(Being a person of advertising and media throughout my professional career I was fortunate to work on different brands and was fascinated by the stories around the brand development. I remember once accompanying my employer to a famous communications B-School and was so impressed by his presentation that I started fostering a dream of emulating him. When I finally decided to bid adieu to my professional career and looked for viable options of entrepreneurship I reminded myself that I am not just going to launch a business but I am going to launch a brand. Thus my fascination with brands continued in my entrepreneurial journey as well. I am putting down my thoughts on what goes into brand development and what steps are needed to manage and sustain the brands created by first generation retail entrepreneur intertwined with my own story.)
When we were finalizing location for our first retail store in the early 2004, we had initiated a consumer research, in few of the areas of Ahmedabad – to understand the buying patterns and consumer behavior of the people residing there. The research was conducted in the areas of Khanpur, Navrangpura and Vishala Circle near Juhapura. This research was helpful in making us understand the socio-economic differences of these areas. Khanpur was a mixed area, Navrangpura was upmarket and cosmopolitan, while Juhapura was downtrodden and was devoid of even basic amenities.
It is important to understand the inherent problems of Juhapura before I go further with my journey. For a decade of 1992-2002 Juhapura largely remained an area which was considered as riot prone and downtrodden. It was deprived of basic amenities and though it became a pre-dominantly Muslim ghetto it was avoided by affluent Muslims. Post 2002 communal riots, even some of the affluent Muslims shifted their base and moved to Juhapura. This changed the socio-economic dynamics of the area. This migration of Muslims with deep pockets, was the reason for the housing boom in the area. More and more residential schemes started to flourish. But the problem of not having a good food-grocery store prevailed in Juhapura.
Despite all these problems it still seemed to be the best option to start a store for the following reasons:
- Commercial Real Estate price was economical and hence the property could be purchased easily or bought on lease at a lower cost for the retail store.
- Area did not have any prominent organized food-grocery retail setup, this gave us a golden opportunity to setup our shop here and reap the benefit of first mover advantage before serious competition sets in.
The research was conducted on 588 households and the results were encouraging. The average monthly spend on food-grocery, cosmetics and other fast moving consumer goods, was approximately Rs. 7000. It was a whopping INR 45 lacs worth of business per month in Juhapura, which remained ignored by major food-grocery retail chains.
With the vision of bringing convenience to the locality, we started Hearty Mart in February 2004. It was positioned as ‘Sabse Khaas Ghar ke Paas’; as it was a neighbourhood store which was equipped to cater to the basic needs of the area. Thus it was destined to bridge the gap between demand of daily needs and the options of supplies available.
Creating a brand is a tough call. As the great David Ogilvy has said:
“Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.”- David Ogilvy
My learning says that there are six basic steps which a retail entrepreneur should follow to create his own brand. The steps are as follows:
Step 1: For a consumer friendly retail store to operate, it is essential that you have gauged the consumer demand correctly, hence do a dipstick consumer research in the locality focusing on the purchase pattern and monthly spend of the customers on food-grocery and other related items.
Step 2: To do a trade and competition research, visit the mom & pop kirana stores and other supermarkets present in the locality as mystery customer to understand their inventory. This will help you in the initial inventory purchase for your store.
Step 3: Once the store is operational, the retail entrepreneur should create his own credibility by way of employing fair practices among his stake holders – investors, partners, employees. Remember the store image hasn’t been created at this point, it is you as an entrepreneur with whom the customers/stakeholders would interact. Hence your individual credibility matters a lot for your store to have a positive impact.
Step 4: With efficient services and ensuring good quality products to his customers he can create a credible image of his own store; for this he can employ loyalty programs and promotional activities. A personal touch is required. He should interact with his customers regularly and try to create patrons and not mere customers. Shop patronage helps in fighting competition.
Step 5: Once he is successful in retaining his customers and has created a strong loyalty for his store/firm, he can start creating his own in-house private label. Here scale is needed, hence he should analyze the inventory and figure out the ‘most sold products’ and ‘fastest moving products’ from his store. He can start creating private labels of these products.
Step 6: By consistently maintaining the service levels, storing and producing good quality products, engaging with the customers by way of innovative communications and employing on ground activities at his store, he can create a sustainable brand image for his private label and a store as well.
Thus branding for the first generation entrepreneur is not merely creating an image of his store. This comes at a much later stage. Branding starts with creating his own personal image as a reliable retail entrepreneur since it would have a cascading effect on the other aspects of his business.
(Nadeem Jafri is the Founder & Chief Mentor of Hearty Mart – www.heartymart.com which was founded at Juhapura, Ahmedabad in 2004. Hearty Mart is a food-grocery franchise based retail chain with 14 stores operational in Gujarat today. It owns a 10000 square feet production unit in Dholka GIDC, which manufactures spices for HoReCa (Hotel-Restaurant-Catering) sector. Apart from this, Hearty Mart is a group of 9 companies in different food domains like bakery products, tea, flour trading etc covering HoReCa customers of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan).
