Kishore Biyani, founder of Pantaloon Retail, says there are three Indias, and he has created store formats for two of them, reports Eric Bellman in The Wall Street Journal (8/8/07). “India One,” as Kishore calls it, is relatively wealthy people who like to shop in Western-style stores. They account for about 14 percent of India’s 1.1 billion population, and for them, Kishore has 93 stores known as Food Bazaar. “India Two” is the “drivers, maids, cooks, nannies, farmers and others” who work for “India One.” They account for about 55 percent of Indians and for them, Kishore has 65 stores called Big Bazaar. “India Three” is people who are so poor that Kishore doesn’t bother with them. Because of its size, it’s “India Two” that tends to occupy Kishore’s attention.

His approach, however, is a bit surprising. He has designed Big Bazaar to make them as messy, noisy and cramped as possible. “The shouting, the untidiness, the chaos is part of the design,” he explains. He actually just spent $50,000 “to replace long, wide aisles with narrow crooked ones.” Kishore says the resulting traffic jams “make people stop and look at products,” and claims that “sales are up 30 percent since the change.” His staff is given strict instructions “not to tidy up, as he noticed customers are less likely to check out a product if it is in neat stacks.” Kishore also makes sure the produce is dirty, because to “the average Indian, dusty and dirty produce means fresh from the farm.”

In addition, Kishore takes care to ensure that good-quality and damaged produce are mixed together in the same bin because that “gives customers a chance to choose and think they are getting a better deal.” Kishore says the power to choose gives shoppers “a sense of victory.” In-store announcements are made in any one of India’s local languages, because, as Kishore explains: “We advertise in the language people dream in.” Kishore’s hero, by the way, is Sam Walton, whose book Kishore says taught him how to “rewrite the rules” of retail. In fact, he keeps a picture of Sam Walton on his office wall, just below a photo of Mother Theresa. Pantaloon is India’s largest retailer, and is expected “to report sales of more than $875 million for the fiscal year ending in June. ~ Tim Manners, editor