Hi friends !!
First a quick intro. I am third generation entrepreneur from the Retail industry. We are one of the oldest and pioneers of Retail in the North-East India. We are into retail of clothing. My grandfather is a dynamic man and built this business from zero. Today we also have stores in one of the prime locations of Mumbai, Bandra (Hill Road) and also at Crawford Market. The Mumbai stores carry the name WAREWELL. Its a menswear store. However the stores in the east are a large format store and therefore a family store.
I guess that should be enough of who we are. Now I’ll tell you what we plan to do. My grandfather taught me a lot but two key lessons that I have learnt which has helped me in my Retail business are :
1. Focus on doing more and more of less and less than doing less and less of more and more. And focus on doing that which you are best at.
How I applied this lesson in our business was that we were manufacturing every thing inhouse from formal wear to casual wear to party wear to suits and blazers. Now we have cut down most of them and have collaborated with people who are better than us in that category who can manufacture for our brand. Now our focus is on retail and retail only..
2. In Retail, just focus on two things.. Procurement and Customer service.
When we are procuring, we put the procurement cap on and buy as if procurement is everything and there is no concept of selling or marketing. But when we sell, we put the service cap on and sell as if service is everything and procurement doesn’t count..
Now, while we are focusing thoroughly on procurement, I want your help on the latter.
How can we give more to our customers? How can we add value? How can we make them our fans? How can we make them our advocates? How can we build a great relationship?
When I think of these, the following answers come up..
1. Train your people because they are the face of your company.
2. Take care of your people. If you take care of them, they will take care of your customers.
3. Have a refund policy. If customers have an issue, don’t have any second thoughts and give them their money back
4. Give them gifts which they will cherish
5. Have an independent customer complaint number
6. Send mystery shoppers to the stores to ensure good environment and service
While, we are working on all of these… Can you pls suggest us more? How can I make you happy if you shop at our store? Any more ideas?? We want to give more and more to our customers and there is lot to be done… and undone…
Cheers !!!!
asha chaudhry
aditya,
i think you have already figured out a lot of ground. i love the part where you say you must take care of your people so they take care of your customers. that’s so true. i remember after i had a baby i spent every weekend at a baby store buying all sorts of clothes and accessories coz you constantly need something or the other. and i would prefer a slightly more expensive shop where the staff attended to me well over a slightly cheaper store – so great customer service brings customers back for sure. a great way to build customer loyalty.
would a point-system work in clothing retail for regular customers? it works well at grocery stores. but little giveaway gifts is also a great idea. there’s nothing better than delighting your customer through a small surprise.
if your clientele demographics shows a lot of parents with young kids – you might think of keeping small things like stickers/tattoos/small toys to keep them occupied etc to be given to every child that walks through. kids don’t let parents shop in peace!!
will think more and get back to you!
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
What does Train your people mean?
Give an example? Train what? To do what?
For 30 years, McDonald’s had a policy – the guy at the Cash Counter HAD TO SAY “HAVE A NICE DAY”.
If they missed, and a mystery shopper was buying, they would FIRE THEM ON THE SPOT.
Do you have a training manual?
Do you have a vendor manual?
Akash Gupta
Hi aditya, you may give customers an extra bit of surprise in your store. Like may be they can order from home, through your omni commerce platform, you may install a visual changing room(there are startups who are good at it), understand the behavior of buyer – if big data analytics can happen on online data, why not on offline data and later you may want to convert that online data into offline data, you or your system based on behavior of customer may like an extra bit of a thing!! “Aur Dikhao” in true sense..
OR you may install a robot something like Beam pro! It would be pretty exciting for customers to have a new experience altogether. Have a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znPwEdlM5KI
A conventional stores have a limited growth future.
One thing i really liked about you was that you believe in outsourcing to those who have comparative advantage. ATB!