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Helping various retail formats to enhance user experience, improve efficiency & track competitors to improve overall business performance through on ground cutting edge research

Modern trade General trade e-tailers

What We Do

Category assessment
Category trends
Sector scan
Customer NPS & loyalty
Voice of customer
Customer purchase journey
Shopping decision tree
Customer segmentation
Need & intent gap analysis
Digital persona mapping
Mystery shopping
Employee engagement
Employee satisfaction & NPS
Micro-market demand estimation
Voice of channel
Sales & distribution benchmarking
Brand equity assessment
Advertising effectiveness
Product and concept testing
Product price benchmarking
Catalogue gap assessment
Availability visibility study
Go-to-market
Footfall analysis
Unit economics benchmarking
Store design & layout benchmarking
Shopper flow analysis
Competitive tracking

Category assessment

What is the opportunity size? What are the key products? What is their market share?
How fast are the various categories growing? What are the key growth drivers and inhibitors?
What is the channel mix for various products / categories?
What are the different customer segments for both offline / online channels and how do requirements vary across product categories?
Who are the key competitors and what are the attributes of their product categories?
How does the brand’s / player’s existing categories compare to those of key competitors?
What is the potential business upside/ risk across customer segments?

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Category trends

What are the latest trends in the market / geos? How is the growth of these trends over past 5 years and what are the key growth drivers?
What are the innovative business models that have come up in the segment? How have they grown?
What are the key players operating in each product category? How do they stack up against each other on key economic parameters?
What needs & gaps in demand are they fulfilling?
What are the upsell & cross sell opportunities which exists to the core product?

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Sector scan

What are the various type of categories which exist in the sector? Who are the various players existing across the categories identified?
What is the differentiation in the business model of various players? Which business models are doing better compared to others?
How is the sector evolving in terms of technology adoption and digital penetration? What are the other growth drivers in the sector?
How are the traditional incumbents competing with new age players? What are barriers to entry in the sector?
What does the procurement process and value chain look like? How is it different for online vs. offline vs. hybrid?
What are the typical trade margins across the value chain? How do the vary across categories?
What does the unit economics of key types of retail outlets (across segments – apparel, groceries, etc.) look like?
What are the key pain points of retailers and other trade partners?

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Customer NPS & loyalty

How likely is the customer to promote respective brand / retailer? How does the customer perceive various brands in the segment?
How does the NPS vary across regions and products and how does it compare with key competitors?
What are the key drivers of NPS?
What are the triggers that would make customers shift to another brand / retailer?
What are the relative strengths and weaknesses that have the highest impact on NPS?
What kind of schemes / offers / sales / memberships usually retailers offer to attract loyalty of customers? What impact these have on revenue in terms of volumes & value?
How is the loyalty scheme working for customers? Does it attract customers. Are they renewing memberships? If not, why?

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Voice of customer

Which players are customer most satisfied with across product categories and why?
How has their experience been with different offerings across different product categories?
What are the reasons for preference of a particular retailer / brand over others?
How do clients rate the sales and service experience? What are the gaps in the customer journey?
What are the improvement areas across product categories?
What are the key elements to provide a comprehensive client experience?

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Customer purchase journey

How did the customer become aware of the brand / player?
What are the various touch points with front end staff with the customer?
How easy / difficult it is for customer to identify sections / products of his choice in stores?
Does the customer like to try the products / see a demo before purchase?
What are the payment methods available to complete the purchase and what do customers prefer the most across consumer segments?
What is the return / exchange / refund policy?
How fast is complaint resolution? What is the post-sales service process like?

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Shopping decision tree

What is the intention or occasion of the purchase?
What influences shopping decision to shop alone or with family / friends?
How impulsive is the buyer for products which are not listed on shopping list to buy? How is it impacted by schemes or discounts?
How far is the budget stretched due to impulsive shopping?
How flexible is the consumer in trying new categories serving the same purpose?
How important does price, quality, variety play in the buying needs of the customer?

