Retail management assignment on Pantaloons retail limited

9/4/2009 IBS-PUNE SUBMITTED BY- NAMITA BHAIRAVIYA

Contents
About pantaloons...................................................................................................................................... 3 Target market and Positioning of Pantaloons .......................................................................................... 3 Store location ............................................................................................................................................ 4 Traffic .................................................................................................................................................... 4 Accessibility of the market .................................................................................................................... 4 Visibility ................................................................................................................................................. 4 Total number of stores and the type of stores that exist in the area ................................................... 4 Product Mix Offered ............................................................................................................................. 4 Pricing.................................................................................................................................................... 4 Store layout ............................................................................................................................................... 5 Store design- Store Exteriors & Store Interior .......................................................................................... 7 Music ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 Store security ........................................................................................................................................ 9 Space Allocation and Utilization ............................................................................................................... 9 Furniture and fixtures- .......................................................................................................................... 9 Walk Ways and Entries:- ....................................................................................................................... 9 Merchandise ....................................................................................................................................... 10 Display Areas, Walkways & doors ........................................................................................................... 10 Categories and private labels .................................................................................................................. 11 Assortment and Variety .......................................................................................................................... 11 SWOT analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 12 Marquees ................................................................................................................................................ 14 Promotion Strategy ................................................................................................................................. 14 Gift vouchers ........................................................................................................................................... 15 IT System ................................................................................................................................................. 16 Maintenance & Hardware................................................................................................................... 16 Future projects .................................................................................................................................... 17 Analysis ................................................................................................................................................... 17 Conclusion and recommendations ......................................................................................................... 18 References .............................................................................................................................................. 18

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

About pantaloons
Pantaloon Retail is the flagship enterprise of the Future Group, with a presence across multiple lines of business. The company owns and manages multiple retail formats that cater to a wide cross-section of Indian society. Headquartered in Mumbai (Bombay), the company operates through four million square feet of retail space, has over 140 stores across 32 cities in India and employs over 14,000 people... Pantaloon Retail forayed into retail in 1997 with the launching of its fashion retail chain, Pantaloons in Kolkata. In 2001, it launched Big Bazaar, a hypermarket chain. This was followed by Food Bazaar, a food and grocery chain. Next up was Central, a first of its kind located in the heart of major Indian cities. Some of its other formats include, Collection I (home improvement products), E-Zone (consumer electronics), Depot (books, music, gifts and stationary), ALL (a Little Larger, fashion apparel for plus-size individuals), Shoe Factory (footwear) and Blue Sky (fashion accessories). It has recently launched its e-business venture, futurebazaar.com. The group's subsidiary companies include, Home Solutions Retail India Ltd, Pantaloon Industries Ltd, Galaxy Entertainment and Indus League Clothing. The group also has joint venture companies with a number of partners including French retailer Team group, Lee Cooper, Manipal Healthcare, Talwalkar's, Gini & Jony and Liberty Shoes. Planet Retail, a group company owns the franchisee of international brands like Marks & Spencer, Debenhams, Next and Guess in India.

Target market and Positioning of Pantaloons

Pantaloons are positioned as a department store catering to the middle and upper-middle class sections at each of its locations. Its core offering is branded merchandise, retailing international, national and regional brands as well as private and proprietary labels.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Today, a leader in Fashion Pantaloons promises Fresh Fashion for the entire family as well as the young and the young-at-heart. The belief is that they will be the key drivers of fashion. Thus it is a store focusing on providing a value for money proposition as it provides quality fashion products at an affordable price as compared to the competitors.

Store location
The location of a retail store occupies an important place in retail strategy. It not only conveys the image of the store, but also influences the merchandise mix and the interior layout of the store. While the merchandise mix can be changed and prices can be adjusted, it is difficult to change the decision on store location.
Traffic

The traffic pedestrian as well as vehicular that passes the site is an important determinant of the potential sales that can be generated from a store. A pantaloon is known to have good parking space wherever its located.
Accessibility of the market

Accessibility of a market is defined in terms of the availability of public transport and road/local trains connections to the markets. It is mostly located in posh locality in the center of the city. Further the easy availability of transport facilitates makes the location really accessible for shopping.
Visibility

Pantaloons is situated very close to the main road. Pantaloons being a three floor building have great visibility. To enhance the visibility pantaloons has put its sign board on the top of the building.
Total number of stores and the type of stores that exist in the area

