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<\/a>The Festival season is at the threshold, and soon the shopping fever will spread, shoppers are already in the process of making their lists, etching out budgets and soon they will be flocking into stores prepared to celebrate the great Indian festival season. This translates into nothing but opportunity for retailers; it’s a golden period of the year, thus one question that encompasses the spirit, what’s brewing in-stores for this festive season? We speak to some leading retailers across varied categories to know what their plans are for the upcoming season. Read on to know the action behind the scenes!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A Strategic overview for the Season! <\/a>\u201cAlthough the retail industry is struggling due to slow down but the festive season will allow us to make up for it. I am sure the entire industry is gearing up to the season and is prepared to work hard for it, as for us at HyperCITY a lot is brewing, we have a new and exciting collection exclusively for the festive season. It is a vibrant range of ensembles specially created keeping in mind the various festivals that will be celebrated over the next few months. The designs are a fine balance of traditional and contemporary and will appeal to different age groups. As far as non-apparel products are concerned, we have our regular sales and exclusive offers that attract heavy foot falls especially during holidays. We therefore expect a rise in sales that will contribute to a healthy bottom line.<\/p>\n Further on we have a hugely popular loyalty program that covers over 7 lakh customers, we will communicate and engage with them continuously to ensure they make the most of our special offers. Given that more than 50 per cent of our business comes from these customers and that regular communication has ensured that the size of their cash memos keeps growing, it makes most sense to tap this customer base. Additionally we will attract new customers with special offers and exclusive deals.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a>Being one of the most important engines that will drive in revenues is marketing, we dive beyond the strategy layer to understand the marketing initiatives that are lined up to attract maximum amount of shoppers and revenue this season. Darshana Shah – Senior Vice President \u2013Marketing & Visual Merchandising shares the marketing make of HyperCITY for the upcoming festive season. \u201cWe understand the importance of investing in marketing and know that it leads to handsome returns. While we cannot disclose numbers, we have set aside a sizable chunk for marketing related activities. On the promotional end, we will aim at engaging with customers both in store and outside. So while on one hand we will have an exciting line up of customer engagement activities taking place at our various tores, we will also keep our loyalty programme customers informed about our special deals and exclusive offers.\u201d Further keeping the shopper needs in mind for the season ideas are weaved around it. HyperCITY is a big store that offers big savings. A large chunk of our revenue comes from sales of food products. As consumption of food products typically goes up in every household during the festival season, HyperCITY believes it will be able to cater to this segment best. \u201cWe have several existing daily offers such as Monday Mandi and Win-Win Wednesday which have been received well by our customers. We also expect higher foot falls not just because of a surge in demand, but also because of more holidays when people typically step out to shop.\u201d Highlights Darshana.<\/p>\nHyperCITY’s Hungama!<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nThe Marketing Make!<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n HyperCITY’s Marketing Initiatives for this Festive Season<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n The new festival special apparel collection. An attractive new range of apparels will hit the floor which is a combination of both traditional and contemporary designs. This exclusive collection will be showcased attractively through innovative visual merchandising.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Rewarding all loyalty program members with exclusive offers and special deals. The periodic newsletters of HyperCITY will keep them informed about new launches, collections, discounts and sales. This will give the loyalty customers an edge over the walk in customers, and they will get to sample the offers before the rest<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n One of the most important factor of operation is the manpower planning, shedding light on the same Simon says, The planning of manpower derives from scheduling each department which means an experienced review of hard data, what are the key actives in each department on each day, in each hour and what task does each person conduct, how long will each job take in man hours. This daily systematic approach builds up a profile of required people, man-hours and the skills required. The hourly, daily profile creates a weekly and monthly schedule of manpower inclusive of skills required in stores at any given point of time. Once hours are forecasted and budgeted, managers in each department, store, division must fill the schedules to support the business needs. However efficiencies and multi-tasking are key influencers of profitable sales, which then raise the question of colleagues’ knowledge, skills and training. Identifying the shortfall in stores resources should be done in August to ensure the right people are in the right place at the right time armed with the correct skill set.\u201d<\/p>\n But despite meticulous planning there are multiple challenges, one of which is Pilferage large footfalls and increased commotion means a spike in shop-lifting and other issues, how does HyperCITY deals with the same, \u201cDuring peak season everything moves in peak volumes and that includes the number of people trying to steal, as a result our security teams employ a number of tactics to reduce theft after consultation with the local police. Our links with the local police have ensured we learn how to protect our people, profits and property .Firstly we have invested in excellent CCTV systems which allow us to monitor movements of people inside and around our premises, our security teams can monitor activity and capture details for the police which is used to prosecute people caught stealing. Our stores use plain clothes guards and uniformed guards operating inside our stores and this approach toward catching thieves has proved to be very successful as our team drive down losses to the business.\u00a0 Phase three post the festive event is closing down the event in a clear and concise way for the customers, and then smoothly executing a smooth transition into the next themed event for customers across the sales floor whilst behind the scenes the robust evaluating process has begun where colleagues formulate the tactics for the next festive period.\u201d<\/p>\n |