can sum1 help me out...i have u design a marketing plan for apna bazar...thank u...
hey jasneet,
here is some information based on Marketing Pan and SWOT of Apna Bazaar, please check hope it can help you ..
Apna Bazaar
Change in product Mix:
Commodity
Tones (2002-03)
Tones (2003-04)
Rice
1420
1325
Wheat
1070
1050
Dal
1410
1360
Pulses
800
785
The above table indicates decline in the sales of Rice, Wheat, Pulses etc which shows the change in the food culture/consumption pattern of the consumer. It indicates that the consumer’s inclination towards ready-to-eat food is increasing. Taking this into consideration Apna Bazaar had made has made appropriate changes in its Product Mix. Slowly the Percentage of food grains, pulses has declined and that of FMCG products has increased. In a couple of years the percentage of poultry products in the product mix would increase whereas that of food grains pluses etc. would decline. This would further change the product –mix of Apna Bazaar.
Store Layout:
Layout of shop Apna Bazaar does not have any specific layout of shop. But in most of outlet the 1st division you would come out is Vegetable, Fruit, Medical product, food grains, and FMCG product. The only think that is kept under consideration that Heavy Product like 5kg. Sugar, 10kg. Wheat, 5 ltr. Oil is near cash counter for convenience of customer. In case of display they see to it that display at entrance is very colorful & attractive. Hence they display cosmetics & FMCG product. Besides product, which is new to the market, are also displayed to grab attention of consumer
Product Display:
The brands are displayed in a very attractive manner .The decision to place a Brand on a particular shall depends upon the Market share enjoyed by the company /Brand. Usually there are 5 Shelves. Out of which 2nd, 3rd& 4th shelves are most important ones on which the brand with high market share or high brand equity are placed. These products are always in demand by the customers.
Footfalls:
In big stores, like the departmental store at Andheri, there are 2000 to 3000 footfalls in a day (on weekdays) & on weekends there are around 3000 to 3500 footfalls. In small outlets there are around 100 footfalls on regular day’s .On weekends there are 200 to 250 footfalls. The footfalls are more especially on Sunday.
The footfalls are more in evening between 6.30pm. & 8.30pm .Whereas the footfalls are comparatively low during the afternoon slot of 1.30-3.30 pm. Keeping this in mind stores are closed down during this time. In this time the staff are rearrange the merchandise in the store.
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Apna Bazaar
Sources of Income:
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Retailing is their core activity and a major part of their income come from the various
retail outlets.
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They supply commodities like Dal, Pulses, Food grains, Cereals to Govt. Institutions,
Hospitals for their Canteens. A 30 Days credit is given to them.
•
They also earn income from the company racks that they display in their outlets. These racks contain the products of the particular company and the in turn pays Apna Bazaar for displaying these racks. E.g. Maggie, Colgate, Pepsodent, Vicks, Nescafe etc.
•
They provide space to companies e.g. MEPL (Electronic goods) in order to display
and sell their goods by charging rent for space provided.
•
They have 37 Franchise outlets, which act as a source of income for Apna Bazaar as
Apna Bazaar supplies 70% of goods.
•
Provide place to banks for opening ATM center by charging rent since almost all the
outlets are owned by Apna bazaar.
•
MetLife India signed an agreement with Apna Bazaar Co-operative for selling life insurance policies. Based on the agreement, Apna Bazaar Co-operative shall become corporate agents for MetLife India and offer MetLife India products to its huge customer base. Henceforth Apna Bazaar will enable its customers to build financial freedom through MetLife India products based on need analysis. Apna Bazaar will receive a commission of 35% on Premium amount.
Exports:
'Apna Bazaar ' is a 55 year old co-operative organization with US $ 37 million annual
turnover through 07 departmental stores, 06 super markets & 65 retail outlets.
Apna bazaar used to export commodities like fish and grapes to Europe. In spite of good earnings on exports they have discontinued the exports from this year .Thus the reasons for the discontinuation were due to:
•
The goods were seasonal in nature.
•
In case of grapes the Jalgoan region in which grapes where cultivated was hit by
drought, thereby by affecting the production of grapes.