Its presence area encompasses stores like Lifestyle, Trent; Adidas.which directly compete with Pantaloons. This is really disadvantageous for Pantaloons.
Product Mix Offered

The kind of product mix to be offered by the retailer is another important consideration. As mentioned earlier the main product line of Pantaloons is mens and womens clothing and other accessories comprising a vigilant mix of private as well as other labels... Since Pantaloons provides products to a potentially large number of customers at affordable prices, it falls in the High Turnover - Low Margin Category
Pricing

Pantaloons visual merchandising is creative, innovative and outstanding which can be seen from its own in house private brands such as John Miller. All the merchandise is placed at both 360 degree and 180 degrees. The new launched products are showed by prominent color back ground. Window display is highly interactive for impulsive buyer. Price range is average.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Store layout
Pantaloons follows a free form store layout. No particular format is followed anything is placed anywhere but strategically. Pantaloons fall under following categories- Departmental stores, Malls, E-retailers Here when it comes to arranging the clothes, same type of clothes are put up together in different sizes so that same clothes are available for every size at one point only.

Ground Level Ladies Formal Ladies Denim Cosmetics and Fragrances Fine Jwellery Blue Sky (Sunglasses and Watches) Fashion Accessories Customer Service Desk

First level Spring (Designer wear for men and women)Ladies Formal Ladies Ethnic Night ware and Lingerie Kids Wear Infant Necessities

Second Level Mens Occasions Wear Mens Formal Mens Ethnic Denim Wear Mens Casuals Active Wear , Sporting Goods Teen Boys Mens Washroom Drinking Water

Layout of Pantaloons store Toys

Footwear Ladies Wash Room Drinking Water

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Being a department store, Pantaloons exhibits an arrangement of merchandise in a freeform layout. Such a layout allows free movement and also encourages people to browse and shop with convenience. The floor space is allocated on the basis of the contribution of a particular department to business. As such, the Mens department has been assigned an entire floor. The total area of the entire store is approximately 50000sq.ft. However the most disappointing aspect about the layout was the presence of Toilets, Trial rooms and drinking water at adjacent places. This format was exhibited by all the three floors of the

store. The layout of the store is modified on a regular basis by shifting the fixtures and display of the merchandise so that the customers develop a feel of novelty in the store.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Store design- Store Exteriors & Store Interior

Pantaloons follows a theme based interior, like a corner is assigned to every brand and that brand put up its product as per its liking. Also the posters and ads for discounts and offers for them are put up there only Exteriors of pantaloons stores are very attractive & eye catchy. They put up fresh fashion collections on the dummies on the entrance.

The exterior appearance of a store silently announces what customers can expect inside. Good exterior visual merchandising attracts attention, creates interest and invites the customer into the business
Exterior Store Design

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

The location of the building is very prominent. It is very much closer to the main road. It has a modern look which is further enhanced by the silver finish as well as the green color appropriately resembling the brand. The name Pantaloons Urbania at the top of the building further enhances the stores visibility. The clothes and accessories available in the store are nicely put up at the windows of the building. At night the building is brightly lit up. The focus is largely on the name plate at the top. The entrance has an automatic door closing system. There is always someone to greet the customers entering the shop. Towards the immediate right of the entrance is the baggage counter. Also a wheel chair is kept for the disabled. As one proceeds, there is a customer grievances desk and a counter for green card members. A couch has also been placed near the desk, which is really comforting in case of a queue.
Interior Store design Flooring and Ceiling

The interior layout generates good brand associations through appropriate color combinations. The white color of the walls and floor coupled with the green color of the visual merchandise helps in portraying the brand effectively.
Graphics and Sign ages

Exactly opposite to the entrance gate of the store is a store directory mentioning the various sections/departments of the entire store (Ground, First and Second floors). On the right hand side wall is a sign gage (exactly opposite to the customer grievances desk) indicating the promotional schemes? However the directional signs are not quiet visible.
Lighting

Good lighting in a store involves more than illuminating space. Lighting is used to highlight merchandise, sculpt face and capture a mood feeling that enhances the store image. White lighting has been majorly used in the store so that the customers can identify the requisite colors of the apparels. For lightening mostly focus lights are used for the clothes that are hanged on wall white lights are used but for toys section as well as shoes section yellow lights are used and even for the traditional wear yellow lights are used as this light match with the color of the products put up there and even make them look more eye catchy and attractive. Stores have transparent flooring furnished floorings.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Music mostly there is rock as well as soft music no particular music beat is followed. Store security- well they have ample staff available with them to guide as well as to keep a

check on the customers. Also they have cc cameras put up at various spots.

