'Our lifestyle retailing has amazing price points' – VP, Spencer's

11 Apr '09

9 min read

“We are also negotiating with mall owners for rent, either in the form of reduction or revenue sharing and the decline in the rentals in tier II and III cities is around 30–40 percent, while in tier I and metropilitan cities, the correction is in the range of 15 – 20 per cent, and a further correction and its impact is likely to come by in the next few months. Ideally, 3-4 per cent of sales should go towards paying rents, but that situation will take years to happen.

“The company will focus on private labels, fashion and accessories in particular, as they provide twice the margins as compared to food. Private labels and fashion, individually, contribute close to 10 per cent of our revenues right now and we intend to take each of both to 25 per cent in the next 18-24 months. At Spencer's, we like to believe that we are in the hospitality business and for us, our customers come first and we always think of ways and means to serve them better.

“This is likely to ensure customer retention and loyalty and to serve customers better; we will concentrate on the product mix. We offer a wide choice of international and domestic products. For our clothing section, we have tied up with international brands like Beverley Hills Polo Club for adults and Ladybird for kid's wear and these are exclusively available at Spencer's.

“Our staff are trained at Pragati which is an inhouse state-of-the-art training school were all employees are given extensive training on retail operations and customer sevice before they are deployed on the floor. We have an annual customer satisfaction survey as well, which is planned to be done quarterly, to understand service and operations issues from a customer's point of view, to do course correction midway and enhance the final experience at the store”.

In closing this very informative interview, we asked him to elaborate his branding strategy for Spencer's, to which he said, “Spencer's as a brand, segmented and positioned itself as India's 'Best Food and Home Needs' retailer, building our business on consumer satisfaction through superior service, best range, assortment and transparent value across multiple formats, targeting the SEC A+ woman age 24-34.

“And for the past two years all the marketing plans have being focused to establish our positioning of being the food first retailer for the modern, globally aware, Indian woman. In today's volatile and competitive market, brands are under constant pressure to constantly evaluate and rejuvenate. The major task for us would therefore be to retain our current foothold of being the 'Best Food and Home Needs' destination, while expanding the brand continuum to a similar proposition in the other verticals like fashion and entertainment.

“The brand strategy will involve the planning and implementation of the overall marketing activities to appeal to the defined group of consumers. Marketing Communications will play a vital role in the brand strategy because everything the customer sees both exterior and interior, in the store, creates a positive image and results in attention, interest, desire, and action and we would be optimizing the media mix across the channel for maximizing the performance.

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