How COVID-19 Impacts Indian Retail Chains ?

The once in a decade event “Viral Infection – COVID-19” is going to have an unprecedented impact on the organized retail traders in India. With lockdown impacting business completely in April & May and gradual recovery in June across the length and breadth of the country.

Titan’s revenues to be hit nearly ~65% in Q1FY21, along with significant hit to the margins. We anticipate the watches division to be impacted the most (~92% dip YoY), followed by eyewear (~85% dip) and jewelry (~70% dip; for the remainder of the year, we expect a gradual bounce back in jewelry demand to be spurred by festive buying, wedding / occasion-based purchases, which in our view will take time to manifest in revenues, additionally we would watch for commentary on (more…)

Can Reliance Pull Of the Kirana & Jio Omni-Channel Retail Strategy ?

Decade and Half old Reliance Retail Ltd a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd has been toying with several strategies to make its presence felt in several Hundred Billion Dollar Organized Retailing. In order to connect ~30m kirana stores with its own physical and digital infrastructure, Reliance Retail (RRL) launched the Jio PoS machine in 2019. We’ll now explore how has the market received the next generation online & offline retail business strategy.

Our visits to multiple kirana stores that have adopted the Jio PoS device pointed to healthy penetration in the pilot market. RRL has offered attractive pricing for the PoS device (an initial deposit of sub-Rs 4,000 and no recurring fee). This has aided penetration among kiranas. Note that the PoS devices offered by banks often demand an up-front fee of Rs4,000-10,000 and (more…)

Alternate business models for Millennial Consumers

Millennial customers are demanding products that are fresher, natural, and more convenient to use than preexisting products available in market. In order to serve this unique demand, new age companies (ID Fresh Foods and Raw Pressery) with the support of technology and data-analytical tools are creating differentiated brands and distribution networks, which are completely different from the
traditional distribution structure.

Most of the fresh food & beverage companies need to have their manufacturing facilities and procurement centres near their demand centres. This becomes difficult (more…)

Luggage / Backpacks Travel Accessories Organized Market in India

The Indian luggage industry should likely continue to grow at 18-20% p.a. given: increasing per capita consumption per family (implying penetration has increased); replacement cycles have reduced (4-5 years versus 10 years earlier and ~2 years for backpacks versus 3-4years); growth in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities is disproportionately higher owing to shift in perception; tourism industry/air-passenger traffic is growing (Indians are making ~3 trips every year); and increase in expenditure during marriages.

Shift in favour of organised players has accelerated as consumer (more…)

Amazon’s Rise leads to Consolidation of Online Retailers in India

Amazon India’s website traffic has doubled over the last two and a half years, and has now stabilised at approximately 200 million per month. Flipkart’s traffic has declined in the face of aggressive competition from Amazon, and is now running at roughly 120m per month, from 150m per month two and a half years ago. Snapdeal was the biggest loser, though, with traffic now running at ~25m per month, which is only a quarter of what it was at the start of the period. In fourth place, ShopClues seems to have held its own at the ~20m per month level, but its app base is much smaller than that of its peers.

The other side of the equation is the huge bias that the Indian consumer (more…)

McDonald’s Experience Of The Future Store in Mumbai, India

In order to understand McDonald’s Experience Of The Future (EOTF) store, our retail analyst visited McDonald’s Nariman Point store in Mumbai.

Named Experience of the Future, McDonald’s new restaurant platform seeks to engage millennial customers by introducing a technology, food and service upgrade to the fast-food concept. It is one-of-a-kind store and India is the fourth country where it has been introduced after (more…)

Improved access for Indian SMEs by eCommerce

msme-driving-indian-ecommerce-salesAccording to the Economic Survey for 2016, “With 3.6 crore [36mn] units spread across the country, that employ 8.05 crore [80.5mn] people, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) have a contribution of 37.5% to the country’s GDP”. However, MSMEs’ share in manufacturing has been declining (even as the total share of manufacturing in India’s GDP remains stagnant) mainly because MSMEs in India must contend with the challenge of poor access to end-markets. The ministry of MSME, in its annual report for FY15, has noted that “MSMEs in India face constraints such as high cost of credit, low access to new technology and lack of access to national and international markets”.

The advent of e-commerce in India from CY10 has meant that the improvement in access to end-markets for SMEs in (more…)

Aditya Birla Fashion Demand Muted

aditya-birla-fashion-demand-mutedThere is no evidence of a revival in consumer sentiment into the second quarter. The primary reason for contraction in revenues in the last 2 quarters has been the company’s reluctance to offer heavy discounts whereas others continue to do so. ABFRL believes that building a brand is more important than building a channel and, hence, has refrained from diluting the brand either by offering it across e-commerce channels at heavy discounts or by participating in the extended end-of-season sale.

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail has adopted four fashion cycles in Madura as well as Pantaloons as against two earlier. The entire (more…)