2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

https://retailnu.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?yib=2011

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 38,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 14 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Pick n Pay ups shareholding in TM Supermarkets

Johannesburg, Dec 9 (I-Net Bridge) – In a deal that will pump US$13 million into the Zimbabwean economy, SA’s second-largest grocer Pick n Pay (PIK) on Friday said the final government hurdle had been cleared for it to up its holdings in TM Supermarkets from 25% to 49%.

The TM Chain is controlled by Meikles Limited and is the largest chain of retail stores in Zimbabwe by number of stores, with 51 outlets.

“Yesterday the shareholders of TM Supermarkets voted unanimously to allow Pick n Pay to purchase the additional 24% of shares,” Pick n Pay said.

In November, the Competition and Tariff Commission of Zimbabwe declared that it had examined the competitive effects of the merger on the Zimbabwean market and established that the transaction did not reduce competition or create a monopoly situation, but rather strengthened the ailing TM Supermarkets.

The commission then agreed to Pick n Pay taking its shareholding of TM Supermarkets to 49% subject to certain conditions pertaining to labour and local procurement of goods.

“The acquisition of the additional shareholding in TM Stores has been a protracted one that has stretched over more than three years, and required the approval of the Zimbabwean Investment Authority, the Zimbabwean Reserve Bank, the Zimbabwean National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board, and now finally the approval of the Competition and Tariff Commission of Zimbabwe,” Nick Badminton, Chief Executive Officer of Pick n Pay said.

Dallas Langman, head of group enterprises (Africa) at Pick n Pay said it was important to note that not a cent of the money coming into the TM Stores business would go towards shareholder dividends.

“All the money is earmarked for developing and strengthening TM stores in Zimbabwe. Some seven stores will be rebranded with the Pick n Pay brand, but we wish to express our confidence in the TM brand and respect its history in Zimbabwe,” he stressed.

“The investment will see money being spent on local procurement processes and will give employment to Zimbabweans during the refurbishment of stores and the staffing of them,” Langman added.

Menicon to Acquire W.I. System, Major Contact Lens Retail Chain in Japan

NAGOYA, Japan, Dec 09, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Menicon Co., Ltd. announced today an agreement with W.I. System Inc. that will turn one of Japan’s leading contact lens retail chains into a wholly owned subsidiary of Menicon on December 8th. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Tokyo area-based W.I. System with annual gross sales of USD 130 million ranks fourth in contact lens retail sales in Japan.

The acquisition will significantly bolster Menicon’s retail presence in greater Tokyo, the world’s largest metropolitan area, and will expand opportunities for Menicon to reach users who do not currently use Menicon products. W.I. System stores will continue to provide a broad array of lenses and lens-related products from Menicon and other manufacturers to meet the diverse needs of Japan’s contact lens wearers.

Menicon believes that by striving to satisfy its newly expanded customer base as a result of the acquisition, the experience ultimately will strengthen the company’s and the industry’s capabilities for developing and marketing lenses and lens care products that meet diverse needs in the broader global market.

“W.I. System strives to provide highly satisfying customer experiences when people in need of vision correction visit any one of our many conveniently located shops throughout the greater Tokyo area,” said W.I. System president Keizo Takahashi. “As a new member of the Menicon group, we look forward to expanding and strengthening our customer relationships over the long term.”

“I have great expectations that this integration between our well-known companies will encourage more people to experience the joy of wearing advanced lenses, and allow us to further contribute to eye safety and comfort in Japan, and ultimately in markets around the world,” said Menicon president Hidenari Tanaka.

About W.I. System W.I. System operates 68 Tokyo-area retail stores and one franchise store that do business under the name Ace Contact or Ekicon. The stores offer primarily contact lenses, and also sell eyeglasses, hearing aids and nutritional supplements for pets. Established in 1989, W.I. System recorded sales of JPY 10.3 billion (USD 130 million) in the fiscal year that ended in May 2011.

About Menicon Headquartered in Nagoya, Japan, and represented in over 40 countries, Menicon is a global contact lens company dedicated to every aspect of the field from material development and lens design to manufacturing of lenses and lens care solutions. Menicon offers an expanding portfolio of innovative lenses, packaging and related products that maximize user comfort and convenience. 2011 marks Menicon’s 60th year in business. For more information, please visit http://www.menicon.com

SOURCE: Menicon Co., Ltd.

IBM Buys Retail Forecasting And Merchandising Software Company

IBM has made a major purchase today in the commerce and retail world—DemandTec, a retail marketing and merchandising software company. IBM is acquiring DemandTec (which listed on the Nasdaq) in an all cash transaction at a price of $13.20 per share, or approximately $440 million.

