Retail Chronicles- August

in The City :
New
Qureshi's
Perina
Should
Everything
Accessible to
be
Tech-Trends:
Go
Amazon
: Kishore
Biopic
Biyani
News at a
Retail
Glance
Retail Lab SIMSR
K J SIMSR, Mumbai
Contact: 9158256641,9769886091
retaillab@somaiya.edu
RETAIL
CHRONICLES
Fortnightly Newsletter | Volume 3 - Issue 2 | 01-15 AUGUST 2018
Pg 07
02
Store
Pg 03
Pg 02
03
Everyone
05
07
Pg 08
Pg 05
08

THE ENTREPRENEUR ALWAYS
SEARCHES FOR CHANGE, RESPONDS
TO IT, AND EXPLOITS IT AS AN
OPPORTUNITY.
PETER DRUCKER

02
NEW IN THE CITY
Pernia Qureshi launches first brick-and-mortar store in Mumbai
Entrepreneur Pernia Qureshi is all set to elevate the
brand’s offline presence with the launch of maiden
flagship store in Mumbai. The Pernia’s Pop-Up
Studio located in Juhu is spread over 1,500 sq ft
area and aims to create a tailored shopping
experience integrated with its e-store. Shoppers can
browse their website via in-store touch screen
kiosks to explore collections beyond the curated mix
of industry veterans and upcoming designers
housed in the studio.
Most of the brand’s collections are trans-seasonal,
but it mainly focuses on Indo-western styles with a
festive flair this season. The designer selections at
the store will change every week with labels like
Dhruv Kapoor, Nishka Lulla, Pernia Qureshi label,
Pallavi Jaipur, Pink Peacock Couture, Samant
Chauhan and Eurumme, adorning its racks.
The store’s lounge section will focus on personal
styling consultations while Qureshi’s top picks of the
month are also showcased on a dedicated shelf.
Our favorite element in the studio is the impressive
7 by 10 ft. wall with a video display of new
collections. Here’s how it works; Browse through
Pernia’s online selection, conceptualize a
personalized look and select your preferred choice
across two big touchscreens enabled kiosks.

Everything should be
accessible to everyone
Digital India can connect rural areas with highspeed
Internet networks, allowing e-commerce to
reach various parts of India, which are currently
served only by unorganised retail. Apart from
reaching out to customers, entrepreneurs from the
interiors can join the organised retail industry and
scale up businesses to pan-India.
It was not very long ago that people who shopped
online in India were considered 'ahead of time'. But,
times have changed, and in today's world the
question isn't "Have you ever shopped online",
“How often you shop online." We can say with
certainty that e-commerce has indeed arrived in
India, bearing in mind that we still have a long way
to go.
Notwithstanding the phenomenal growth during the
last two years, online shopping still represents a
minuscule 1% of overall retail sales in India. By
2020, India's e-commerce market is expected to
reach $100 billion, and there is no doubt this sector
will greatly contribute to the Indian economy. The e-
commerce industry in India is still in a nascent
stage. To start with, in India there are 180 million
Internet users and a small portion of them has the
access to data connections. The e-commerce
industry will grow further with rising disposable
incomes, affordable access to data, and higher
mobile penetration.
It is time to re-look at regulations for digital
companies from a different lens. The policies and
frameworks that were designed for brick-and-mortar
businesses many years ago need a fresh evaluation
for digital companies. Hopefully, the expected
announcements related to the Goods & Services Tax
(GST) will result in simplification and standardisation
of the tax regime for digital companies.
Just like a new house needs a strong foundation, the
e-commerce industry still needs a well-developed
ecosystem in India. Last mile delivery is one of the
weakest links that is limiting the reach to rural India.
Therefore, any tax subsidies for logistics companies
that would help develop this ecosystem would in turn
help fuel the growth of e-commerce in India. In the
area of fashion e-commerce, one specific opportunity
is around standardisation of sizes of clothing
products. This would make shoppers more
comfortable buying online. However, this type of
initiative requires investment from the government
into an independent body that sets such standards
across the industry. There is also an opportunity to
simplify regulations for international brands to do
business in India.
03

