Boston Days - Part 2

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims. This article covers the “Challenges of optimal merchandising”)

After dinner on Sunday night, my batchmates bid goodnight even as I entered Circle K convenience store in downtown Boston. One of them asked me what I was going to shop. I replied that this is just another classroom for me to learn! 

There are moments in a retail professional’s life when the store does the teaching, and you simply have to be still enough to listen.

Inside, I found what you’d expect from a well-run c-store. 

Snacks, packaged food, bakery products, beverages — Pepsi, juices, bottled water stacked neatly. A tobacco wall doing what tobacco walls typically do. No alcohol — this particular outlet had clearly made its choice on Boston’s licensing landscape.

I walked the store in under three minutes. Nothing caught my eye particularly — until I reached the billing counter.

There it was. A universal travel adapter. USD 15. Sitting right at eye level, at the point of sale, as though it had been waiting specifically for me.

I had been struggling for two days with my Indian plug and the American Type A socket. I’d improvised, but barely. And here was the solution, placed precisely where it would find me at my most receptive.

I picked it up. I paid. I was back on the street in under ninety seconds.

That one transaction has stayed with me as a retail practitioner.

Here is the thing about category management — the discipline we teach, debate, and deconstruct in every retail seminar — placing the right product at the right place at the right time at the right price for the right consumer. 

Every retailer I have worked with knows this, almost by reflex.

And yet, how many of them apply it rigorously to the non-glamorous, non-FMCG accessories that sit quietly, almost apologetically, in their stores?

Planogram optimisation, when practised honestly, should begin with margin contribution per centimetre of shelf space — not with brand equity, volume targets, or vendor negotiation leverage.

FMCG products — biscuits, shampoos, soaps, beverages — are essential. They drive footfall. But net margins rarely cross 8-12%. Trade schemes, returns, damages, and seasonal promotions erode even that thin number further.

A travel adapter, a universal charger, a power bank, or a cable — priced at a healthy premium, placed at the billing counter, propelled by pure necessity — can deliver 50–60% gross margins with zero promotional support and zero scheme cost.

No gondola end negotiation. No loyalty programme. No scheme. Just the right product, in the right place, for a consumer with no time and no alternatives.

The Indian convenience retail sector is still in its formative years. But the lesson from a Circle K billing counter in downtown Boston is clear and directly transferable.

High-margin functional accessories are hiding in plain sight. They deserve a planogram. They deserve a category manager who sees beyond the FMCG gondola.

They deserve, at the very least, to be placed where a distracted Indian retailer — jaywalking through life — can actually find them.

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims.)

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9 here.

Boston Days – Part 1

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims. This article covers the “opportunity of multi-format retail concepts under the same roof - or the lack of it ”) 

As the Emirates flight touched down at Boston Logan Airport around 1440 hrs local time, I was conscious of witnessing a personal milestone. 

As I near 50, I finally set foot in America — the land that the world collectively romanticises as the land of opportunities. For over three decades, despite several invitations and occasions that came my way, I never made a conscious decision to visit. 

Yet, here I was, to complete the third and final module of the Senior Leadership Program at the prestigious Harvard Business School.

After Immigration formalities and a mandatory Dunkin’ coffee on arrival, I checked into my hotel. For two days, this would be home before I moved into the campus for three weeks of immersive learning. 

Thankfully, a large retail plaza sat just behind the accommodation, and retail therapy beckoned almost immediately. Some habits, clearly, do not respect geography.

As I walked the parking lot periphery, a police vehicle swung by. Three officers stepped out. I greeted them and they reciprocated warmly. One proclaimed, with evident pride, that Boston cops were genuinely nice people — and welcomed me to the USA with a broad smile. 

Having binge-watched the Netflix series “Boston Patrol” ahead of this maiden trip, I was already half-prepared for exactly this kind of encounter. 

Art, it seems, does imitate life — and occasionally predicts it too.

South Bay, Dorchester felt less like a mall visit and more like a retail masterclass in action. 

Old Navy standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Five Below. 

Macy’s anchoring one end, TJ Maxx another. 

Home Depot’s nursery spilling generously onto the parking lot, with perennials and ornamental plants displayed in cheerful abundance. 

Best Buy, Marshalls, Total Wine — all pulling their weight with quiet confidence. 

The number of cars had visibly doubled within the hour, even as I stepped in and out of a dining place. The weekend pull, doing its quiet and predictable magic.

