Assignment of Retailing Management Submitted to Sir Asim Jameel

Submitted by Usman Habib MBP 11067 MBA 4E

I visited Metro and the analysis that was obtained is given below. a) What is the role of a store manager?

Store manager looks after all the merchandise and sort out all the SKUs, manages operation and looks after sales. He looks after the store, makes reports and keeps a look out for any shortages. b) What is their procedure to purchase the merchandise? The procedure to purchase the merchandise is through direct dealing with the company. c) On what terms they are buying merchandise? They are buying the merchandise on credit basis on 15days, monthly and so on. d) What kind of services is being provided by the store to their customers? Services provided are the awareness of new products; company team comes and provides information to customers about their product. Customer services department looks after the whole floor and customers, and the department manager supervises them. e) What activities are being carried out to retain the existing customers and attract the new ones? To retain the existing customers and attract new ones they are offering products at discounted rates and facilitating them by saving the data of privilege customers and giving them points on their shopping. Their data is being saved and it helps them to retain the existing customers and bring new ones by providing new offers and services. f) What major challenges they are facing and how are they addressing them? Major challenges that they are facing is of economic instability, rise of prices, less profit margin and upcoming competition. g) What are your suggestions to improve the store operations? They should speed up the supplying procedure that might cause the customer to lose interest in buying. 2) Write down in detail which is your favorite retail store in Lahore and why? My favorite retail store in Lahore is Hyper Star as it is conveniently located inside Lahore. I don't have to go along way outside the city. They offer discounted prices and offer all the products of need at the same place.

3) Please write down the answers of the following questions:

a) Do we have ware house club, discount stores in Lahore? If so name top three out of them. Yes we have and they are Hyper Star, Utility Stores, CSD. b) Do we have convenience stores in Lahore? If so identify any five out of them and narrate briefly are they really convenient stores in the real sense of it? Yes we have convenience stores in Lahore like Bonjour at Total filling station, Shell Stop at shell filling station, Caltex Star Store, PSO and at CNG stations. No they are not really convenient stores because they are very expensive and they don't offer much variety. Sometimes the products that they keep are stale and expired. c) Name any five famous department stores in Lahore? These are Al-Fatah, Decent Departmental Store, HKB, CSD, Victoria. d) Figure out five major drug stores in Lahore and describe their retail format? The five major drug stores are ServAid, The Guardian, FazalDins, Zaka Pharmacy, Gillian. There retail format includes personal grooming, health and pharmaceuticals product. e) Do we have any hyper market in Lahore? Please identify it if any? Does it fulfill all the conditions of a hyper market? Hyper Star is the hyper market located in Lahore and it fulfills all conditions of a hyper market. f) Please name at least three off price retailers in Lahore? Three off price retailers are Levi's Factory Outlet, Stoneage Factory outlet, Aqsa Garments. G) Please name major five service retailers in Lahore. Major Service retailers are Doctors Hospital, Punjab University, Services Hospital, Habib Bank, Bank Alfalah. 4) As a consumer what stages do you go through when selecting a retailer and purchase merchandise? As a consumer I see the name of the product, the price and quality and if it's good for my family. 5) How can retailer get customer to visit their store more frequently and buy more merchandise during each visit? Reply this question as if you are a consumer. A retailer can get the customer to visit his store by decorating the store and offering good service and discounts, healthy and fresh products and keeping in touch with the customers through data base and provide a complete assortment of products to be displayed. 6) Visit a supermarket or a departmental store and watch people selecting products to put in their shopping carts/baskets. How much time do they spend selecting

products? Do some people spend more time than others? Can you identify characteristics of those consumers who take a while to make a decision? People spend more time in selecting products even if the list has few items in it. They seek the product that offers the same quality and packaging and quantity in fewer prices. Some people know what product they want to buy and they just buy it and checkout through the counter. The customers who take a while are price conscious and quality conscious, the risk factor is also involved that makes them put more time in selecting product. They seek the product which has more characteristics and benefit that can be offered in the same or less price. 7) As a retailer if you develop your own set up what kind of retail strategy would you adopt and why? First of all I will try to set up my business at a convenient place which is easily accessible to everyone. The pricing will be according to the pockets of people not too high or too less to face loss. The store will be a one of a kind place that will attract the customers and they will enjoy shopping and will come back as well to shop. Customer service will be at its top and customers will feel satisfied. 8) Visit at least three outlets and find out what kind of thick walls they are building to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Do you think they are successful in their approach? I visited Hardeez at M-M Alam Road, McDonalds Gulberg and Student Biryani Fortress. So far they are totally successful in their competitive approach because they have maintained all the aspects of sustainable competitive advantage over their competitors by providing unique merchandise, human resource, customer loyalty is increasing, customer service is exceptional in all three outlets. Their location has total advantage to them and their information and distribution system is well run as well.

9) What suggestions do you have for them to build sustainable competitive advantage? And why?

To build sustainable competitive advantage they should develop a place that offers a decorative environment to attract the customers with quality n unique food and high end customer service, human resource managing the overall progress and satisfying the customers and gaining loyalty. 10) As a consumer pick up your favorite store. Explain why you believe it is (or is not) in the best location according to its target market? My favorite store was Subway, Muslim Town. And it is not in the best location to serve its customers. The market they are targeting does not go over to that branch anymore and this has made them suffer loss due to less interest. The customers go to other places rather to that particular branch. 11) As a retailer pick up a site for your store. Explain what are the reasons for selecting this particular site? I would want to open my Super Store in Fortress Stadium. I chose this location as its target market is very big as compared to other places in Lahore. This will benefit my business as the market targeted will generate a lot of revenue. It will be serving people from all walks of life and their basic as well as social needs will be fulfilled. 12) Locate at least three e-retailers in Lahore, give a brief note regarding their retail format and describe about how they operate? The e-retailers in Lahore are www.symbios.pk, www.eteckonline.com, www.royalwatches.pk. They are directly interacting with the customers through their website. They have all the products displayed along with product numbers and direct shipping buttons and at the end they have product ordering verification and data saving tool. After the customer has ordered the product it will be delivered to his home in 4-5 working days. The payment of the product will be collected through TCS courier service. Quality satisfaction is guaranteed. Sometime they give unique offers on public holidays or upon buying more than 1 product. For example, if you are purchasing 2 wrist watches from Royal Watches you will be getting a replica sun glasses for free. And when you're buying a laptop from ETECKONLINE you might be getting a discount of 1000rs.