With the recent HyperCity acquisition, a new campaign and the festive season behind it, Future Retail is looking to go into the next year on stronger ground. Jishnu Sen of Future Retail talks to BrandWagon’s Shinmin Bali about what’s next for the company, whether grocery apps pose a threat, what’s the latest in Fbb, and more. Edited excerpts:
The festive season has just ended. Are you happy with how it shaped up?
Festive season sales have been really good and fashion has been doing well since the last one-and-a-half month before Diwali, as the festive season in East and South starts early. But say, around 10 days before Diwali, categories like electronics and home furnishing also picked up and performed really well — about 25-30% more. Sales were little muted for a few days in the South due to unseasonal rains but overall, the festive season has done really well for us. Future Retail brought modern retail to India. We created the Sabse Saste Din and Wednesday Bazaar. Having played that game, we now want to take it to the next level. Our recent Har Tyohaar mein Big Bazaar represented almost every major festival. We did not do the usual ‘Happy Diwali’ bit. We are committed to every state, region and every type of customer, saying that we will cater to them. There are conversations going on about what else we can do and how can we bring in new retail excellence experiences to our consumers.
Is this along the lines of your Gen Nxt store?
Gen Nxt is just a set of stores with a certain size, service and assortment implications. We have identified six or seven services that we must provide — services that customers must learn to consider as her right. We want to be operationally ready for it. It is time for us to say there is life beyond how we have operated so far, to grow further, bringing customer-centricity in what we do, change the assortment, etc. If you are a South Indian living in South Kolkata, will your Big Bazaar have groceries that you would easily get in a store in Chennai? It should. These are the problems that we want to solve.
Is it then a step out of the value play and into lifestyle?
We don’t want to do one thing at the expense of the other. We have managed to have a good blend of emotional connect with the audience throughout. Across the festive period, we did not have an offer stating things like, ‘Buy for Rs 3000 and get Rs 500 off’. And this is when we are talking about a nation that would welcome a discount even if they are buying from Giorgio Armani. We are not changing our core proposition.
With both Big Bazaar and HyperCity now under the Future Retail (FR) umbrella, what changes can be expected?
There are a lot of things that need to be debated. HyperCity is a great acquisition, a brand that will add to our equity. There are various brand architectures possible. If we go the tech way, we would roll it out across all stores and not keep it to just the acquired stores. I am not a big fan of making one customer feel privileged than the other. It is a good offering with a decent assortment. Whatever happens in those outlets will happen from a Big Bazaar lens at the very least.
Can you please elaborate?
I cannot get into the details. We are a value retailer. We want to spend time in creating infrastructure, operations, technology and whatever is necessary to add value to experiences. Earlier, our DNA had chaos in it in the sense that when you went shopping at Big Bazaar, there was an element of chaos, fun and fervour. But now, we have a lot of customers that shop with us, so let us make them our focus and not just stick to our ability to serve them at a certain price. You are already seeing that in play with the Aapki Seva Mein desk, with ‘home delivery’ (you could shop and say, go for a movie and your bags will be sent to your house). We want to make sure every store can do it. Earlier we used to pivot only around price; now we are talking about an overall experience of which price will be one part. We will always try to provide a better service than our competitor. Our consumer profile has not changed, just broadened. This has been led by Fbb. It has grown significantly, brought with it a younger crowd — a fashion-conscious crowd. Fbb’s growth will continue to be led by private labels and we will build it as a fashion destination. Fbb currently brings in 32% to the overall revenue.
Big Bazaar doesn’t retail online. Is that not a focus area?
We are working on it. Every retailer wants to be able to do it. Especially in places like Bengaluru where Big Bazaar has a presence on Amazon. The numbers are encouraging. Amazon had reached out to us and initiated it. We are treating it like an experiment.
Does the presence of Grofers and Big Basket seem like competition?
Absolutely not. There is a reason why Amazon bought Whole Foods in the US. People will eventually, in the world of groceries, want to have a feel of the product to know the quality. This is a country where tier II and tier III are discovering and learning to experiment with types of mushrooms, avocados and want to make pasta at home. This experimenting will not happen on these apps. The curious customer wants to ask the retailer what so-and-so item is and how it can be used in their daily life. We are all for omni-channel but only online does not make sense. We are a 60-65% CoD model country. That insight needs to be accounted for as well. We have 25 lakh users on the Future Pay wallet without spending a single penny. It is a wallet designed only for Future Group. You don’t browse Amazon; you go in with what you want to buy.
How has the consumer segment evolved?
India has changed demographically a lot over the last four to five years. There is a need to attract a younger audience, but not at the expense of another demographic. Additionally, we have a programme for senior citizens, The Young Elders, where the aim is to discover how we make their lives easier. We now need to be present far more for a far wider audience. The RedMi association brought in a different set of segment. We see a lot of men shopping with us now. The current consumer is between 25-40 years on an average, equally split between men and women. So we are trying to reach various segments and the results are showing.
Shinmin.Bali@expressindia.com
@shinminbali
