Dining experinces redefined

I had the opportunity recently to stay at Hotel Vista Park. It is located bang in the middle of the iconic Sector 29 Market at Gurgaon. This market is very special since it is the only area in Gurgaon which has about two dozen eateriees, restaurants, pubs and cafes. It also has Reliance Mart, one of the few Hypermarkets operated by Reliance Retail which is on its way to become the big daddy of Indian Retail in the organized segment. Footfalls pour in all through the day and night; mostly office goers who drop over for lunch or an evening catch up with friends and colleagues; And families over the weekend. Bikanerwala, one of the largest food chains in North India has a two storied very large outlet that sells sweets and condiments, has a fast food counter and a well laid restaurant. There is also a Micro brewery, Hops & Brews which I visited twice just for the love of fresh beer - and weisbeer is extremely rare to get in India except at such places.

Then there is Starbucks Coffee, which brushes shoulders with Cafe Coffee Day and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. There is Mainland China and a couple of other restaurants that serve chinese/oriental cusine. Sphagetti Kitchen, one of the most remembered names for high quality Italian food is a mainstay in the market. Cream Centre, the high-end Veg Only Restaurant along with Sasuraal serves authentic North Indian and Punjabi food.

And then there are two large hotels which have over 25 rooms each, one being Hotel Vista Park where I stayed. These hotels also have restaurants and a small bar. To my utter surprise, there was literally no one in the in-house restaurants in the evenings. I would have expected the hotels to run a few schemes such as Happy Hours in the Bar or Food combos. But no. The staff were not bothered that guests were walking away to nearby restaurants. The Management seemed to be unaware as well. 

Restaurants in hotels, especially the Bar is expected to be a money-spinner. Delhi/NCR has more than 25,000 rooms of all classes and sizes, so most of the hotels have not more than 85% occupancy during peak times and about 45-65% occupancy during the year. Therefore, ancilliary income from room service, restaurants, banquets and party arrangements become extremely important for Hotels. These revenue streams are not always given a keen look by the Hotel Management teams, thereby allowing guests to spill over to nearby restaurants, bars, pubs etc. The main reason for Guests to move  out of the Hotels is because of the boredom created by the restaurants that are within and repetitive or usually uniteresting food and beverage options. 

So, are stand alone restaurants, pubs and cafes a threat to these Hotels? Indeed. To circumvent this kind of a spill over, Ginger Hotels, a part of The Tata Group had tied up with Cafe Coffee Day. The cafes of CCD are located within the premises of these hotels, usually in the lobby and would normally be open 24/7 and would even serve piping hot Cappuccinos and Sandwiches to the rooms. Most of the Ginger Hotels have these cafes. A few standalone hotels too have made such arrangements to attract non-resident guests and the public at large. In the West, it is common to see cafe chains such as Starbucks, illy, Costa, to name a few to have their cafes within smaller boutique/business hotels. 

Hotels could do better to have attractive F&B units within their premises to add value to their revenues. Alternately, they could have more exciting dining spaces to retain resident guests. Ultimately, it is what they want to offer to their guests as part of the overall experience. 

‘Santa’stic Holiday Shopping!

Santa Claus is a symbol of positivity and cheer, is well known. But he has been used as a constant Brand Ambassador by Retailers all over the world for quite many years now. Retail Stores use various displays of Santa at their precincts – some use static images and some use real men (or women) as real life Santas who give away candy bars and chocolates, goodies and gifts to children and elders who pass by the store. Santa is a global symbol of mass Retail Advertising, I would say. From Brown Goods to Apparel, all Retail formats use Santa in their copy some way or the other to connect with their audience and to bring the relevance of shopping during this season.

Afterall, Christmas is not just a religious festival, not atleast in India, one of the most secular countries in the world which embraces all forms of worship in its country. While it may be rare to have a Masjid, a Temple and a Church to share walls, its not uncommon for people across religions to celebrate each others festivals. Diwali and Id are two other festivals which are celebrated with much fervor all over the country. Christmas is no more restricted to Christians in India, but to the community at large. Many Hindu and Muslim homes decorate their premises with small and large Christmas Trees and Stars in their balconies and order Cakes to consume with their family and friends.

This Christmas Season, leading Retailers have used Santa in their campaigns. Pantaloon Retail, formerly owned by The Future Group and now by Aditya Birla Group has a “Buy 2 Get 1” Offer on its entire range of products. Shoppers Stop, India’s largest Department Store chain with over 61 outlets across the country has a 20% cash back offer in the form of Discount Vouchers. While the offer is only for a limited period, it would promote future walkins and shopping due the Discount Vouchers being provided with every shopping worth Rs. 5,000 or more.