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Customer segmentation

What type of customers buy various product categories in terms of demographics - age, sex, education, HHI, city etc?
What is the NCCS profile of these customers?
How can classification be done based on demographics, needs, buying behavior etc.?
What are the key purchase criteria segment wise?
How does spend vary as per various customer segments?
What are some of the unmet needs customer segment wise?
What is the digital presence of the consumers like – online shopping, OTT, digital payments, etc.?

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Need & intent gap analysis

What is the digital footprint of customer in day-to-day life across social media, services app, entertainment apps etc?
How much is customer spending both in terms of time & money on various digital mediums?
What is the source of awareness for various digital mediums?
What is the role of influencer marketing in digital adoption?
Is it habit forming or need based adoption? How does peers, friends & family influence the decision?
What is the loyalty for any particular app? What are the usage characteristics for a particular app – DAU, MAU, time spent, etc.?

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Digital persona mapping

What is the digital footprint of customer in day-to-day life across social media, services app, entertainment apps etc?
How much is customer spending both in terms of time & money on various digital mediums?
What is the source of awareness for various digital mediums?
What is the role of influencer marketing in digital adoption?
Is it habit forming or need based adoption? How does peers, friends & family influence the decision?
What is the loyalty for any particular app? What are the usage characteristics for a particular app – DAU, MAU, time spent, etc.?

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Mystery shopping

What is the overall consumer experience in shopping?
How is the ambience of retail stores, staff interaction, schemes & offers etc?
How is the packaging of the product? What are the varieties offered?
How is the ATL / BTL marketing?
What kind of layout is there in stores and how are products stacked in shelves?
What are the key pain points which consumer faces in the whole purchase journey?

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Employee engagement

What are the various activities undertaken to have a constant engagement with employees?
How regular are these activities and how is the overall participation of employees?
Are there regular team building activities?
What kind of trainings are being given to employees on a regular basis to upskill?
Are there any other benefits given for professional development?
What is the employee perception of the values of the retailer?

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Employee satisfaction & NPS

How satisfied are the employees with the retailers across different parameters?
What are the areas of strength which employees would like the retailers to continue and build on?
What are the key improvement areas?
How satisfied are the employees with their career path in the company?
How likely are the employees willing to recommend the retailer to others?

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Micro-market demand estimation

What is the nature of opportunity in each micro-market? What are the typical customer requirements of these micro markets?
How has been the growth trend in demand vs supply for each micro market?
Who are the key competitors and what are the attributes of their offerings in each micro-market?
What is our market share (points of presence/ sales capacity, number of customers, business volumes/revenues)? How does it compare with competitors?
How do our existing offerings compare to those of the market leader?
What is the potential business upside/ risk across micro-markets?

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Voice of channel

What is the kind of format which works for a particular player with retailers? COCO, FOCO, FOFO?
How many retailers / franchisees are currently existing?
What kind of margins are available in various forms of ownership?
What kind of footfall is there and what is the conversion? How does it affect revenues – ABV, etc.?
What is the experience around delivery / stock replenishment of products to the retail store and dealing with brand people? How easy or difficult it is to maintain stock levels?
What do trade partners like about the retailer? What areas need improvement?

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Sales & distribution benchmarking

What is the structure of sales organization vis a vis competitors? What are the incentives given to the sales team?
What is the demographics of distributors & terms with them?
How are various cost heads compared with competition?
What are the areas of improvement for the retailer with respect to competition to improve channel efficiency?
What are the global best practices for sales & distribution of the said product categories?
What are some of the short-term and long-term actions that can help optimize processes?

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Brand equity assessment

What is the degree of brand awareness with respect to competitors? What is the aided and unaided recall like?
What are the key values associated with the brand?
What are the typical avenues for introducing brand to customers?
What is the effectiveness of various channels for brand introduction?
How does brand awareness change with consumer demographics, geos, etc.?
How important is brand in the sale process?
What are some of the best practices to strengthen brand value?