No pretence. No aspiration overload. Just retail doing what retail must — serving real people with real needs, real budgets, and real intent to purchase. 

And then Olive Garden, glowing warmly against the night sky, its stone façade and lush greenery offering a welcome contrast to the vast asphalt expanse. America’s middle-market retail, alive and surprisingly well.

The large horizontal retail format immediately reminded me of similar spaces back home in India — Chandigarh and parts of the tri-cities, which came up as planned urban expressions post-Independence. 

Le Corbusier’s 1966 master plan for Chandigarh has broadly held, and successive state governments have respected the original vision with reasonable consistency. Malls have naturally emerged in Mohali and Panchkula over the years, complementing the planned commercial zones.

A parallel exists in Bangalore Development Authority’s shopping centres, the first of which came up in Jayanagar in 1978, followed by Indira Nagar in 1982. 

Today, 14 such centres exist across the city. 

Over time, however, chronic poor maintenance has drained them of both tenants and footfalls. As recently as June 2024, the state government announced a PPP model for seven key facilities — a proposal that remains, as of now, firmly on paper.

Indian cities hold vast, underdeveloped land parcels. Open, accessible retail-dining-leisure ecosystems of this scale are entirely possible, if political will and purposeful land allocation ever decide to meet halfway.

On Day 2, a visit to “Kahaani” with batchmates offered some familiar comfort — Garlic Naan, Paneer Butter Masala, Dal Makhani. Excellent, save for the paneer that stubbornly refused to yield to the fork. 

The bill, predictably, was far from pocket-friendly. 

But then, this is the capital of Capitalism — with a very deliberate capital C. 

High cost of living drives high wages, which in turn is passed back to a consumer who accepts it as part of the compact. A well-oiled circular economy, doing precisely what it was always designed to do. 

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims.)

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9 here.

Twelve Years, One Long Thank You

On 3 August 2026, I closed a chapter — twelve years with Miles2Go Consulting Services, ending not with a whimper but a quiet exhale. Long enough to watch an industry shift twice over and become the person junior consultants call for advice. Long enough to owe a lot of thank-yous.

To the universe — twelve years of things going sideways in ways no deck predicted: projects that should have failed and didn't, conversations that landed at exactly the right moment. I call that grace.

To my wife, who deserves more than a paragraph but is getting one anyway. She's sat through more "just one call" dinners than we can count, and absorbed my stress without ever feeling like a burden. Consulting is a two-person job where only one of us gets the recognition. This one's for you.

To my clients, who trusted a consultant with problems that never show up in the RFP. Some of you became case studies; all became education. Thank you for the trust and the patience when I got it wrong.

To my friends and associates, who put up with cancelled plans, late-night WhatsApp messages, and talk of "bandwidth" at dinner. Consulting makes worse friends of its practitioners for a while. You stayed anyway. And to that one friend who was more relentless for my success than me, thank you buddy! 

A handful of moments from these years, tagged #milestogo and #miles2go, tell the real story better than any résumé line.

Levista Coffee was a turnaround with a client who became an employer, pushing the brand into competitors' boardrooms — with Chennai Super Kings carrying it through IPL 2020 and Kamal Haasan appearing alongside it on Bigg Boss.

Thangamayil Jewellers was built on trust and shared respect for ethical practice — strong enough that the client asked to continue even after the engagement formally ended.

Specsmakers was mentorship disguised as business: ARR grew 40% in nine months with zero incremental marketing spend, a win for twenty-plus business managers — one of them, an area manager in Bangalore, later became a hospital's General Manager.

Fabelle Chocolates was deeply personal — serving the ITC Group, where my father worked as a factory worker for 33 years, by designing the kiosks that brought the brand to consumers.

TexValley, Erode was the hard lesson: a relationship where our advisory kept losing out to internal decisions, and the opportunity drained away slowly. Not every engagement ends the way you'd want.

Indian Terrain, followed by Minmini, was the moment I knew consulting was right for me — better suited to strategic work than to founder-led organisations, where authority and responsibility blur.

Twelve years compress strangely in memory. Stressful weeks blur; specific moments stay sharp — a handshake after a hard year, a 2 a.m. email answered, a friend who showed up anyway. 

Those are the moments My Retail Journey holds.

So: to the universe, my wife, my clients, my friends, and everyone who put up with me these twelve years — thank you. Miles2Go gave me not just a career, but an identity. All of you gave it meaning.

Here's to the next set of miles.

#Miles2Go