Space Allocation and Utilization

Furniture and fixtures-

Goods are effectively displayed on a variety of fixtures such as gondolas, tables, cubes, mannequins, waterfalls and other racks, display cases and manufacturer point- of -purchase display.
Walk Ways and Entries:-

Approximately 75 % of first time customers remember a stores entrance, which provides the first and last view of the stores interior. A cluttered entryway causes shoppers to indefinitely postpone entering a store, while an attractive, well designed entrance is inviting to the customers and thats what pantaloons provides.
Sound type and density

Instrumental music is played over loud music in the store making the shopping environmental more serene and calm
Odor type and density

Like sound, odor too has a negative or positive impact on the atmosphere of the store. The strength (density) of the odor is also important. This is because, even if the odor is right but too strong or intense, the ultimate impact generated by it is negative. Considering pantaloons, perfumes or room fresheners are aired through the air conditioners.
Visual merchandising- Merchandise Type and Density

One can come across campaign graphics in the store with merchandise places near them. Mannequins are displayed with accessories to generate impulse purchases. Spot lights are also focused on the visual merchandise so as to gain the attention of the customers. Pantaloon focuses on the latest fashion apparels. No rack is kept empty as it may create a negative impression in the minds of the customers. E.g. Concerning the T shirts department (especially in case of UMM Brand), one t shirt of a particular color or design is displayed, while next to it, on a shelf the same T shirt but with different colors is displayed.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Fixtures

Detachable fixtures with smooth edges are maintained in the store especially in the kids segment.
Packaging

The Products purchased by the Customers are packed in green colored Recyclable Plastic Bags. The bag is sealed with a tape bearing a statement Thank you for shopping ant Pantaloons on it.
Merchandise

Pantaloons have applied the concept of category management in its day-to-day merchandising function as against the traditional brand management merchandising practice followed by most retailers. Category managers look at sales and margins of each brand in a category. The whole idea of category management is to create products across length and breadth of a category at different price points, fabrics, design, shape, seasons, color and size.

They are characterized by a broad variety, deep assortment. The Category manager develop a merchandising strategy for the category taking into consideration customer profile, classification, resource structure, vendors, fashion trends, items and price points. The category manager visit stores regularly to check assortments of merchandise displays, stock levels and old season merchandise, consult with team leaders and sales people on problems and suggestions. Although no concrete information was provided with respect to the ways of forecasting the sales and inventory planning, it was highlighted that a buffer stock of approximately 10-12% of the total stock is maintained in the store.

Display Areas, Walkways & doors

Pantaloons stores have very attractive display areas, in which they put the dummies, accessories & all. They have a broad walkway & doorways. Also there are small screens put up at various corners which are most visible, and which they show case ads of their own as well as other brands available there. Here each rack are placed in such a way so that consumers can easily take their wanted products. Pantaloons have their own in house brands in Apparel as well as different sections. Pantaloons visual merchandising is creative, innovative and outstanding which can be seen from its own in house private brands such as John Miller. All the merchandise are placed at both 360 degree and 180 degrees. The new launched products are showed by prominent color back ground. Window display is highly interactive for impulsive buyer.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Categories and private labels

serial no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17. 18. Private Label Pantaloon Trousers Bare Denim John Miller Shrishti Scotsville Scotsville Annabelle Agile Mix n match Honey Akkriti Lombard Trishaa UMM Ghagroos Remanika Urban Yoga Jealous Category Mens Wear Jeans, Knitwear, gabardine, jackets, and other accessories. Shirts Ladies wear Winter wear, sweaters and blazers Ladies western wear Ladies western wear, formal wear Sports wear Buying separates and combining Western wear brand for young girls Mens ethnic wear Classic English formal wear Stitching salwarkammez Trendy sports and utility wear Mens Ethnic wear Ladies wear, kurties Mens wear Girls wear

Assortment and Variety

Pantaloons typically fall in the High Assortment High Variety quadrant. Although the assortment and variety in each of the categories is high, depth is emphasized upon in case of core merchandise categories such as mens formal wear, mens casuals and sportswear. Conversely, the typical fashion apparels and accessories are dominant on the Width front.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

