Overview of Pharma Retail in India

Here I am posting a small presentation on pharma retailing in India.

Men Are Increasingly Investing Time In Shopping

Today I will like to share some interesting observation on how couples shop:

It is interesting to see that boys are now investing more time in shopping with their girlfriends and help them select the designs and sizes of the dresses. A male customer stood for about one and a half hour outside trial room helping her wife to select the garments. And I am not exaggerating the time, I have seen boys investing even more time helping their girlfriends to shop. Another thing which is interesting is to see how males hold the female purses; when the female goes to the trial room. There is something funny about men holding female bags.

Though men are investing more time in shopping but then there are still males who doesn't enjoy shopping as much as their female counterparts. Just to share one more incident where the couple behaved just opposite of the above. The female went to the trial room for trying a kurti and when she came out to show it to her husband; her husband was standing out of the store. Then she send a team member to call him in.

So though the customer behavior varies from individual to individual, but gen next males seem to be involved in shopping as much as their female counterparts. And they have a equal say in what suits them and what suits their counterparts better.

People Sensitivity For Physically Challenged People

Today at store we had a training on "People Sensitivity for physically challenged people" who visit our stores. The training was about how we should support such people. Note the word used is support and not help.

There was a role play where everyone attending the training had to sit on wheel chair and other person had to move the wheel chair. This made us realize the difficulties faced by physically challenged people. The space in the aisle of the section was not enough for the movement of wheelchair; because of the difference in eye level of person on a wheel chair and able person, the disabled person will not be able to read the signage, we also understood how a disabled person will like to touch and feel every product but what all will be the difficulties faced by him in reaching every product.

We learned the sign language and learnt the signs used for alphabets. And below are some key points which we should keep in mind while dealing with disabled customer:

• If you are pulling the wheelchair, ask if the speed is fine
• Never pat on the back of the person
• Never try to help, only support
• Treat them as adult vs adult.
• Never be too friendly and don't ask personal questions such as "When did it happen?"
• Never try to play with the wheelchair or touch the wheelchair with your feet. For a disabled person it is their body part.
• The sign language learnt for helping the customers should not be used for your fun.

No Pharma Shops in a Mall

Till now I haven't seen any pharma retail shop in any Mall. To me it seems like a necessity in a mall. We have malls selling everything through there hypermarkets, department stores, food courts, speciality stores, cigarette kiosks, etc. But if a customer needs a crocine he is expected to go out, cross the road and take it from any nearby pharma shop, even if the customer is suffering from severe headache and outside the sun is shining too bright.

What? The basic medical facility is available at the Customer Service Desk of all the department stores and hypermarket. But how many customers know about that? The only thing they know is that there is no medicine shop available in the Mall.

Though Future Group has started with Tulsi (medicine shops) within their Big Bazaar store. But today I required citrizine which was neither available at the Customer Service Desk of my store, whereas Big Bazaar was not selling allopathy medicine today because of technical problems!!!

Dipstick Parameters

This is in continuation with the time to revise concepts.Today we will discuss formulae used to find how a particular store is performing.
The dipstick parameters can be used for finding the performance of four verticals that is customer transaction, stock, space and employees. The formulae are discussed as under.

1. Customer Transaction:

1.1 Customer Conversion Ratio = (Number of Bills Made/Customer entry)*100
1.2 Transactions Per Hour = (Number Of Transactions /Number of Hours)*100
1.3 Sales per Transaction or Ticket size = (Net Sales/ Number of Bills)

2. Stock

2.1 Average Selling Price = (Total Values of Good Sold/ Total Quantity Sold)

2.2 Stock Turnover or Inventory Turnover = (Net Sales/ Average Inventory)

OR

Stock Turnover or Inventory Turnover = (Cost of Goods Sold/ Average Inventory at Cost)

This depicts how many times the inventory rotates in a year.

2.3 Gross Margin Return on Inventory = (Gross Margin/ Average Inventory)

2.4 Shrinkage to net sales = (Actual inventory- Book Inventory/ Net Sales)* 100

2.5 Sales to Stock Ratio = (Net Sales/ Average Cost Inventory)

3. Space

3.1 Sales Per Square Feet = (Net Sales/ Square Feet of Selling Space)

3.2 Stocks Per Square Feet = (Net Stock/ Square Feet of Selling Space)

3.3 Percentage of Space for Department = (Space allocated to each department/ Total Selling Space)

*** See the sales per Square feet of the store and then calculate sales per square feet of each department. And Then compare how each department is performing relative to the store itself.

4. Employees

4.1 Net Sales Per Full Time Employee = (Net Sales/ Number of Full Time Employee)

4.2 Labour Productivity = (Total Labour Costs/ Net Sales)*100

Time to Revise Concepts

I will try and post some very basic concepts which we have learnt during our Retail Management. The first thing a customer does after entering the store is he looks at the merchandise. So today lets start with color blocking that is how merchandise should be color blocked so that it is most appealing to the eyes of customer.

1. On a wall we follow VIBGYOR (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red) from left to right. This is in the order of colors emitted by light when it pass through a prism. We follow this as the natural light is always soothing to the eyes.

2. From top to bottom we follow dark to light or light to dark depending on the season that is summer or winter. Though our teacher taught us that we always follow dark to light from top to bottom because dark colors attract the customers from a distance. So in summers you can experiment with both the concepts and follow what pleases your eyes.







3. While hanging on a straight arm, waterfall or step arm we follow light in the front and dark color at the back.


So in three simple steps you can give a pleasent look to your section.

Checklist for Management Trainees of Hypermarket format

For the management trainees of hypermarket format the way to proceed will be bit different from the management trainees of Departmental stores. Hypermarket format much more SKUs compared to Departmental stores therefore trainees need to proceed merchandise category wise rather than brand wise.
The Checklist for the trainees of Hypermarket format is as under:
1. Printout of store layout.
2. Department wise area allocated.
3. Choose a department where you will like to start from.
4. Take a printout of all the merchandise category in that department.
5. Find out the price range offered in that category.
6. Find out the most sold price point in that category through team members of the department. Because in hypermarket format we work on price points rather than on brands.
7. Take the product knowlege.
8. Do an 80:20 analysis that is 20% of the merchandise category in the department will account for 80% of the sales for the section.
9. Look for the reasons why the rest 80% merchandise are not performing well. If that can be improved on.
10 Look for the contribution of the section in terms of sales, profits and area to the store. I believe this would give you the complete knowledge about that department.
11.Spend a day at cashering
12. Spend a day at Customer Service Desk.
13. One Day each with VM, HR and Marketing.
14. Then some days at Supply Chain Mangement: Here learn all the inward outward processes and all the commands on S.A.P. to do so. Learn the various commands on systems and how to generate Purchase order, Stock Transfer Order, etc.
15. Spend one day with IT/ Admin.
16. After this you can proceed with other departments of the store or whatever your project requires.
All The Best!!!!