Sitting in a restaurant in Raffles Boulevard in Singapore this afternoon, as we took a break from a business meeting, we were exuberantly discussing the standards of retailing in India. Before the batting of an eyelid we appreciated the good job some of our mall developers have done in creating shopping infrastructure of world-class standards. We compared instantly some good malls we have in India with a few of those in Singapore with respect to design, zoning, standards of common area utilization, signage and communication, maintenance and facilities management, etc. and we could find no gaps to conclude that Indian malls are in any way inferior to those in Singapore. We in India have been able to create retailing and shopping infrastructure of great quality. We juxtaposed our thoughts with the hospitality sector in India. Haven’t we come a long way to offer the best standards of hospitality infrastructure and service in India? And the answer was a bold yes. Our rack rates are on par with any developed nation though, we offer world-class standards of rooms, cuisines of international flavors and the best of service. The maintenance of every star hotel in India is meticulously done. Our service standards are far superior to those rendered in developed economies because we bow down to almost every customer in our hotels to serve without even letting a guest touch his own luggage while checking-in or checking-out. Guests are Gods for us. Atithi Devo Bhava! So, in the hospitality sector we have gone even a step ahead of international standards!
But the malls in Singapore seem to be radiantly different. They look better. What makes the difference? We were trying to find answers. The retail stores within the malls make a big difference. Every store in a mall is merchandised right with its planograms intact. We checked a few stores along our way after our discussions when the stores were becoming busy with greater footfalls towards the evening. The stacking of merchandise and the ‘turnaround’ of the shelves back to order are instantaneously done on the floors. Even in a supermarket or a convenience store, the floor staff walks around to organize the merchandise back to its shelved glory. As every hanger goes to the right groove in the display fixture, one rarely finds an additional one jutting out of the browser or one short in the browser’s arm and as every fresh produce in a supermarket is sold, it is replenished during any part of the day! So the stores look well maintained and as all of them uniformly maintain the array of their merchandise in proper order, the whole mall looks magnificent. Retailing partners in a mall make all the difference. Both have to go hand in hand to create the grandeur and greatness of the mall for delighting customers.
It is not impossible to arrive there. All that it needs are following the required discipline and the right attitude. When we can have everything in order in our own homes and hotels, why can’t we do the same thing on our retail floors? Often we give many excuses for running a disorderly store – sometimes we even say that ‘value stores’ could be merchandised any way as customers may want to see the products in bins to have the pleasure of ‘picking up’ bargains! What lame excuses we have been giving, if at all! An airhostess on our flight to Singapore in a relatively new native no-frills airline, which has even bagged many awards recently, told my colleague who bought his lunch, that they serve everything they sell onboard cold and she said that very politely and with a service oriented smile. He was left thinking how one could eat cold parathas and before he could take any offence to the bad service, the way she presented herself politely made no difference to our decision not to fly the same airline again on an international trip! Sometimes service suffers in retailing as well, even if our sales people are trained. It’s time we checked our attitudes and disciplines.
We’ll surely but steadily surpass international standards in retailing in India but a larger share of responsibility reposes with our retailers!
Dr. Gibson G. Vedamani
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