DemandTec provides retailers and e-commerce companies with tools to transact, interact, and collaborate on core merchandising and marketing activities. DemandTec’s cloud-based analytics software allows businesses to examine different customer buying scenarios, both online and in-store, so retailers can spot trends and shopper insights to make better price, promotion, and assortment decisions that increase revenue and profitability.

For example, retailers can predict how consumers will respond to a price change before making the change. Or a merchant and supplier can work together to understand how one shopper segment differs from another to create a targeted merchandise plan.

DemandTec’s use of cloud-based price, promotion and other merchandising and marketing analytics helps companies better define the best price points and product mix based on customer buying trends. Essentially, DemandTec uses data analysis and forecasting to make the retail world smarter.

DemandTec customers include Best Buy, ConAgra Foods, Delhaize America, General Mills, H-E-B Grocery Co., The Home Depot, Hormel Foods, Monoprix, PETCO, Safeway, Sara Lee, Target, Walmart, and WH Smith. DemandTec also has a portfolio of 31 patents in the areas of pricing, response analysis, and promotion analysis.

For IBM, the acquisition is all about its smarter commerce initiative. IBM estimates the market opportunity for Smarter Commerce at $20 billion in software alone.

IBM’s recent acquisitions include Algorithmics, and Tririga.

Rural India Laps up Diapers, Colognes, Sanitary napkins.

Rural consumers are buying diapers, salty snacks, colognes and even contraceptives other than condoms like never before, despite signs of falling demand for traditional FMCG categories such as shampoos and soaps in hinterlands due to unabated inflation. Data from Nielsen, a global provider of insights and analytics, shows that tens of contemporary and indulgent product categories including sanitary napkins and chocolates are growing at high double-digit rates in Indian villages (see graphic).

“The rural mindset is open to consumption of newer, more contemporary categories, as a result driving consistent growth,” says Nielsen India VP Prashant Singh.

Nielsen categorises rural markets as those with population of less than 5,000, but there could be some exceptions. It estimates that the country’s rural FMCG market will grow to $100 billion by 2025 from $12 billion in 2011.
For MNCs like Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo, it’s an achievement of sorts to have broken ground in rural markets, by initiating consumers into newer categories such as diapers and salty snacks and upgrading them from unbranded or regional products to branded ones like in the case of cooking oils.

So, how did they achieve this?

P&G adopted the classic and tested strategy of betting on low-volume, lowpriced packages — sachets in the case of detergents and shampoo, and, for diapers, a pack of two at Rs. 15.  The move has paid off.

“We have seen a near doubling of the diaper category in rural India over the last two years,” says P&G Brand Manager (Pampers) Girish Kalyanaraman.
P&G launched the country’s first lowpriced trial pack of two Pamper diapers two years ago, educated people in rural areas about the benefits of uninterrupted overnight sleep for babies; and ran an awareness campaign on Doordarshan and satellite channels. Result: Demand for diapers has grown 90% a year in the last couple of years.

American snacks and beverages maker PepsiCo is another company that achieved tremendous growth in rural areas. Besides using fixed low price points such as Rs. 2, 3 and 5, PepsiCo has been using innovation, backward linkages for procurement and expanded distribution to drive growth in the hinterlands, a PepsiCo spokesman said.

“There’s a massive under-served demand for hygienic packaged snacks; we are expanding our manufacturing footprint and investing heavily in expanding distribution,” he said.

The company has moved away from centralised manufacturing and, instead, partners with local entrepreneurs across the country to cater to regional preferences and tastes, using locally grown ingredients. Examples for this include the extension of Kurkure brand to three local variants — Mumbai Usal, Bengali Jhaal and South India Spice—and testing of Lehar Iron Chusti puffs and biscuits at Rs. 2 in Andhra Pradesh. Kolkata-based Emami—maker of Boroplus anti-septic cream and Zandu Balm pain reliever—broke into the rural cooking oil market with a Rs. 5 pack of its edible oil Healthy & Tasty. “Rural consumers are used to buying unbranded or loose oil from local kirana shops for Rs. 5 or 10,” says Emami Group of Companies Director Aditya Agarwal, explaining the idea behind the low-cost edible oil packet.

The small-store owner is too important, nimble and innovative to be bumped off by big-box retailers in India.

Kirana RIP? Not Yet.

