Page 42 - DMGT552_VISUAL_MERCHANDISING

Unit 2: World of Visual Merchandising

a joint venture between Dairy Farm International and RPG Gardinier, has gone to add Notes
four cities – Bangalore, Pune, Coimbatore, and Hyderabad – at 41 locations.
Raghu Pillai, managing director, FoodWorld says, “We started in Chennai because of the
developed retail market, good real estate prospects and cosmopolitan atmosphere.
We have the most comprehensive range of products at the most competitive prices.”
Lower pricing is a function of the volume that the store generates. It gets close to a million
customers a year. The throughput in a store ranges from ` 20,000 lakh to ` 17 crore a
month. It has plans to touch the ` 1000 crore figure by the year 2003-2004. Says Pillai,
“From humble beginnings, today FoodWorld has 12 outlets in Chennai, 14 in Bangalore,
9 in Hyderabad, 4 in Pune, and 2 in Coimbatore. It occupies a total retail space of 100,000
sq. ft. and has additional 100,000 sq. ft. of warehousing facility. Not content to sit on its
laurels, FoodWorld has chalked up plans of setting up 100 stores by December 2000. But
instead of venturing into new cities, FoodWorld will consolidate itself in the already
existing locations.
Normally groceries, food, and vegetables is a low interest area. So building a brand is
much more difficult. To generate and retain interest, FoodWorld runs a host of contests
and promos. It has a 52-week promotional calendar with a variety of schemes to attract
consumers. Pillai says, “At any given time, there are 150 – 200 products at a certain level of
discount.”
The layout of the store is designed keeping convenience in mind. For example, pulses are
kept at the front, rice at the back, while vegetables to be kept on top. The execution enables
vegetables on the top of a basket during a purchase. FoodWorld sources most of its
branded groceries from traditional C&F agents, rice from the rice mills, fruit and vegetables
from the neighbouring villages or the mandi.

Some of the problems encountered are assessing the best location, attaining economic
viability and leveraging synergies. As all volumes are aggregated in the state, generating
large enough volumes to leverage it as an advantage is a difficult task. The infrastructure
of cold chains and basic infrastructure is missing. Getting trained people to man, the stores
have proved another challenge. FoodWorld has the largest number of employees from
government and municipal corporation schools.
In India, on an average, there is one retail outlet per thousand people. The industry is
poised to grow at 5 – 10 per cent per year over the next 25 years. But to grow at this rate,
retail has to grow across all categories of the spectrum.

Question
What external factors FoodWorld exploits to ensure successful existence and expansion of
its retailing activities?

Source: A & M, September 30, 2000

2.5 Summary

 A creative and talented retailer can use this upcoming art to breathe in new life into his
store products. Passion for design and creativity are essential to be a good visual
merchandiser.
 A perfect design process and the ability to create ideas that are different are required.

 Awareness of happenings in fashion world is needed so as to keep up-to-date with the
dynamics of the market constantly.

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