

Retail management makes shopping a pleasurable experience and ensures the customers leave the
store with a smile. In simpler words, retail management helps customers shop without any difficulty.

Need for Retail Management - Why retail management?

You just can’t afford to make the customer wait for long. The merchandise needs to be well organized to
avoid unnecessary searching. Such situations are common in mom and pop stores (kirana stores). One
can never enjoy shopping at such stores.

Retail management saves time and ensures the customers easily locate their desired merchandise
and return home satisfied.

An effective management avoids unnecessary chaos at the store.

Effective Management controls shopliftings to a large extent.

 The retailer must keep a record of all the products coming into the store.
 The products must be well arranged on the assigned shelves according to size, colour, gender,
patterns etc.
 Plan the store layout well.
 The range of products available at the store must be divided into small groups comprising of
similar products. Such groups are called categories. A customer can simply walk up to a
particular category and look for products without much assistance.
 A unique SKU code must be assigned to each and every product for easy tracking.
 Necessary labels must be put on the shelves for the customers to locate the merchandise on their
own.
 Don’t keep the customers waiting.
 Make sure the sales representatives attend the customers well. Assist them in their shopping.
Greet them with a smile
 The retailer must ensure enough stock is available at the store.
 Make sure the store is kept clean. Don’t stock unnecessary furniture as it gives a cluttered look to
the store. The customers must be able to move freely.
 The store manager, department managers, cashier and all other employees should be trained
from time to time to extract the best out of them. They should be well aware of their roles and
responsibilities and customer oriented. They should be experts in their respective areas.
  The store manager must make daily sales reports to keep a track of the cash flow. Use softwares
or maintain registers for the same.
 Remove the unsold merchandise from the shelves. Keep them somewhere else.
 Create an attractive display.
 Plan things well in advance to avoid confusions later on.
 Ask the customers to produce bills in case of exchange. Assign fixed timings for the same. Don’t
entertain customers after a week.

What is Retail ?
Retail involves the sale of goods from a single point (malls, markets, department stores etc)
directly to the consumer in small quantities for his end use. In a layman’s language, retailing is
nothing but transaction of goods between the seller and the end user as a single unit (piece) or in small
quantities to satisfy the needs of the individual and for his direct consumption.

Retail Scope of India

Introduction

The Indian retail industry has emerged as one of the most dynamic and fast-paced
industries due to the entry of several new players. It accounts for over 10 per cent of the
country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and around 8 per cent of the employment.
India is the world’s fifth-largest global destination in the retail space.
Indian Retail Industry has immense potential as India has the second largest population
with affluent middle class, rapid urbanisation and solid growth of internet.
Market Size

India’s retail market is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of
10 per cent to US$ 1.6 trillion by 2026 from US$ 641 billion in 2016. While the overall
retail market is expected to grow at 12 per cent per annum, modern trade would expand
twice as fast at 20 per cent per annum and traditional trade at 10 per cent#. Indian retail
market is divided into “Organised Retail Market” which is valued at $60 billion which is
only 9 per cent of the total sector and “Unorganised Retail Market constitutes the rest 91
per cent of the sector.
India’s Business to Business (B2B) e-commerce market is expected to reach US$ 700
billion by 2020.## Online retail is expected to be at par with the physical stores in the
next five years.
India’s total potential of Business to Consumer (B2C) is estimated to be US$ 26 billion,
of which $3 billion can be achieved in the next three years from 16 product categories,
according to a study by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
(FICCI) and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT).
India has replaced China as the most promising markets for retail expansion, supported
by expanding economy, coupled with booming consumption rates, urbanizing
population and growing middle class.
The 4 P's of Retail
All retailers use vast amounts of data to make decisions – whom to target, how to target, when to
target, what to sell, how to sell, where to sell, etc. But the retailing “moment of truth”, for better or
worse, often falls into the hands of a salesperson.
We’ve all become frustrated with incompetent salespeople – and we might define “incompetence” as
one’s inability to help us determine what we need, find what we want, and/or make us feel like our
shopping trip was worth wile. That’s why salespeople are the “front line” for any retailer. And, any
store personnel should feel that servicing the customer is their most important job – whether they are
salespeople, stock room personnel, or floor managers.
Product, pricing, place, and people. These are the “4 P’s” of successful retailing.
A recent trip to Home Depot exemplifies this point. Having decided to buy an electrical appliance,
my husband and I searched out options online. We compared factors such as price, color, size,
brand name, retailer, and nearby store locations.
Driving to Home Depot, we knew we were making a good decision. The intended purchase was
priced lower at Home Depot vs. competitors. The color available at Home Depot was preferred to
the colors available at Lowe’s/Target. The place – Home Depot’s no-nonsense warehouse
environment – served our desire to make this trip as quick and painless as possible.
Alas, despite the website note that this product was “sold at your local store,” at the “moment of
truth,” this Home Depot was out of stock!
As I alluded to in the earlier paragraph, my story has a happy ending. The 4th P (people) was a
pleasant surprise in-store. As we walked up the aisle empty-handed, a Home Depot associate
asked how he could help and, after learning of the purpose of our shopping trip, he shockingly knew
the inventory situation “cold.” In fact, without yet consulting the computer, he told us when the store
sold its last appliance, the quantity of that particular appliance originally received by the store, and
the date when the store would receive their next replenishment… furthermore, he sensed our need
to “make this shopping trip a success” and offered to look into the inventory of nearby Home Depot
locations. About 30 seconds later, he told us good news – we could find the appliance (in fact, we
could find 3 of them!) in-stock at a Home Depot just 5-10 minutes away…
Of course, Home Depot is the world’s largest home improvements retailer so we expect it (like Wal-
mart) to benefit from intricately designed inventories, cost-controlled supply chains, and efficient
processes. But, it was a pleasant surprise to find that Home Depot can also deliver on personal,
customer-focused service-with-a-smile. Let’s just hope that Home Depot makes their in-store
inventories slightly more transparent (online) to their customers in the future so all critical information
is available before we even set foot in the store!
Shoppers Stop