 

Its also a great time to shop for Consumer Durables. Chennai’s leading Retailer Shahs and Viveks are offering massive discounts on LED Tvs, Washing Machines, Refridgerators, Cameras, et al.

 

Leading Brands like Apple and Samsung, surprisingly do not have any special schemes this Christmas – Diwali is probably a bigger festival for shopping personal gadgets. Now is the best time to fill your homes and wardrobes. So rush to your nearest Retail Store and shop more, save more! Have a Santastic Shopping Season. Merry Christmas.

Catch up Game: Organized Retailers vs. Kiranas

I join my wife every month for shopping grocery and household items at Food Bazaar, the flagship Retail format of The Future Group, which is also India’s largest Retail company. She is part happy that I accompany her in household chores, but she also knows why am I there – for my own benefit, when I get to observe how consumers behave within the store. I click pictures, tweet them and seek responses from friends and colleagues within the Retail fraternity. During my recent visit, I spotted a poster which said Rice Bags can be delivered to the doorstep if the customer chooses to. In the southern part of India, rice consumption is quite high. A middle class family comprising four members buy 20-25 kgs of rice every month. There are different variants in Rice and depending on their food habits, people buy appropriately. It used to be a common practice until a decade or two ago when Rice merchants would visit homes and sample rice to their customers at their doorsteps. After finalising the right variety, the merchant would deliver gunny bags of rice to the customer’s homes. Conceptually, the more you buy, the lower the price. So families would usually buy 2-3 months of stock at one go. And it was a usual practice to give credit for payments – usually a month’s time, sometimes even on installments. All this changed with the advent of corner shops and small grocery stores stocking rice and offering them in smaller quantities at an attractive price. With joint families becoming smaller nuclear families, the size of residential units also shrank. Which meant that the space to stock also was limited. Hence, customers started buying smaller packs, more often. To ensure customer loyalty, the Kirana stores (Mom & Pop Stores) also used to offer credit facility for customers.

Things started changing in the late 90s, especially in the South (of India) when Organized Retailing started taking shape in the country. Nilgiris was one of the first Retailers to set up a large format store that could accommodate over 10,000 SKUs. Foodworld (from the RPG Group) was the first Retail chain that spread its stores every 4-5 sq. kms in its home market in Chennai, followed by Bangalore and Hyderabad. Over time, they started imitating everything that the small grocer did, and 20 kg Rice Packs was a crowd puller. Foodworld used to sell about 300 tonnes of rice a month across its network and hence could get a good price from the farmers directly. Its huge warehouse in the outskirts of Chennai would sort, clean and pack the rice in 20 kg bags, easy to carry. In fact, the staff had targets and special incentives to just push the sale of Rice Bags! Such was the frenzy.

The trend has continued till date. Large quantities are always preferred by Retailers and Brands. Ground wheat known as Atta, the base material for making batter for preparing various varieties of Roti is another packaged commodity today across the country. Annapurna from Hindustan Unilever and Ashirvad from ITC Ltd. are market leaders in this segment. Salt, Oil, Corn Flakes and many more categories have taken the route to bigger pack sizes to show better pricing to customers. Diapers, in recent times is another killer category. Traditionally, Diapers were not being used in most parts of India until a decade ago. There were two reasons – one, it was felt to be unhygienic. Second, they were priced very high. Mamy Poko, a Korean brand landed in the country 5-6 years back and has sent local players such as Pampers running tizzy.

Organized Retail in India is still less than 10% of the total market of about USD 200 billion. But Retailers in the Grocery segment have seen their business only grow, despite the advent of more and more players. The reason is simple. Retail is a game of scale. The more you grow, the better you leverage your expenses. One of the main reasons why small grocers were unable to scale up was capital. And the reason why large Retailers like Spencers, More (Aditya Birla Group), Smart, Heritage Fresh and the controversial Subiksha that went bust and many more Hypermarkets such as Star India Bazaar (from TATA Trent), Hypercity (K Raheja Corporation) and Spar are facing the heat, is due to their inability to meet customer’s expectations mainly through right merchandising, stocking and pricing. 

I wonder sometimes, who is playing catch-up, whether it is the Kiranas or Retailers. Both have a lot to learn from each other. And there is no reason why both cannot succeed in India in times to come. The key here is adaptability.