One of the country?s largest supermarket chain the $3.4-billion conglomerate RPG’s subsidiary Spencer’s is going for an image makeover. In a strategic shift, the company is moving from running discount stores to that of an upmarket, premium retailer. The company?s new marketing campaign would highlight the shift in strategy.
Spencer?s would be pumping Rs 3,000 crore into its retail network in the next few years and is changing its slug line from ‘Smart Ways to Shop’ to ‘ Taste the world’. This implies that rather than being a hard discount store, which is the category of the Future Group’s Big Bazaar, it will now be focussing on providing a tremendous range of products and enter higher price segments across all categories it operates in. The company is also going to add new categories in this transition.
? We want to be a differentiated food first retailer, we will be selling products and experience to our consumers. We will emphasise on the customer service as much as we would on the kind of merchandise assortment we will have?, said Samar Shekhawat, vice president, marketing, Spencer?s Retail. He added that as the company was growing, they had now identified their target consumer as the affluent middle class and upper middle class families in urban India for whom price wouldn?t be the only determinant.
Spencer?s Retail operates 350 stores across 50 cities in the country. The retail company has a footfall of 50 million consumers a year with a 60% convergence, Shekhawat said. The company operates three small formats – Spencer?s Fresh, Daily, Express and one large format, the hypermarket.
?We decided to operate this segment because there is no player in the Indian market which is presently operating in this space,? Shekhawat said. Most retailers like the Future Group and even the new entrants like Reliance Retail, are serving price conscious consumers. When Bharti-Wal-Mart stores begin, they too would be operating in the price sensitive segment.
However, given the economic growth drivers and high spending in the country there is a huge market, which the company wants to tap.