Posts Tagged ‘Metro’
Wholesale market in India
Posted on: January 1, 2013
- In: Business | Channel Management | FMCG | Marketing | Supply Chain Management | wholesale
- 1 Comment
Wholesellers are none but middlemen who buy products from distributors (wholesale/retail) and sell them to retailers. In most cases, the retailers come to the wholesellers to buy products to replenish their stock. However, wholesellers may also sell to end consumers, but such sales are minimal.
In the Indian FMCG market, we have broadly two types of wholesellers:
1. Modern Wholesale stores such as Metro, Wal-Mart BestPrice, etc.
2. The neighbourhood wholesellers around the streets in India
Wholesale distributors buy in bulk (high volumes) bargaining low prices from manufacturers. Wholesellers in turn buy products in demand (what retailers ask for?) at low prices from wholesale distributors. Because of this reason that wholesale distributors are bulk buyers, it is generally seen that wholesale is cheaper than retail. But, it also depends on how many middlemen it passes through, as each middleman adds his margin to the selling price.
What’s in it for the retailer?
Few reasons why retailers buy from the wholesellers:
- No direct distribution of a brand to their stores
- Low margins by distributors
- Direct distributors dictating terms
- Better deals at wholesale
- To be aware of the high selling products and brands
Retailers also face some disadvantages in buying from wholesellers:
- Buying goods on immediate cash
- Transportation costs of the goods
- Wholesellers may not take back the unsold inventory/stock
What’s in it for the manufacturer?
The wholesale channel helps the manufacturers achieve sales from markets where they are not directly able to handle retail sales and their shipments. In a country like India, where 95% of the retail environment is unorganized, and spanning across millions of small stores, it is impossible to reach all the stores directly through your distributors.
Most companies will have strong direct distribution in cities like Mumbai, but as you go deep into India, the dependence on wholesale indirect channels increases. Most top selling brands and categories have a good amount of wholesale component. For example, a brand which is selling in Pan-India (across the regions in India) may have a wholesale component ranging from 20% to as high as 50-70% depending on the category/brand’s dependence on Rural India. It is obvious that most of the sales in Rural India happen through wholesellers. In Rural India, you will have strong wholesellers for every group of villages or in the nearby town, where retailers go and replenish their stocks.
Manufacturers would always like to have a higher contribution of retail sales to their overall shipments, as this helps them directly to control the nuts and bolts in the operations such as trade promotions and schemes, in-store visibility, relationship with retailers, pushing and increasing their assortment within the stores, maximising profitability, increased visibility of their sales, etc. The top FMCG companies are driving their direct distribution in Rural India as they mine the Gold at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
Cash & Carry retail in India
Posted on: August 10, 2011
Cash and carry is a membership based retail store selling limited SKUs in bulk packs. Cash and carry has a membership requirement. Customers are usually members of the club and pay an annual fee in order to continue their membership. It is not like any other retail outlet where in one can go and buy items. It is limited to only certain members like wholesalers, semi-wholesalers and retailers. For example, METRO Cash and Carry India & Wal-Mart Cash & Carry, which are well-known to most people, are a good example of this format. Some of the recent entrants into this format are Carrefour and Reliance Retail.
Cash and carry models are able to sell at lower prices because of the basic, no frills format of the stores, volume of sales, low cost location and lower inventory carrying costs. Cash and Carry offers private labels as well as branded goods. The first Cash & Carry format store was opened in India by METRO in 2003. Most of the Indian companies want to tie-up with the International companies, and vice-versa, as 100% FDI is allowed in this format. This helps the Indian companies to learn the international best practices and technologies. The German company, Metro was the first one to enter the country. If you want to shop in Metro, you need to have a sales tax number with you and it is meant basically for retailers and distributors and not for consumers. And, you cannot shop for less than Rs 1,000 and, in product offerings, you cannot buy two to three, you have to buy six or more pieces of one particular product. Currently, Metro is present in six cities, present in all the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) licensed states.
Indian retailers are interested in venturing with foreign retailers as we do not have capability to manage the operations for a cash and carry format. We do not have the expertise as developed countries do. Cash and carry format requires a strong backend support. Foreign players are looking for joint ventures with local retailers because they are interested in MBOs or retail outlet, apart from cash and carry format. Having an Indian partner gives them local support and they enjoy the chance to capitalize on a network, which is already established by the local player.
Most of the purchases for the hotels business happen through a network of purchase managers, who have long-term relationship with, let’s say, 200 suppliers. It is very unorganized. It is a challenge to convert that habit to a unified buying structure in large hotels. Now Metro supplies the Taj and Oberoi on a national basis. This means those guys had to change the entire system of purchasing and orient themselves to one particular supplier. It takes some time to get convinced of these changes. There are now dedicated supply-chains to these hotel chains from the Cash & Carry stores.
The Cash & Carry format in India is still in its infancy and will face a lot of changes. They need to develop new channels, and optimize their supply chains for more profits. Also, it is to be seen on how the Cash & Carry format business will be affected with the government keen to allow FDI so that the global giants can set their shops in the streets.
Thank you.
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