Shoppers’ Stop Uses Parikrama As Precursor To Festival Season  ( September '6,2003, FE)

Parikrama, the annual festival at Shoppers’ Stop, is being touted as a precursor to the season beginning for the retail chain. The festival also acts as a vehicle to attract customers during the lean period through its projection of Indianness. However, Shoppers’ Stop along with other retail players feels that projecting Indianness is just one of the ways of enticing customers and forms just one part of the complete strategy, which is to market Indian culture, festivals and occasions with merchandise, feel and the value offer to customers.

Shoppers’ Stop Ltd director (operations) Sanjay Badhe said Parikrama, spread across 13 stores all over the country, was aimed at bringing various elements of the Indian culture to customers. “The main objective is to provide value to customers. It acts as an instrument to increase the momentum before the main season begins,” Mr Badhe added. The main season is the period which marks the beginning of festivities across the country. The period beginning October has festivals like Ganapati Puja in Maharashtra, Durga Puja in West Bengal and Diwali. This is the peak season for lifestyle retailers like Shoppers’ Stop, Ebony and Pantaloon to name a few.

Parikrama, instituted by the retail chain in 1997, focuses on highlighting Indian culture through arts and crafts and this year the theme was ‘Mela’. Shoppers’ Stop also utilised the occasion to create a line of ethnic wear for women under its private label programme called Stop and Kashish. The festival acts as a good vehicle to entice customers during a time which is traditionally the lean period for retail chains like Shoppers’ Stop.

“The festival has reflected a 20 per cent increase in customer entry in the non-season period—sales have risen by 36 per cent in the same timeframe,” Mr Badhe said.

Agreed Lifestyle International assistant manager (corporate marketing) Z Haroon Ul Rasheed, who said the concept enables the chain to attract footfalls by bringing in the culture, arts and crafts of India during the non-season.

The celebration of Indianness notwithstanding, the players opined that the emotions need to be backed by tangible benefits which is the means to attract consumers to activities of such kind. For example, “The Shop For A Surprise” promotional offer at Lifestyle stores is aimed at enticing customers using the festive mood surrounding Diwali. Mr Rasheed said festival-centric promos help create the feel about the occasion besides giving value to consumers at the end of the day. “It gives emotional appeal given the importance of the festival of say Diwali but the value is the holiday packages and gifts which entice the customers,” Mr Rasheed said.

So even while Shoppers’ Stop celebrated Indianness through Parikrama, the objective to create value was not lost and it came out through the creation of ethnic wear for women.

“Retailers all over are selling products which are widely available. So the differentiator is the way we sell it. One can imbibe the concept of Indianness and on the other hand one can have straight promotional offers. At the end, the customer should derive a good experience out of it,” said Ebony Retail Holdings Ltd COO Rakesh Malhotra.

Industry observers believe that the concept of Indianness is more of a tool to differentiate one retail player from another and that the Indian retail scenario at least in the metropolitan cities cannot embrace the concept of Indianness without offering values or benefits to consumers.

Research India country manager Sunil Karve was candid in his observation that barring Shoppers’ Stop, other players’ idea of highlighting Indianness has been weaving promos around festivals and occasions. “The players weave in value offerings for customers during festivals and occasions. That’s how I believe it will be,” said Mr Karve.

Mr Rasheed further elaborated by stating that Lifestyle attempts to synergise occasions with modern ways of communication. “The Rang Barse promo is an Indian concept but the communication is international. Which means that the tools or medium of communicating a festival or occasion will have to be contemporary,” he added.