High Variety

Low assortment

High assortment

Low Variety

SWOT analysis
Strength: -Brand equity and early mover advantage; Entrepreneur led, professionally managed by an experienced team; Project execution and operations capabilities; Vast range of lifestyle and value retail products and services; Strong distribution and logistics network and supply chain; strong distribution and logistics network, with our 21 distribution centers covering; and Large base of customers and Strong focus on systems and processes; Retailing is a "technology-intensive" industry. It is technology that will help the organized retailers to score over the unorganized retailers. Successful organized retailers today work closely with their vendors to predict consumer demand, shorten lead times, reduce inventory holding and ultimately save cost. Example: Wal-Mart pioneered the concept of building competitive advantage through distribution & information systems in the retailing industry. They introduced two innovative logistics techniques, cross-docking and EDI (electronic data interchange). On an average a super market stocks up to 5000 SKU's against a few hundred stocked with an average unorganized retailer. It is the main sponsor in Femina Miss India. Strong management team Brand recognition and reputation and Diversity and variety in products offered on the web (footwear, apparel, sporting equipment etc.) Strong control over its own distribution channel No bad reputation like child labor or environment pollution

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Weakness- Weaknesses found can be the opportunities of improvements. The No of outlets available in the locations of pantaloons are very low. It does not have a strong presence everywhere. Promotional Cost Vs Revenue Less Conversion level: Despite high footfalls, the conversion ratio has been very low in the retail outlets in a mall as compared to the standalone counter parts. It is seen that actual conversions of footfall into sales for a mall outlet is approximately 20-25%. On the other hand, a high street store of retail chain has an average conversion of about 50-60%. As a result, a stand-alone store has a ROI (return on investment) of 25-30%; in contrast the retail majors are experiencing a ROI of 8-10%. Customer Loyalty: Retail chains are yet to settle down with the proper merchandise mix for the mall outlets. Since the stand-alone outlets were established long time back, so they have stabilized in terms of footfalls & merchandise mix and thus have a higher customer loyalty base. High prices in some products E-retailing is limited limited variety of products available online direct sale to consumers is creating conflicts with its own resellers online customer service not "helpful" or easy to find Opportunity- the Indian middle class is already 30 Crore & is projected to grow to over 60 Crore by 2010 making India one of the largest consumer markets of the world. The IMAGESKSA projections indicate that by 2015, India will have over 55 Crore people under the age of 20 - reflecting the enormous opportunities possible in the kids and teens retailing segment. Organized retail is only 3% of the total retailing market in India. It is estimated to grow at the rate of 25-30% p.a. and reach INR 1, 00,000 Crore by 2010. Percolating down- In India it has been found out that the top 6 cities contribute for 66% of total organized retailing. While the metros have already been exploited, the focus has now been shifted towards the tier-II cities. The 'retail boom', 85% of which has so far been concentrated in the metros is beginning to percolate down to these smaller cities and towns. The contribution of these tier-II cities to total organized retailing sales is expected to grow to 20-25%. Rural Retailing: India's huge rural population has caught the eye of the retailers looking for new areas of growth. ITC launched India's first rural mall "Chaupal Saga" offering a diverse range of products from FMCG to electronic goods to automobiles, attempting to provide farmers a onestop destination for all their needs." Hariyali Bazar" is started by DCM Sriram group which provides farm related inputs & services. The Godrej group has launched the concept of 'agristores' named "Adhaar" which offers agricultural products such as fertilizers & animal feed along with the required knowledge for effective use of the same to the farmers. Pepsi on the other hand is experimenting with the farmers of Punjab for growing the right quality of tomato for its tomato purees & pastes.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Collaborate with other online retailers to offer its products Possibility of outsourcing the web development and e-commerce to a third party developer new avenues for opening of outlets. And Increase the promotional activities. Threats- Increase in the Price of Raw materials Pantaloon strong reputation in the apparel industry Identify the Threats - competitors activities More number of outlets of competitors available in the surrounding If the unorganized retailers are put together, they are parallel to a large supermarket with no or little overheads, high degree of flexibility in merchandise, display, prices and turnover. Shopping Culture: Shopping culture has not developed in India as yet. Even now malls are just a place to hang around with family and friends and largely confined to window-shopping.
Competition within vicinity-

Pantaloons is mostly located in same place as its competitors. Like in Baroda and even in Pune is in a mall so its very much nearby its competitors. Its major competitors are Westside, Globus, and central.

Marquees
A special type of sign is used to display the name of the store. It is used to announce a change in season, sale, a special event or a promotion.

