INTRODUCTION:
The USD 1 Billion Conglomerate- DS Group, the promoter of Ebony Retail Holdings Ltd, is a multinational group founded in the 1940s with business interests in infrastructure development, real estate, IT, hotels & leisure management and retailing. In India, the Group’s thrust is retailing and infrastructure

When Ebony first opened its doors to the discerning Indian consumer in 1994 at South Extension, New Delhi, it had little idea of the retail revolution that was about to sweep the country. Leading the revolution and with a core aim to bring a global shopping experience to India, Ebony has, ever since, successfully opened seven stores across 7 Indian cities.

As a leader in the retail industry, Ebony Retail Holdings Ltd, the company that owns and runs all seven Ebony outlets in India, has pioneered several industry trends. Most notable among them are the highly successful Ebony in-house brand ETC and a special books and music venture called Wordsworth. With over 2 lakh square feet of retail outlet space, Ebony is today among the largest retail players in India.

Ebony is characterized by an ambience that is comfortable, unobtrusive and spacious. The first organized retail player to make its entry into Chandigarh and Noida (Uttar Pradesh) with two large format stores each spread across 35,000 sq.ft, has one store each in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in Punjab. The Amritsar store, which opened in October 2002 and Faridabad in January 2003 is the most recent addition to a venture that originated at South Extension in New Delhi.

Attracting over 8000 people everyday, with the figure doubling over the weekends, the Ebony stores cater to over 50% of a consumer’s shopping basket. Ebony is known for its innovative promotions that offer value-add benefits to shoppers across all stores, right through the year. Besides cross promotions, regular impromptu promotions keep excitement alive within the stores.

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Rural Retailing

The higher income group in rural India is growing at a phenomenal rate, and the concept of brands and quality are very much prevalent. These current consumption trends provide compelling opportunities for marketers to capitalize on the increasing mass market in India for almost all product categories. Both corporations and entrepreneurs are exploring the rural retailing. ITC’s Choupal Sagar, HLL’s project Shakthi and Mahamaza are some of the models that are being tried out. Many more such concepts are likely to be tested in the future.
Figure 5.1: Share of Urban versus rural markets
The case for Indian retailers to explore rural markets is strong. Given the size of the rural population and the agricultural income growth in rural India, the rural market is definitely an opportunity for retailers with an innovative retail proposition. A clear indicator of this potential is the share of the rural market across most categories of consumption .In the following, we describe three highly successful rural super market initiatives in India.
Mahamaza.com
The company Mahamaza, ended the year with a turnover Rs 1.2 billion. The Mahamaza model is quite simple. Any person wishing to be a dealer can sign up with Mahamaza by making a one-time payment (around Rs 5,000). Then the dealer gets orders from his town or villages and places these orders with Mahamaza. The company further consolidates orders and gets discounts from durables and FMCG companies due to its bulk buying. A part of this discount is passed to the dealer as his commission.
Hariyali kisaan bazaar
Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar is a pioneering micro level retailing effort from DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd.(DSCL), which seems to creating a positive impact in the way rural India shops and is also revolutionizing the farming sector. This is a chain of centers that aim at providing end-to-end ground level support to the Indian farmer to improve his profitability and productivity.
The first outlet came up at Del Pandarwa (near Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh) in July 2002 and so far 15 “Hariyali Bazaars” have been set up: 6 in UP, 5 in Punjab, 3 in Rajasthan and 1 in Haryana. On an average, each centre is attracting 150-200 farmers a day. Each “Bazaar” operates in a catchment of about 20 km radius and approximately 15,000 farmers live in this area. Each center provides help to improve the quality of agriculture in the area through 24×7 support by a team of qualified agronomists. They provide a complete range of good quality, multi-brand agri inputs, access to modern retail banking and farm credit at reasonable rates of interest, farm produce buyback opportunities and access to new markets. read more »

THE ROAD AHEAD

In the financial year 2001-2002, the combined turnover of all three units of Haldiram’s was estimated at Rs. 4 billion. The company targeted a growth of 15% for the financial year 2002-2003. Analysts felt that, given the competition in the industry, Haldiram’s needed to develop new initiatives achieve this growth.

The competition in the ready-to-eat snack foods market in India was intensifying. Frito Lay India Ltd. (Frito Lay), one of Haldiram’s major competitors, was expanding its market share. Instead of directly competing with the market leader Haldiram’s, the company launched innovative products in the market and backed them with heavy publicity. Frito Lay’s product range consisted of a mixture of traditional Indian and western flavors which appealed to younger and older generations. Its products included Leher Namkeens, Leher Kurkure (snack sticks), Lays (flavored Chips), Cheetos (snack balls), Uncle Chips and Nutyumz (nut snacks). Frito-Lay was the first company to launch small 35 gm packs namkeens priced at Rs. 5 and also the first company in the organized sector to launch Aloo Bhujia[6] .

Another competitor, SM Foods, introduced a range of innovative products. The company launched India’s first non-wafer chips in 1988. SM offered products under two main brands – Peppy and Piknik. Under Peppy, it had sub brands such as Cheese Balls, Ringos, Hi Protein Crispies, Potato Rackets, Hearts, Veggie Treat, Mixtures and Minerette. Under Piknik, it had Protein Pin, Junior and Corn Puffs.

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POSITIONING

The above initiatives helped Haldiram’s to uniquely position its brand. Haldiram’s also gained an edge over its competitors by minimizing promotion costs. Appreciating the company’s efforts at building brand, an analyst said, “Haldiram once was just another sweet maker but it has moved into trained brands first by improving the product quality and packaging.

Through its clever products and brilliant distribution it had moved into the star category of brands.”Haldiram’s earned recognition both in India and abroad. The Nagpur unit of Haldiram’s was conferred the International Food Award. By the Trofeo International Alimentacion of Barcelona, Spain for having maintained high standards in quality and hygiene, at its manufacturing unit.

The Delhi unit was awarded the Keshalkar Memorial Award by the All India Food Preservers Association in the mid 1980s in recognition of its efforts for popularizing ethnic Indian foods in India and abroad. In 1994, the unit was awarded the International Award for Food & Beverages by the Trade Leaders Club in Barcelona, Spain. The unit also received the Brand Equity Award in 1998. Manoharlal Agarwal, who played a key role in the success of the Delhi unit, was included in the eighth edition of Distinguished Leadership by the Board of Registrars of The American Biographical Institute . Haldiram’s was also admitted as the member of Snack Food Association, US .

PROMOTION

Haldiram’s product promotion had been low key until competition intensified in the snack foods market. The company tied with ‘Profile Advertising’ for promoting its products. Consequently, attractive posters, brochures and mailers were designed to enhance the visibility of the Haldiram’s brand. Different varieties of posters were designed to appeal to the masses.

The punch line for Haldiram’s products was, ‘Always in good taste.’ Advertisements depicting the entire range of Haldiram’s sweets and namkeens were published in the print media (magazines and newspapers). These advertisements had captions such as ‘millions of tongues can’t go wrong,’ ‘What are you waiting for, Diwali?’ and ‘Keeping your taste buds on their toes. read more »