04
Apart from reaching out to the customers, many
enthusiastic entrepreneurs from the interiors of
India can join the organised retail industry and
scale up their businesses to pan-India. Hence, it
would be instrumental in bringing the best of
different parts of India to the entire population of
the country. The best of the collections and niche
offerings will be available to everyone at their
fingertips. This would make "everything
accessible to everyone" and truly foster growth for
the 'Make in India' campaign.
The e-commerce industry would also nurture
many more allied industries with expertise in the
e-commerce domain, such as logistics,
warehousing, mobile marketing, etc, serving e-
commerce companies. E-commerce is definitely
going to encourage small and talented
entrepreneurs to dream big and would vicariously
facilitate 'Make in India'. Virtually, everything we
need - be it a product or service - would have a
potential to come online with a higher value
proposition of "convenience".
Last, with the high penetration of smartphones in
India and due to the affinity of users to do many
things on the go, there is an affinity for mobile
apps. This provokes digital companies to gain a
share of space in a consumer's mobile through
apps, which can generate higher engagement with
consumers. Having the mobile app on consumer's
mobile also increases the brand preference score of
the company.
There are many more innovations expected in the
mobile engagement sector and this could be by
making navigation easiest and fastest, offering
customised recommended content depending on
past behaviour of that particular customer till the
point it becomes a one-stop personal assistant for
that category. There are many other innovations
expected too, such as experimentation with
augmented reality which would offer realistic but
virtual trial rooms to every user and could enrich the
experience of the consumers buying online.
To • sum it up: there is no question that e-commerce
is here to stay and thrive in India. However, the
upcoming policy announcements and innovations
will play a crucial role in impacting this growth over
the next few years.

05
Tech- Trends:
Amazon Go Means Goodbye Status Quo
Amazon Go is quite simply awesome. It is a
welcomed consumer experience, and, more
importantly, it may just be the first step on the path
to a new American retail experience that is no
longer just the stuff of science fiction movies. Here
then is a quick assessment of what Amazon Go is
today, what it could become, and what it all, when
taken together, could portend for the future of retail:
1. Amazon Go Is Urban Millennial Nirvana
The Amazon Go experience in Seattle is 100%
friction-free.
It involves only three key steps:
a). The consumer downloads an app.
b). He or she scans the app's QR code on a
boarding-an-airplane-like device upon entry.
c). He or she then walks into the store and takes
whatever he or she wants without talking to anyone.
•
Right now, the current Amazon Go experience is
mostly prepackaged product, i.e. product that is
easily identified via Amazon's visual recognition
technology. The only differentiating leg on which to
stand that urban convenience stores and grocery
stores have against Amazon Go right now are fresh
fruits, meats and vegetables.

If Amazon begins testing a consumer-first
experience in any of these categories soon, the
world could get topsy-turvy real quick. It would
mean Amazon may be close to figuring out how to
merge Amazon Go with Whole Foods and that the
days of mom having to placate three-year-old
Jimmy while she waits patiently for the grocery
cashier to ring up her purchases might soon be
over.
2.The Personalized Physical Store
not even started their own experimentation yet.
Retail innovation cycles every 30 to 40 years like
clockwork. Jeff Bezos was on the cutting edge of
last great innovation: e-commerce. Based on the
historical trajectory, the next innovation is due
sometime between 2020 and 2030. Like Sears with
its catalog and later its department store sprawl,
Bezos too may be about to pull the feat off for the
second time. A checkout-free, fully operating
grocery store is phenomenal, but even more
breathtaking is the first personalized physical store,
i.e. a physical experience that is different from one
individual to the next, likely in this case via
Amazon's mobile applications.
3. The Formula Can Go As Fast As It Wants
If the above holds true, retailers will have almost no
shot to do anything about it competitively. Some big
guys might—the likes of Walmart, Kroger and a few
others—but mostly the situation will prove too
complicated for existing retailers to rewire their
systems on the timelines required to meet the
experience benchmarks Amazon will have set
already, especially considering many of them have
4. The Competition's Backs Are Up Against A
Wall With Few Remaining Options
History could even repeat itself. Just as in the early
days of e-commerce, when retailers leveraged
Amazon's platform for their digital experiences,
legacy bricks-and-mortar retailers may have no
choice but to leverage Amazon's future "Go"
platform for their own in-store experiences as well.
It is their only hope for survival. Otherwise they, like
the status quo, will soon go the way of the dodo.
Nice work, Amazon. You deserve nothing but
accolades on this one.
06