The arguments for and against FDI in retail are, at a generic level, valid on both sides. However, since the devil is usually in the detail, the facts about India’s small retailers and suppliers, the conditions stipulated for FDI, and recent experience with the effects of domestic modern retail need to be viewed together before the likely outcome pronounced. The big fight is about whether this new policy will kill small shops, massively destroy livelihoods and take away GenNext’s opportunities. Facts suggest otherwise. Consider the kirana, the one most feared to be at risk. About 5-6 million of the 8 million FMCG-stocking kiranas are in rural India, and are totally safe, as the new ones can only come into the top 53 cities.

R Sriram, founder of Crossword and retail expert, tables two insights. One, in many big cities, kiranas are already not participating in the growth offered by the newer settlements like Gurgaon or Powai, because without their advantage of historically-priced real estate, they are not viable. Two, increasingly, small shopkeepers’ children are getting better educated and want to exit ‘sitting in the shop’ as soon as possible, just as small farmers’ children are exiting farming. Sadly, the country’s retail density has been increasing in recent years, not driven by passion or profit, but because of lack of options — hopefully that will change. It is true that traditional income streams of small shops in the vicinity of a large supermarket plummet; but we have seen that they soon recast their business model, exploiting the inherent advantages they have that the supermarket cannot emulate: free, prompt and no-conditions home delivery, superior and customised customer relationship management, khaata- credit and willingness to stock small quantities of something used by only a few people in their catchment — a classic ‘long-tail’ strategy. Notice two more things: even in upper-class areas in large cities, despite large retail chains in the vicinity, the small vegetable vendor and kirana continue to find a place in the household’s shopping basket. The kirana also continuously morphs, and is already moving to a more specialised and selective portfolio. We will find them variously choosing to become more of a convenience store (7-Eleven-type), or fresh-food store, a home-delivery store, maybe even express-format franchisees of large retail, and so on.

Another reality check: how much consumption capacity do even the top 50 cities have? Seriously, how many more Ikea, Zara, Walmart, Tesco and Best Buy can a Surat, Kanpur or Indore absorb, in addition to more Big Bazaar, Megamart and Croma? Further, foreign specialty retailers targeting the rich consumer will create never-before custom, and not at the expense of existing shops. Two decades ago, we had the same hue and cry that Indian brands would be wiped out; but they got better and bigger than they would have had they been left unchallenged. Now for the suppliers. Large suppliers will lose the pricing power they had with small retailers and nobody on any side of the FDI debate is grieving for them. Small suppliers, even without FDI, are being mercilessly squeezed by middlemen. The hope is that large retail chains, unlike the broker middleman, have more incentive to pay more because they have customer loyalty and a brand to build; in exchange for steady, loyal, consistent quality supply, they will pay more, guarantee offtake, improve product and production efficiency. The FDI norm of at least 30% sourcing from small scale pushes this further. Walmart potentially could kill the small suppliers of anything by importing 70% from China cheaper; but loads of small traders are already doing the same, flooding our markets with Ganesh murtis, chappals, clothes, watches, etc.

The Achilles’ heel for a lot of skilled artisans, specialised producers, grass roots innovators, etc, is market orientation and marketing. Producer collectives have managed to organise themselves on the supply side using government assistance schemes, but they struggle to manage the demand side. That is the missing link that large retailers in vendor development mode can provide, just as the auto industry has done to ancillary suppliers. Both sides agree that customers will gain because large chain retailers can provide better for cheaper, given the discounts they get through buying large quantities and sourcing smartly. Customers will also get a wider range, more innovative products and more comfortable, truthful and informed shopping environment. Poor customers won’t get discriminated against, because the hypermarket is anonymous, transactional, classless and nonjudgemental. They may not get better service because the small Indian retailer is the champion of good service, from atta to electrical, the likes of which we haven’t yet seen any big retailer match, anywhere in the world. That’s another reason why he will always survive.

Before we fight further, consider this. This network of commercially-savvy supplychain linked small retailers is an invaluable asset: as one report said, they are not ‘unorganised’ by any stretch of imagination; we agree and have refrained from using this phrase in this article! It is unlikely that Indian jugaad will let this network disintegrate. Perhaps in rural India, where they would have been more hard hit had the big-box retailers been allowed, they would have been garnered by banks as new extension counters for financial inclusion.

economictimes.com: RAMA BIJAPURKAR INDEPENDENT MARKET STRATEGY CONSULTANT

Black Friday Sales Hits Record, Retail traffic and Foot-falls up.

Preliminary reports for Black Friday indicate that retailers may have seen their strongest sales ever during the all-important kick-off to the holiday shopping season.