Shoppers Stop is an Indian department store chain, owned by the K Raheja Corp Group. There are
83 stores across 38 cities in India, with clothing, accessories, handbags, shoes, jewellery,
fragrances, cosmetics, health and beauty products, home furnishing and decor products.

History[edit]
The first store was opened in Andheri, Mumbai in 1991.[2]
An e-store with delivery across major cities in India was launched in 2008, with a smartphone app for
smartphones in 2016.[3]

Awards [edit]
Shoppers Stop Ltd has been awarded "the Hall of Fame" and won "the Emerging Market Retailer of
the Year Award", by the World Retail Congress at Barcelona, on 10 April 2008.[4] Shoppers Stop is
listed on the BSE and National Stock Exchange of India.[5] As of 2013, Shoppers Stop had 83 stores
in India.[6]
Marketing Mix of Shoppers Stop analyses the brand/company which covers 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion)
and explains the Shoppers Stop marketing strategy. The article elaborates the pricing, advertising & distribution
strategies used by the company.
Let us start the Shoppers Stop Marketing Mix:

Product:
Shoppers Stop is one of the leading fashion retail brands in India. The product portfolio offered by Shoppers Stop is
huge as it is a retailer for fashion. The various segments of products Shoppers Stop offers are women, men, kids,
gifts and home furnishings and décor. All these help in understand the marketing mix product strategy. The men
segment is further divided into clothing, accessories, shoes, jewellery and grooming products. Similarly in the
women segment we have clothing, accessories, shoes, jewellery and beauty care products. In the kids segment we
have boys and girls clothing, shoes, clothing for infants, toys section and kids accessories. The gifts offers sweets
and chocolates, premium gifting section, instant gifting as well as gifting for special occasions. In the home
furnishings and décor segment it has kitchen and dining section, furniture, bath ware, home décor, living room
section, electronic appliances and a bedding section.
Shoppers Stop provides various international brands, domestic brands as well as some in-house brands. Shoppers
Stop has sister brands such as Crossword which sells books, Home Stop which sells home solutions, Brio and Desi
Café selling Amalgamated Bean Coffee, Hypercity which offers like a supermarket, M.A.C. which sells cosmetics
range, MotherCare which sells product from mothers and babies and TImezone which looks after the entertainment
division.
Image: company website

Price:
Shoppers Stop sells different international brands and are very competitively priced because there are many
competitors such as Wills Lifestyle, Pantaloons, Future group, Myntra, Jabong, Trendin, Snapdeal and many more.
As the market has been flooded with so many competitors, Shoppers Stop has to provide discounts and has to come
up with various sale events all throughout the year to sustain in the market. The discounts are generally placed on
old stocks and new arrivals are generally not discounted. The apparels offered by Shoppers Stop can be found from
very low prices brands of 300 and goes up to around Rs. 10000 for designer collections. The prices also vary
according to categories also and the items to be purchased. Generally for the women there is a much wider variety as
they shop more frequently and cover a more varied range of prices and brands. This gives an insight in the Shoppers
Stop pricing strategy in its marketing mix.

Place:
Shoppers Stop has presence in 35+ cities in India with 80+ stores in total which are present strategically all over the
country. Hypercity, Home Stop, Crossword, MotherCare stores are also spread across India. Shoppers Stop also has
presence in e-tailing where we can access the product through online and mobile apps which has access to over 1200
towns and cities. Shoppers Stop has 4 regional distribution centres which work 24x7 to provide timely movement of
the products to various stores all over the country.

