Basant,

 The war in Retail will eventually be of Scale and the one which does that earlier and at lower Costs(Ultimately Margins will shrink ) will have the edge.

Home decor is big business...Pantaloon shareholders will get a sense on Home Town...

US121:

Sure I will try to enroll my Dad. But being 77 years of age and belonging to old generation, he enjoys bargaining at the shop rather than invest in equities. When market was crashing big time on last two occasions, he was firing me left, right and centre.

May be we may use his experience for something, which I did again last week.

My dad belongs to old generation (Kirana Shop) while I belong to new generation (food bazaar). There is always      heated debates/arguments, but we carryon by agreeing to disagree. But on many occasions, I have observed that I am on the receiving end.

Basanthji,

Last wednesday, I had been to Foodbazaar which was opened just a month back. It is hardly two kms from home, located on the Outer Ring Road towards Tumkur. It is on the main road (good visibility), with ample car parking at the cellar. Only small disadvantage is that there is no u-turn cut near the shop. We will have to travel 1/4KM oneway and come back.

It has four floors shop and welly spread. Should be around 40K to 45K Sq.ft. Since it is new, lot of empty carton boxes were lying at the staircases. Good crowd. One of the lift was not working hence rush at the other one. Had a good feeling, bought the book (It happens in India)and spent almost two hours at the shop (doing research/investigation in Basanthji way).

My dad had asked me to get Sugar and Rice from the shop. To be on the safer side, I had asked the price for these items at the Kirana shop. To my surprise, rates were costlier by Rs.3/- per Kg for sugar and Rs.4/-per kg for rice. So I bought things for self and daughter rather than provisions.

I noticed very funny thing as they were collecting Rs.5/- for gift wrapping which they do not do in any of the shops in Bangalore.

Edited by CHINKI - 30/Apr/2007 at 5:12pm

Basanthji,

I visited the shop again yesterday. Being holiday and some promotional schemes were there, there was heavy rush.

Car parking was not available, A.C was ineffective and salesmen were looking very tired by afternoon itself.

I watched few of the couples/people shopping. Some of them were buying everything they were seeing. So good music for the investors.

By the time we could come out, we saw more & more people were entering the shop.
   
Small suggestion to the company: More than the Sales & PR training, these Staff would definitly require intensive training stress & crowd management    

Edited by CHINKI - 02/May/2007 at 3:40pm