Retail sales on Black Friday climbed 6.6% this year to an estimated $11.4 billion, according to ShopperTrak, which tracks foot traffic at malls and stores. Last year, sales climbed just 0.3% to $10.7 billion, which was a record one-day sales amount at the time, according to the company.

“This is the largest year-over-year gain in ShopperTrak’s National Retail Sales Estimate for Black Friday since the 8.3 percent increase we saw between 2007 and 2006,” said ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin. “Still, it’s just one day. It remains to be seen whether consumers will sustain this behavior through the holiday shopping season.”

However, sales have been strong throughout the entire month of November with retailers rolling out holiday deals earlier than ever. In the two weeks leading up to the week of Black Friday, retail sales were up 3.6% and 3.8%, respectively, ShopperTrak reported.

“Retailers continue to stretch out Black Friday weekend by enticing shoppers with doorbuster deals weeks in advance,” said Martin.

Online sales have also proven to be strong, with many big-box retailers and department stores offering deals online earlier this year.

Black Friday online sales surge 24%

Online sales were up 39.3% on Thanksgiving Day and 24.3% on Black Friday compared to the same days last year, according to IBM’s (IBM,Fortune 500) Coremetrics, which tracks real-time data from 500 retailers in the apparel, department store, health and beauty and home goods categories.

“This year marked Thanksgiving’s emergence as the first big spending day of the 2011 holiday season with a record number of consumers shifting their focus from turkey to tablets and the search for the best deals,” said John Squire, chief strategy officer at IBM’s Smarter Commerce division.

Consumers also spent slightly more than they did last year, although they spent most of that money on themselves. According to NPD Group consumers spent about 3% more on purchases during Black Friday. However, about 44% were self purchases up from 33% last year, the research group said.

Retail traffic on Black Friday up 2%

Total US visits to the top 500 Retail websites increased 2% on Black Friday as compared to 2010 and received more than 173 million US visits. Traffic has increased each day leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday and the total visits dipped slightly (-1%) on Black Friday compared Thanksgiving Day 2011. Early Black Friday sales resulted in a shift of online traffic, which climbed prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, however, continued heavy promotional activity helped to drive significant online traffic on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday. While Black Friday has been the top day for online retail traffic over the past two years, warm weather and early store openings encouraged shoppers to go online sooner this season.

Among the categories driving the growth in traffic on Black Friday were Department Stores (e.g. Amazon and Wal-Mart) Apparel & Accessories, Appliances & Electronics (e.g. Best Buy) and Video & Games (e.g. Game Stop).

Below is a list of the top visited retail sites on Black Friday:

Many of the major retail websites experienced growth on Black Friday, including Amazon, Best Buy, JC Penney, Sears and Kohl’s. Amazon.com was the most visited website on Black Friday for the 7th year in a row.

India Paves Way for Wal-Mart, Tesco to Enter Market

India approved allowing overseas companies to own as much as 51 percent of retailers selling more than one brand, paving the way for global companies such as Wal- Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and Tesco Plc to own stores.

Overseas companies must invest at least $100 million, half of which has to be spent on developing back-end infrastructure, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said in a statement presented to parliament today. India’s cabinet yesterday eased retail ownership rules, including permitting 100 percent foreign holding in single brand stores.

India’s decision to allow overseas ownership in retail will create up to 10 million jobs and give farmers better prices, Sharma said. Wal-Mart,Carrefour SA (CA) and Tesco (TSCO) seek to step up their presence in the world’s second-most populous nation to tap a market estimated by Business Monitor International to double to $785 billion by 2015 from $396 billion this year.

“This is possibly the most exciting thing that has happened in retail in India,” said Hemant Kalbag, who heads the consumer and retail practice for Asia at A.T. Kearney in Mumbai. “This is probably the next big wave of change in organized retail in India.”

Overseas retailers will be required to purchase at least 30 percent of goods sold in the ventures from small industries, Sharma said. Stores will be permitted only in 53 cities with a population of 1 million or more, and the government will retain the first right to buy farm products, he said.

‘Important First Step’

The government’s move is “an important first step,” Wal- Mart Asia President Scott Price said in a statement. The retailer looks forward to “playing a key role” in India.

Asia’s third-biggest economy permitted foreign retailers to own wholesale stores in 1997. Policy makers have been debating ownership rules in retail for at least seven years.

Wal-Mart has set up 14 such stores through a joint venture with billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Bharti Enterprises to gain a foothold in India, while Metro AG operates six wholesale stores. Carrefour opened its first outlet in December.

“This legal evolution should contribute to modernize Indian food supply chain and to fight against food inflation for the benefit of Indian customers,” Carrefour said in an e-mailed statement. The Boulogne-Billancourt, France-based retailer will wait for final regulations, it said.