•
Besides the grapes were sprayed with certain chemicals which were banned in the
European countries, thereby further affecting the exports.
•
Besides exports is not Apna Bazaar’s core activity therefore the decision to
discontinue exports was taken.
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Apna Bazaar
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SWOT Analysis:
Strengths:
•
Goodwill-
Apna Bazaar has built its image over the years as a value for money store, which supplies
good quality goods at economical price.
•
Number of Outlets-
Apna Bazaar has 80 outlets spread all over Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and the neighbouring Konkan region, Lanza (Bombay-Goa road), among other places in Maharashtra. All these areas are easily accessible as public transportation is available. Hence providing easy accessibility to the customers.
•
Team work-
Although there is no training imparted to the employees at the outlets, there is co- ordination and understanding between them due to which the work goes on smoothly creating a win-win situation for both, the management and the employees.
•
Modernization-
Apna Bazaar makes use of modern technology to maintain correct supplier bills and giving accurate bills to customers giving details of each purchase and most importantly showing him the savings he has made while purchasing from Apna Bazaar. They also possess total details of their sales and the percentage of sales in each category so they know where the sales are high and where they are lagging behind.
•
Genuine Products-
The products of Apna Bazaar are genuine as they purchase it directly from the companies. Lots of imitations of consumables such as honey, oil, etc. are available in many stores. People get cheated, as it is not easy to identify them.
•
CRM-
Apna Bazaar organizes a customer meet for their regular customers called MELAVDA at their anniversary to build stronger relations with their customers. On this day, the customers are offered purchase discounts which show that they have taken corrective steps towards customer satisfaction.
Weaknesses
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Capital-
Raising capital for expansion and improvement is also a constraint. Apna Bazaar is bounded by the laws of consumer co-operatives due to which they cannot raise funds from open market. There is also limit prescribed by the consumer co-operatives for number of shares issued by Apna Bazaar. This is a major drawback for Apna Bazaar.
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Apna Bazaar
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•
Ageing society-
Apna Bazar started after World War 2 when there was need of essential commodities at lower prices. But, after liberalization many super markets and hypermarkets have opened up due to which there is explosion of choices. Moreover, people today have the money to go for convenience shopping, and hence, the purpose for opening the co-operative is defeated.
•
Obstacles in recruitment: -
Apna Bazar does not have the budget to recruit skilled staff. The employees are not well educated and hence, they are not aware of the management practices. A qualified employee demands higher salary, which cannot be given by Apna Bazaar due to their constraints. Hence they cannot appoint a MBA a managerial job.
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No online retailing: -
Apna Bazar does not have information about its products online. They should have their own website as it is very important in today’s world. They could even learn about customer grievances by the feedback.
•
Price fluctuation: -
Price Fluctuation is a major threat to Apna Bazar. If the product is bought at a higher price is has to be sold at that price only so as not to incur losses. For example, the price of oil fluctuates a lot. So if the price for oil is Rs. 820 for a can when it is purchased, it will be sold at Rs 820 per can even if the price falls to Rs. 800 per can. In this case the oil available from other shops will be cheaper.
Opportunities
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Brand building: -
Apna Bazaar can take efforts to build its’ brand image. For this purpose, a marketing firm can he hired. This will attract more and more people to its outlets. Also, they have upgraded their outlets. This can be the base for attracting more customers as they will soon have all air conditioned stores.
•
Expansion: -
Apna Bazaar can expand its outlets to other states. At present, they have discovered
interests from Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. The initiation is on the anvil.
•
Development in suburbs: -
People are now moving in the suburbs; infrastructure is developing due to which there is
huge potential to attract more customers.
•
Retailing boom:
Retailing today is not only about selling at the shop, but also about surveying the market,
offering choice and experience to consumers, competitive prices and retaining consumers
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Apna Bazaar
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as well. The establishment of supermarkets and convenience stores has been a great effort
to communicate the advantages of organized retailing to customers.