Promotion Strategy
Hoardings: Pantaloon puts its hoarding at prime locations, featuring the upcoming Fashion events or its brand ambassadors who are generally eminent celebrity. Category manager plans promotions / brand or product building schemes. The category manager identifies slow movers and also disposal plan for the same.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Loyalty program

Gift vouchers

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

IT System
IT system at Pantaloon stores is fully centralized; the report of daily sales is being reported to head office in Germany. Pantaloon Retail selected the entire suite of Connected Retailer solutions to take them into the future of retailing. They purchased Connected Retailer Store, Merchandising, Planning, Sales Analytics, and CRM. At the core of their systems is the Connected Retailer Merchandising Solution, which streamlines operations, unifies asset management, and helps retailers learn the truth about their business. This powerful retail enterprise solution features an open-architecture design that provides unprecedented flexibility, scalability, power, and control merchandisings centralized transactional database and support tools enable retailers to make and execute better decisions based on accurate, current, and shared information. By using consistent data to guide all processes, the solution automatically synchronizes and integrates all key functions, including planning, ordering, pricing, flow, sales, margins, and inventory management Connected Retailer. Bar Coding and Scanners: Point of sale systems use scanners and bar coding to identify an item, use pre-stored data to calculate the cost and generate the total bill for a client. Payment: Payment through credit cards has become quite widespread and this enables a fast and easy payment process. CRM Systems: Data warehousing & mining technologies offer consumer data and apply it to business. This, along with the various available CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Systems, allows the study of the buying behavior of consumers in detail and grows the value of individual consumers to their businesses. SAP implementation is not a single phase process. The project was divided into three phases. The first phase involved blueprinting existing processes and mapping them to the desired state. In this phase, the entire project team worked on current processes within the structure of the organization, analyzed and drafted them. This blueprint was later used in the formation of new states of the solution. Since the SAP would combine all the processes, each and every one of these had to be evaluated. In the second phase, the SAP platform was developed with the help of Nova softs template which was predefined by SAP after evaluation of Pantaloons needs and expertise in retail solutions. The last phase in this project was for stores to switch over to the new system and for current data to be ported. Before the SAP implementation, all the data was unorganized. This data had to be migrated to the new SAP application.
Maintenance & Hardware

This application is currently being used by around 1,200 employees across the organization. For maintaining this implementation and its related applications, Pantaloon has an in-house team and it has outsourced ABAP resources. They are also in the process of setting up a SAP Competency
Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Centre. The system runs on a HP Superdome server on HP UNIX 11i and the database is from Oracle. The cost of this project was about $10 million.
Future projects

After the successful implementation of SAP for its retail chain, Pantaloon plans to go ahead with IT projects such as implementation of WMS with RFID, Customer Intelligence and CRM. Inventory and Promotions Optimization will be pursued later this year. More than eight years after it forayed into the retail business, Pantaloon Retail decided to implement SAP to keep itself competitive in the rapidly growing Indian retail market.

Analysis
I have visited one prime store of Pantaloon at KP in Pune & got to know some specific features of that store: The store area was wide spread and was spacious. It had a theme based corners. Themes were in accordance with the brands put up there. While wall was for everything The store was divided into two floors First floor was for women and second one for men There were many gondolas There were hidden cameras fitted in the store, to monitor the customers buying behavior. Main store was having all exclusive new collection. There was centralized IT structure. The store layout was free form structure. Lightning was done in white in clothing section and yellow in traditional, shoes and toys section. All customer service executives were in light green color uniform on which pantaloons logo is printed. They were having a customer feedback form in which they use to get feedback from the customers. Also this was to keep a track record of the customers who were interested in getting updates and offers from the store. They were having some small long mirror placed on ground in shoes sections so that the customers can try the shoes better & have a better shopping experience. Small space was allotted to billing counter.

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited

Conclusion and recommendations

Pantaloons are the best bet in retail. The store has been well maintained in accordance with the latest demands of the consumers. However it still needs to focus on several parameters which are posing hindrances towards its growth so that the store can retain its current Numero Uno position in the lifestyle segment. The organization must strive for the development of new formats to facilitate a better shopping environment for its customers. It can be undoubtedly stated the company has well planned retail strategies currently but these must be updated with the continuously changing environment so that it can sustain the competitive advantage.

References
www.pantaloon.com Retail Management ICFAI University Press Marketing Management by Kotler Keller & Koshy Jha It Happened in India by Kishore Biyani & Dipayan Baishya

Retail management assignment on pantaloons retail India limited