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Advertising effectiveness

What is the perception of the advertisement campaign content?
What is the annual advertising spend & ROI? How does it compare to competitors?
What are the advertising channels deployed? Where does it lack compared to industry?
What is the effect of advertisements on purchase intent?
Which ads are performing better than the others?
What is the impact of a brand ambassador / marketing influencers on advertising?
Which channels are most effective in reaching customer?

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Product and concept testing

What is the effectiveness of product / concept?
How to do the pilot testing of the brand / store? What should be the target audience? Why?
How to get customer feedback on proposed new store / product launches?
What is the ideal methodology for testing new store / product concepts? What should be the sampling plan?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of new concept?
What should be key message and tonality while advertising the new launch?
What is the optimal beta launch design for a store?

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Product price benchmarking

What product variants are offered by competitors? What are their price points? What are the difference in offerings?
For the same raw materials, how does the procurement price stack against the competition?
What are the features for which the customer is ready to pay the premium?
What is the different promotion used to lower price across periods?
How can price be used as a strategy to win market share?

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Catalogue gap assessment

What is the product width and depth of the category?
Where are the whitespaces in the portfolio – by price, feature, brands?
How well does the product catalogue address potential customers?
What are the over or underselling products? Why do they perform that way?
What are product offerings of key competitors? What are their largest selling products? Are there products that can be adopted?
What are the other products that can be carved out from the existing products (bundling, sub-products, etc.) to meet unserved customer requirements?
How can the catalogue be improved for better conversion?

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Availability visibility study

What is the percentage of shelf space offered by retailers to different brands?
Are there any product offerings relevant to customers but not available to them? If yes, why?
What is the on-ground product availability and visibility across geos and store types? How does it compare to competition?
What are the weak geographical areas in terms of availability & visibility?
What are the deciding factors for the shelf space?
Where are retailers facing shortage of SKUs?
What is availability of fast selling SKUs vs low selling SKUs?
What is the replenishment time for key products? How does it affect availability?
How does the brand visibility vary locations and geographies?

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Go-to-market

What is the total addressable market for the product categories?
What is the share of serviceable available market?
What should be your target customer segment? What are their typical personas and preferences?
What is the customer journey for the target customer? Where is it broken? Where can it be improved?
What is the competitive intensity in the region? What should the communication strategy be to cut through the noise?
How is the market evolving? What segments are driving growth of the market?
How to develop the value chain necessary to run operations, from supplies to legal permits?

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Footfall analysis

What is the footfall over weekdays / weekends? How does it differ for location types like high street / malls / standalone stores?
What is the wait time for customers to be served in a retail store?
How much time is customer spending inside the store when shopping is done & when shopping is not done?
What is the conversion ratio of the total footfall? What is the ABV?
What are the reasons of seeing a spike in footfall at a particular given time and how can overall footfall be increased?

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Unit economics benchmarking

What is the structure and breakup of cumulative cost and margins across various store formats? What are major cost heads?
How are various cost heads and margins compared with competition?
What is the unit economics as compared to competitors? Where do they perform better? Why?
What is the rent to revenue ratio? What is the spsf?
What are the global best standards of unit economics?
What are some of the short-term and long-term actions that can help maximize margins?

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Store design & layout benchmarking

How much of the store design and layout is standardised?
How much time & cost does the standardised format entail and what is the other non-standardised costs involved?
How does it compare with competitors on a per square feet basis? How much area is utilized for showcasing products?
How is the walking space and shelf arrangements compared to competitors?
How does the signage & other aesthetics compare against competitors?
Are the products arranged in a manner making it easier for customers to browse and purchase items?
How to increase in-store time for customers?

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Shopper flow analysis

What is the pattern seen in shopper’s movement inside the store?
What is the total time spent in the store? How can it be increased?
Which sections shopper’s spend more in terms of time?
How is the flow affected by family shopping vis a vis individual shopping?
How is the total spend related to the flow?
How can revenue be maximized by analysing the flow and attracting shoppers towards high margin products / brands?