BIOPIC
Kishore Biyani
A true Indian retail expert, Kishore Biyani is the
Group CEO of Future Group. Popularly known
as KB, he is the one behind the concept of retail
supermarkets in India such as Big Bazaar, Mega
Mart, Pantaloon and Bangalore Central. With
his ‘guts and instincts’ he created Future Group
to a $1 billion enterprise and spearheaded the
emergence of Pantaloon.
Born on Aug, 1961 into a small malwadi traders
family, he started his first business enterprise
selling stonewash fabric to small shops in
Mumbai. Famous for his unconventional style
of running the business Biyani was initially
written off by the media. He defied the status
quo and challenged the conventional mind-set
by significantly thinking big.
A true believer in the group’s corporate credo,
‘Rewrite Rules, Retain Values,’ he considers
indian-ness as the core value driving the group.
Pantaloon, today operates in over 85 cities and
towns and 65 rural locations across India.
Future Group’s retail arm has a multi-format
retail strategy and some of its leading formats
include Big Bazaar, Central Food Bazaar, Ezone,
Home Town and Planet Sports. It also operates
popular shopping portal, futurebazaar.com and
rural retail chain, Aadhar. Future Group’s other
businesses include financial services, brand
development, insurance and logistics.
Though Future Group’s core business is retail,
its appetite for food is steadily increasing with
Though Future Group’s core business is retail,
its appetite for food is steadily increasing with
newer retail formats and is scaling up
operations with Foodhall, its most recent
venture into the food retail, which would offer a
new format to cater to the growing aspirations
of the consumers. Presently, the company’s
existing food retail chains comprise the nofrills,
small format Kishore Biyani’s fair price
stores, Food Bazaar and Food Rite. Another
initiative, Future Fresh is for the supply of fruits
and vegetables and is sourcing across the
world, from Canada to New Zealand. The idea
is to give quality and consistency in vegetables
and fresh fruits in the long run coupled with
world class technology and processes.
He received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year
Awards. In year 2006, he was awarded ‘First
Generation Entrepreneur of the Year’ by CNBC
Indian Business Leaders. He was also awarded
the ‘Young Business Leader’ conferred by the
IIM Lucknow.
He has authored a book “It Happened In India”
which traces his struggle, failures, restlessness,
and sheer grit. Often been called ‘the Sam
Walton of India,’ Mr. Kishore Biyani success is
a classic example of how deep insights can
create an impregnable differentiator among
competition which are purely led by
observations and theoretical market research
reports.
07

08
RETAIL NEWS AT A GLANCE
•Myntra has acquired Mumbai based
end-to-end omnichannel platform,
Pretr for retail. With this deal,
Myntra has prepared itself to forge
omnichannel partnerships with
brands on its platform and provide a
comprehensive solution to retailers to
enhance their own omnichannel
journey.
• Amazon India is all set for ‘Amazon
Freedom Sale’ from August 9 to
August 12. With over 20,000 deals on
Smartphones, Consumer Electronics,
Fashion, Large Appliances, Groceries
& Daily essentials, TVs and more.
•Bengaluru-based company Flipkart is
planning to take on its business rival
Amazon's flagship subscription
service Prime by introducing a loyalty
programme Flipkart Plus. This is the
biggest decision taken by Flipkart
since its majority share was bought
by Walmart in May.
•Paytm has planned to launch a “New
Retail” model to make shopkeepers
technology enabled, logistics and
marketing capabilities. According to
One97 Communications, under the
new model, “consumers will soon be
able to discover nearby pharmacies,
groceries and other shops to place an
order and get instant deliveries”.

Our Team
Content
Retail Chronicles is a bi-monthly newsletter of
Retail Lab, the Retail committee of KJ
Somaiya Institute of Management Studies
& Research, Mumbai. Images used in Retail
Chronicles are subject to copyright.
Raveena Gupta
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Design Team
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/retaillabsimsr
@Retail_LAB
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K J Somaiya Institute Of
Management Studies & Research,
Mumbai
retaillab.simsr@somaiya.edu
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