India’s decision may prompt expansion of existing joint ventures and trigger acquisitions, said Bryan Roberts, director of retail research at Kantar Retail in London. Still, the size of the opportunity may be “overstated,” he said.

“A lot of retailers have already expanded and found that there’s not enough middle-class shoppers around at the moment,” said Roberts.

‘Win for Consumers’

India’s retail industry will get $8 billion to $10 billion in fresh investments over the next five to 10 years, Kishore Biyani, managing director ofPantaloon Retail India Ltd. (PF), said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Pantaloon, which operates more than 150 Big Bazaar supermarketsacross 90 cities and towns, also has apparel and consumer-electronics outlets.

“It is a big win for consumers as they will have more choices,” said Biyani. “It’s a win for small industries as they will have more retailers creating markets for their products” and farmers will benefit from better prices, he said.

Pantaloon climbed 16 percent, the biggest gain since May 2009, to 233.95 rupees at the close in Mumbai trading. Shoppers Stop Ltd. (SHOP)rose 6.2 percent, and Trent Ltd. (TRENT), Tesco’s India partner, advanced 8.6 percent, the most since August 2010.

The decision to permit foreign retailers came as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s parliamentary ally the Trinamool Congress opposed the proposal. The main federal opposition Bharatiya Janata Party was also against the move.

Political Opposition

“Small and medium retailers, which employ a large number of people, will be affected,” Arun Jaitley, a BJP leader, said in New Delhi yesterday. “We oppose it completely.”

Overseas investment in the retail industry may help slow the pace of price gains, Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said in the northern city of Chandigarh today. “Its important not only for raising overall growth but also important for containing inflation,” said Subbarao.

India’s food inflation accelerated 9.01 percent in the week ended Nov. 12 from a year earlier, the commerce ministry said yesterday. The rate has stayed above 9 percent for 16 weeks.

‘Licking Their Lips’

Raj Jain, president of Wal-Mart India, said in April 2010 the company can help reduce prices by improving supply chain and infrastructure to cut waste. About 40 percent of fruit and vegetables in the country rot before they are sold because of a lack of cold-storage facilities and poor transport infrastructure, according to government estimates.

Bharti-Walmart, the local venture, buys fresh produce directly from about 1,200 farmers in Punjab, in northern India, Jain said in May.

“Foreign retailers must be licking their lips at this opportunity,” said Narayanan Ramaswamy, executive director at KPMG India, which advises retail companies. “It has to be one of the biggest opportunities in the world right now.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net; Malavika Sharma in New Delhi atmsharma52@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Longid at flongid@bloomberg.net

Starbucks Looks to Bagged Coffee, K-cups to Grow

Starbucks has big plans to revitalize the bagged coffee aisle, the Wall Street Journal reports. Jeff Hansberry, the man tasked with that job, said that he wants to make “our products available wherever customers want them.”

 The company wants to enhance the coffee-buying experience.  The company is busy developing strategies to revamp its presence in supermarkets and other retailers, but is releasing no details yet. Hansberry did comment that he wanted to double the shelf space of single-serve coffee products in grocery stores. He also said Starbuck products, such as bagged coffee, K-cups, Tazo teas and Via instant coffee, should be together on a shelf.

“What we’re looking for is a brand block — to get all of our items together,” he said. “We need to make it simpler to shop.”

Part of that simplification process will happen in January, when Starbucks will debut its color-coded packaging that will make it easy for shoppers to pick a new light or “blonde” roast, medium roast or dark roast.

To help the company decide what to change, Starbucks has started surveying customers across the United States. Also this week, Starbucks announced its purchase of Evolution Fresh, which will replace Naked brand juices in its stores.

Family Dollar Expands Into California

The opening of four new stores in California marks the retailer’s growth into its 45th state. Family Dollar Stores Inc. yesterday announced that it has opened four new stores in California. The stores in Ontario, Rialto, Riverside and Fontana represent the company’s entry into its 45th state.

Family Dollar, one of the fastest-growing retailers, plans to open 450 to 500 new stores nationwide in 2012.

“We’re proud and excited to bring our value and convenience to more customers with our newest stores in California,” said Howard Levine, chairman and CEO of Family Dollar. “These stores offer an opportunity to introduce our new neighbors to a more compelling place to shop for everything they need for their families.”

To commemorate the openings, Family Dollar will host grand opening celebrations at all four locations beginning Thursday, November 17. The weekend-long festivities will include a special ribbon cutting, family activities and a canned food drive to benefit the Second Harvest Food Bank.