Promotion:
Shoppers Stop uses print and online media as effective tools to advertise. Promotions of Shoppers Stop are mostly
focused on advertisements of various kinds. It has print advertisements, outdoor advertisements such as billboards
and other major places across cities. Shoppers Stop also ties up with many other companies to produce specialised
apparels. Print advertisements has been used to showcases latest fashion and trends available at its stores. Shoppers
Stop has First Citizen loyalty programs which has tied up Citibank credit cards to provide members with extra
benefits. It is also using the online platform to make a dominance over various social networking sites such as
Facebook and Twitter and opening YouTube channel named ‘Style Hub’. Shoppers Stop also has various sales
promotion which its customers wait for such as the ‘End of Season Sale’ and other regular sales promotion.
Shoppers Stop also conduct various social responsibility activities such as partnering with NGOs, providing
vocational trainings for youth and training the handicapped for livelihood.

Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it the 7Ps marketing mix of Shoppers
Stop.

People:
Shoppers Stop also focuses on enhancing the skill sets of its employees by continuously coaching them. Also
various workshops are conducted for the employees to maintain quality of the employees. Fair evaluations and
timely assessments are done for building leadership qualities among its employees. The frontline staff of Shoppers
Stop are timely updated with the help of various training modules. Also. To enhance knowledge they are also
updated with various technologies for enhancing efficiency in various processes. Shoppers Stop also enhances skills
of its customer care representatives by career planning and trainings. It conducts satisfaction surveys of the
representatives which helps in redefining the various policies to employee loyalty. Shoppers Stop has an employee
base of around 7400+ and timely recruitment of qualified staff is done to cater to the needs of the customers and
handling various functions. Shoppers Stop also has venues for training the executives such as the F.L.E.X. program
which trained 176 department managers in 2016 to enhance the capabilities of various stores. Other learning systems
are in place through the online platform to provide timely updates and rectify flaws in the processes.

Process:
Shoppers Stop has got various processes and frameworks. The layout of the Shoppers Stop stores are quite
standardized and has ground floor having cosmetics, watches, perfumes and other accessories. The 1st floor has
clothing accessories and the 2nd floor has shoes, formal apparels. The customers are provided with facilities of
keeping baggage at a counter and entry through all the floors. To enhance customer experience they are provided
with physical trial rooms by Shoppers Stop as well as virtual trial rooms which are online systems which provide
real feel of wearing the garment. The checkout counters are placed on all the floors with multiple counters for
speedier checkouts. During checkouts loyalty program members are given benefits of reimbursing points or
gathering them as well as getting new customers.
To provide the best merchandise on the Shoppers Stop stores on the right places, specialized teams are in place.
These teams fix the clothing line ups starting from colour to style and latest trends. Shoppers Stop also has a wide
base of suppliers which are chosen after stringent evaluations and other alternate venues are in place to mitigate the
adverse situations. Various IT systems are there to manage the backend processes as well as enhance the online
shopping experiences. Customers are also asked for feedback through online channels for gauging there shopping
experiences.

Physical Evidence:
Shoppers Stop stores have more than 300 brands of apparels arranged in various places in the store and properly
sorted according to the various segments so as to enhance the customer experience. The frontline staff of Shoppers
Stop provides assistance to these customers in terms of consultation about latest trends and sizes and help in trials.
They also guide them to various segment of the stores. Customers are also provided with trial rooms to try their
outfits and choose according to their tastes. Customers are also provided with trolley bags to carry multiple items.
They are also helped with the billing and packing process at the checkout counters. In the online format customers
are provided with speedier deliveries and customer buyer guide to follow them through with purchase and make
choices. This gives a summary of the Shoppers Stop marketing mix.
About Shoppers Stop:
Shoppers Stop is a player in the retail industry. Shoppers Stop has become one of the leading fashion retailer in its
25 year journey. It was initiated in 1991 by the K Raheja Group in Mumbai with men’s apparel. Shoppers Stop has
diversified through years and has built specialized stores in various segment in the form of sister stores. It had
earned a revenue of Rs. 34+ Billion. Shoppers Stop has got an employee strength of over 14000 and has reach over
38 cities in all over India and many more through its online platform. Shoppers Stop is currently the only member to
be in the league Intercontinental Group of Departmental Stores which has various big retailers such as Karstadt in
Germany, Selfridges in England and Manor in Switzerland. Shoppers Stop has been also winning words since 2000.
Recently it has been chosen as the ‘The Most Respected Company in Retail’ by Business World.