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Competitive tracking

How do the key metrics of business processes (e.g. turnaround time, first-time right, NPS, etc.) compare with competitors?
What are the areas of process improvements based on a time and motion study?
How does the product / brand compare with competitors in terms of features, cost, usage, composition etc?
What is the market share of each competitor micro market wise and what are the pain points of various customers?
Comparison of best practices of competitors

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Connect with our Retail Experts

Madhur Singhal

Mentor

Aryaman Tandon

Mentor

Hitesh Gossain

CEO, Network

Amar Choudhary

CEO, Intelligence & Insights

Aditya Thakur

Growth Leader, Operations

Related Case Studies

Market sizing & target segment determination for an Indian RE player

Objective

A large retail chain in India wanted to understand the MT potential of Pune and estimate it’s market share compared to other leading players across apparel and groceries / F&B categories

Methodology

Conducted interviews of 50 consumers across income types to understand their consumption on various relevant categories and share of MT in purchase
Conducted interviews of N = 30 retailers (GT & MT) to understand their revenues across the key categories
Secondary research to understand the population of Pune and its catchment and spend of consumers across categories
Survey of N = 300 consumers to understand their spend on key categories and it’s split across GT, MT & online

Impact / Outcome

Successfully sized the retail market potential across various key categories like groceries, apparels, fruits and vegetables, dairy, etc.
Estimated share of MT in the Pune retail market across key categories
Estimated market share of client and other leading competitors present in the city

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Price benchmarking & sensitivity analysis b/w different channels like ecommerce platform vs local, branded & modern retail

Objective

Client was a global PE firm
Client desired to understand the price benchmarking of 550 SKUs across categories (fashion, apparel, beauty & personal care) for ecommerce platform vs offline channels (local retail shops, branded retail chains, modern trade, etc.) & price sensitivity of consumers across categories

Methodology

Market analysis: Input collected from 10 cities across local retail shops, branded retail shops and modern trade players
Qualitative discussions with consumers around various categories

Impact / Outcome

Helped the client to gain quantitative & qualitative insights on prices across metros, tier-2, tier-3 cities in India as compared to ecommerce platform

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Brand track and campaign evaluation for baby / kids products for young parents

Objective

Client wanted to understand pre-post campaign & brand preferences for baby / kids products by young parents while purchasing apparel, footwear, personal care, toys, games and other baby gear products

Methodology

Primary survey (N = 1,200) of parents to understand shopping preferences, purchase criteria, brand preferences, effect of advertisement and NPS
In-depth parent interviews (N = 200) to understand reasons for brand preference in online vs offline, product categories
Webscrape of websites selling baby products (vertical players) and baby product category (horizontal ecommerce players)

Impact / Outcome

Enabled the client to understand:
Effect of advertising on awareness and familiarity
Understand brand preferences for baby / kids products for kids across different age groups
Benchmark vertical and horizontal ecommerce players offerings baby/kids products

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Customer behaviour research on modern and general trade retail

Objective

A PE firm was interested in investing in a modern trade retail chain
Typical research case to profile customers buying grocery and apparel from modern trade and general trade stores, map customer behaviour (including purchase frequency, spend etc), understand store and brand perception, and assess competitive advantages

Methodology

Primary field survey of N > 1,200 conducted in 12 different cities to understand reasons behind buying from modern trade and general trade stores across different product categories
Also, conducted in-depth interviews of N = 30 in those cities to understand usage patterns for different MT brands as compared to GT stores and map different customer profiles
Built a deck based on the survey and in-depth interviews deriving insights on reasons behind buying from GT / MT

Impact / Outcome

Successfully provided the client with deep, comprehensive understanding of what drives the customer towards a particular store, brand differentiation amongst its competitors and reasons for buying a particular product from a store

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