Vikas Rikhye

This is a guest post by Mr. Saurabh Dhawan of India Medi Treat. You can get in touch with him at saurabh [dot] 3767 [at] gmail [dot] com.

The Article by Mr. Vikas Rikhye is a bitter truth which every Gurgaon resident mall realizes but somewhere doesn’t want to agree that the Retailers in Gurgaon are truly striving for existence. A lot of times while going towards Delhi from my old Gurgaon residence I feel like having a burger and ice tea but I don’t reason being are many, firstly the traffic, secondly the economy (spending Rs.30 as parking for a Rs.20 Burger is scary) and you cant stop your car for five minutes even as the recovery vans can take your cars. These are very basic things but this is what is eating the customer from the malls.

The builders sold the shops in mall at a time when stock market, economy, real estate market all were roaring high which meant higher purchasing power of people and the fact is that people in Gurgaon had good money and were willing to spend for good products. This lead to increased rentals for shops along with a heavy maintenance for upkeep of the mall. But no one was complaining as cash was the king.

Repercussions of financial meltdown on Gurgaon Shopping Malls

Now in post Sub-prime era the things have changed the real estate market has corrected badly, the Stock market is below 10,000 points and the big builders are looking for some shelter. The US sub prime has effected jobs in India, people have been given pink slips and uncertainty is prevailing among people who are in job whether there job is safe or not. This hysteria has resulted in reduced consumer spending and there is no doubt that the next two years are going to be tough for retailers and only the fittest will survive.

The retailers need to re-look into their marketing strategies. While walking through these deserted malls I realized that everyone had one thing in common. SALE yes guys SALE. From 20% to 70%, 50%+40%, buy 1 get 1, buy 2 get 3, buy 2 get 6 and so on. But I thought does their target market really knows it. The answer I guess is no. these malls don’t have heavy foot falls to attract there prospective customers.

I liked the way Kishore Biyani made money on our republic day. The Big Bazaar’s SABSE SASTE 3 DIN 24,25,26 January was a super hit. Big Bazaar advertised heavily from internet, mails, newspapers and YELLOWPAGES and community portals. The guy can surely make people run for money. What he did was buy in bulk and sell in bulk by passing the profits to customer. What was interested to note was that a good proportion of its sales came from its Online portal. Mr. Biyani was always sure that his Online store will be a hit among people in Metros and I guess he was true.

Now coming onto the small retailers I guess the need of the hour for them is to reach their customer desperately. They cannot go in for Signage as it is not affordable, a front page of news paper is too expensive for small to medium retailers but YELLOW PAGES sites( like www.yellowpagesgurgaon.com ) can be a comparatively cheap and effective medium. The customers who shop in malls are generally youth and people working in and around Gurgaon who are generally well read and computer savvy. By advertising there Special offers and seasonal discounts and sending mails to their customers through internet marketers the retailers can easily reach their customers. This is not something new and retailers in cities like New York and Melbourne have practiced with success. This out of the box effective medium can be a good savior for the retailers in the city. As it is said that winners don’t do different things but they do the things differently. Both have to reach the customer but it depends how you reach and how effectively you reach.