India Retail News

Clive Woodger is the Managing Director and owner of SCG London, an independent international branding consultancy founded in London in 1991. He is a qualified architect and branding specialist with extensive retail and corporate client experience. Clive is an author, and regular contributor for UK and international mass media and an experienced conference speaker

What is your perspective on where Indian retail is today?

India is going through all the phases that BRIC economies go through. The Indian middle-class has made a massive leap in incomes, aspirations and consumption. What took the West 30 years is happening in 3 years here. In the process, there are missteps and miscalculations. As in other BRIC economies, the focus initially is on quantity and not quality, resulting in a massive explosion in the number of shopping centers, for example, with no clear strategy and ultimately weak commercial logic.

While this worked when times were good, the global meltdown has forced everyone to rethink. Hopefully this will stop the get rich quick mentality which has plagued the market. Processes are not as sharp and clever as they needs to be. India is a consumer-led economy though, which places it in a better position to recover.

What strategies should retailers adopt to tackle the slowdown?

The meltdown has brought a dose of reality to the retail industry which was overdue. It will force retailers to think more clearly about their offer. It is absolutely essential to understand and anticipate customer needs. Everyone is looking at how to invest carefully. Discretionary spending will see a drop as consumers postpone big ticket purchases. Consumers become acutely aware during a recession and weigh the value they receive for what they pay. Price is a given, however, what consumers look for is value in the widest sense – quality/cost/experience ratio. It is important for retailers to focus on this overall meaning of value and communicate this to their customer.

You have significant experience in Europe and Russia. Do you see any parallels with India? What can Indian retailers learn from their experience?

We have seen similar evolution of retail in all BRIC economies. The first phase involves a massive explosion of retail/stores and shopping centers – a focus on quantity as opposed to quality. In this phase, typically there hasn’t been enough strategic thought put into the design and development. If there are 5 malls in town, possibly 3 will fail. Russia is still going through this phase. There are more than 160 shopping centers in Moscow at the last count. Many are having problems. However there is a realization that there has to be increased investment in effective short and long term differentiation through brand profile development. This is why we have been busy with developers working on the effective coordination of marketing, architecture and environments.

The recession is terrible in all the things it brings with it; however if there is a good thing that has come out of all this, it is that it has forced everyone to think strategically and cleverly. Retailers are now forced to focus on processes and manage them everyday with optimum efficiency. Indian retail can learn from the West and other BRIC economies. We are very interested in this market and can bring the latest thinking and experiences to it. People now realize that strategy and design is not just cosmetic, but can have a direct impact on your bottom-line. If you don’t adapt, you will fade away.

What are the factors to be considered to develop a successful retail brand?

A successful retail brand revolves around many factors. The primary factor is a focus on clarity around what makes a good offer achieving a relevant and credible range of products and services for your target consumers. For example, a perpetual struggle for supermarkets is the ratio of food and non-food. The theory is food brings the footfalls and non-food brings in the margins – this is a commercially dangerous logic. Getting the ratio right is critical. If the non food products lack credibility and potentially detracts from the food offer then poor sales and margins will result.

Own brands or private labels are an important way for retailers to differentiate themselves. There are some good success stories of this in the UK. Tesco has a range of private labels, from value to finest. Some of the top end private labels are positioned above the premium manufacturer brands. This raises some interesting questions, including a massive power change from manufacturers to retailers. This is a key issue in Russian retail as well.

Today we seem to have little differentiation among retailers in India. How can a retailer develop and use their brand to differentiate themselves?

This is a challenge in every market. In reality, differentiation is very difficult. Any USP – unique selling point that can be copied will get copied. Today’s great new idea is tomorrow’s given essential for the sector.

One of the effective ways to develop differentiation is to get the customer to buy into your brand values. It is important for customers to develop an emotional connection and engagement - your ESP – emotional selling point. The customer needs to like the way you operate - your ethics, values and behaviour. As mentioned developing own brands is a useful tool for retailers to differentiate themselves.

Investing in people and training and making your people stand out in terms of customer service is an important differentiator which is not easily copied overnight!

How does retail branding differ from say FMCG or apparel label branding?

FMCG and apparel label branding relies on marketing and packaging to communicate their product offer. For a retailer, it involves a phenomenally complex range of aspects including people, product and customer service. Each of those aspects contributes to the company’s brand equity. For example, if a luxury retailer’s vision is to be the best, it has to reflect in every aspect of the retailer’s interaction with the customer.

High levels of service and quality environments are an obvious aspect but on a more mundane level, the potential weak link in the customers brand experience could be the state of the rest room! - a bad experience that wrecks the carefully developed brand image. Hence, branding has to be an essential part of the management ethos of the company across every activity and process.

Clive can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
SCG London