Threats:
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Malls-
There are a large number of malls that offer discounts the discounts offered by them are as good as those offered by Apna Bazaar because the malls purchase in bulk and can hence afford to give heavy discounts to the customers. The customer has an explosion of choices and will prefer shopping at these big malls because of the ambience. They get the complete shopping experience at malls. Hence, malls are a major threat for Apna Bazaar.
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Competition from other stores in terms of-
Customer Centric Approach:
Most other stores take feedback from the customers in form of grievances, opinions and
suggestions. They can find out customer needs and ways to satisfy them.
Image:
Image of a private retailer is more modern and advanced compared to that of Apna Bazaar. The display is also more attractive in other super markets and hypermarkets compared to Apna Bazaar.
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Apna Bazaar
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Future Plans:
•
Apna Bazaar plans to open outlets in the new housing colonies coming up in the
interior suburbs like Kandivli and Thane.
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Increasing the distribution reach is a strategy to counter competition the co-operative plans to increase its outlets from 80 at present to about 100 by next year. This would comprise department stores, super markets, franchisee outlets and medical stores, both in Maharashtra as well as rest of the country.
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Apart from that, it has money transfer facility under an arrangement with Western
Union money transfer.
•
On the tie-up with HPCL for having Apna Bazaar outlets at the petrol pumps, so far
three HPCL pumps have Apna Bazaar outlets and the results are still being analyzed.
•
Apna Bazaar Co-operative has embarked on a restructuring exercise and has appointed Darashaw and Company as strategic consultants. The restructuring involves exiting certain business while adding more services, to be provided under its umbrella. The restructuring plan involves exiting out of businesses like export of fish and grapes, milk processing, manufacturing bakery products like biscuits and also pickles papads and spices.
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Online booking for provisions through the Net and a centralized system to control inventory are also on the anvil. To begin with the co-operative plans to have a dedicated call center for customers to phone in their requirements, which would then be delivered from the nearest Apna Bazaar outlet. An online presence, on the lines of Sangam Direct-the online initiative of HLL-is under consideration.
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To ensure minimum inventory and maximum rotation, the co-operative is planning to centralize its supply chain management. It is talking to FMCG majors like Tata, Nestle, HLL and P&G to ensure rotation without building up much inventory. While the super markets would be serviced directly by the companies, the requirements of franchisee outlets would be met by Apna Bazaar to ensure better co-ordination.
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Apna Bazaar operates the Akshay Labh Yojana scheme wherein the customers can deposit Rs. 10,000 at any point of time in the year and get items worth Rs. 100 per month free. They also have term deposit schemes.
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Apna Bazaar has also entered into an eCRM tie-up with Venture Infotek, the e- infrastructure solutions provider, whereby Venture Infotek provides the integrated end-to-end solutions, with the shared infrastructure and payment-as-you-use payment mechanism, without investment in infrastructure.
•
The first thing on Apna Bazaar’s plans is to work on all 365 days like other big
players.
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Apna Bazaar
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Upgrading the skills of their manpower and create vehicle parking facility are also in their agenda. They plan to have a tie-up with Citibank on co-branding. Regarding credit card, they are on the verge of signing a MoU with SBI. As visual merchandising, a new way for presenting the products will be introduced.
•
The National Consumers Co-Operative Federation has approached Apna Bazaar and enquired about the possibility of running department stores under the brand name Apna Bazaar in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh.
•Apna Bazaar is planning to open another outlet in Goa as they have got a good
response from the supermarket.
Recommendations:
•
Government interference has had a major effect on the democratic setup of Apna
Bazaar. Therefore, lesser dependence on government should be opted for.
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Government should help stores like Apna Bazaar with credit at cheaper interest rates.
•
Apna Bazaar should improve their capital assets by enrolling more members and also
introduce more product varieties.
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In the coming years, the economy will be dominated by the retailing sector. Times are changing, organizations are changing. Changing according to times is inevitable. Apna Bazaar has to change its traditional viewpoints. It should adopt new techniques and accept change wholeheartedly. Bringing qualitative changes in their skill and especially mindset will help it to survive competition.
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Apna Bazaar can open one outlet offering all the products it sells in the 80 outlets so
that people get all products offered by Apna Bazaar under one roof
