Virtual Story - 4

Today’s story is not about Desktop Virtualization but wanted to share a real story which gives details on the happening in the “Retail Industry”. This came to my mind when I was doing my regular shopping last week in a Retail outlet just opposite my house. Many of us might have seen that small Mom and Pop stores across our street are going in for a tremendous change in the recent past. I also had the same thoughts and I was discussing the same with the owner of the Retail outlet. Luckily he had time to share his views and his own story.

This story is more about the happenings there in the market place and end of the story we can see how HP Can help these entrepreneurs on achieve their goals..

Now to the story.. J J

Virtual Story 4:

About 10 years back there were not many residential Flats there in the area. Only few Individual houses with couple of Factories covering the entire stretch. Only two local growsery shops were there serving to the customers there. These were typical Mom and Pop stores managed by the owners and were totally dependent on the local residents in the areas. There were very little to do. Out of the two shops Shop A was little bigger and served to most of the customers (Mainly the bulk orders) and Shop B was a small one and served to all the retail purchase for the customers. The owner of Shop B was looking for the ways to improve his business but there were very little he could do to improve their share of market as the customers were fixed.

Then came the change. Two new real estate projects came on the area. Shop A was not interested on the new projects happening as there was no business coming as such from them as they were still under construction and would take 2-3 years to come up. The owner of the Shop B looked at this as an opportunity and he started working on identifying the details of how many houses will be coming up and what would be the profile of the people coming in etc. This helped him to come out with a plan to address the expected market. It was around that time Big Bazar and other LFR’s were making news in a big way.

The shop owner decided that if he really wanted to grow his business he need to make the investments properly to address his future customers requirements. Considering this he came out with a plan and slowly converted his small shop in to big Retail outlet over the three years’ time. When the Flats were occupied by the residents they found his shop more attractive than the Shop A and most of the people moved here and now in the area only one shop is there. The shop now has got 300 + Regular customer who buys on monthly basis (Between 1-5 of every month) and there are another 200+ customer who buys between 5^th to 15^th of every month. This is over and above the regular retail customers.J J

On discussing with the Owner other than the story he highlighted the key points he considered right from the beginning (Normally most of the people miss these points).

- He invested on the Technology right from the beginning

- Technology Included Billing machines Barcode scanners / printers etc.

- A Retail software to be used along with the Billing machine

How does the Investment in Technology Helps him in his Business:

- The software helps him to manage the inventory status and reduce any excess inventory there in the store

- It helps him to identify the buying patterns of his customers (Seasonal Buying) and plan his inventory accordingly

- It helps him to manage his regular customers and offer them loyalty points and communicate with the regularly (Do up sell when ever needed)

- Doing all this he is able to maintain a positive cash flow throughout the year (Which is very important in any business)

This story happened about 3 years back then the Retail solutions were at nascent stage. Now in every town there will be a similar story – may be a local Jeweller wanted to make difference on his business or a local small format Fashion shop wanted to make a difference.. (Not only attracting new customers but retaining the existing customers).