2010

SREELEATHERS
The Footwear Retailing

Abhijit Samanta

International School of
Business & Media

Kolkata
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Table of contents

Sl No. Topic Page No.

1 Company Overview 3
2 General Details 3
3 Methodology 3
4 Objective 4
5 Target customers 4
6 Esplanade as the location 5
7 Store Design and layout 5
8 Drawbacks of ground floor 6
9 Drawbacks of first floor layout 8
10 The visual merchandising 8
11 The merchandise Gents Section 9
12 Ladies Section 9
13 Pricing 9
14 Promotional activity 10
15 Service 10
16 Competitors 11
17 Conclusion 11
18 Recommendation 11

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 Company Overview

Sreeleathers has made the dream of the founder true to make strong and decent shoes that could
be affordable for every average Indian. Sreeleathers sells genuine leather shoes and accessories to
the larger populace of society. Already a leader in the Eastern part of India, the company dreams to
perceive itself as the top leather shoes and accessory seller of the country. Affordable price. Extra
comfort. High street design. With these three key strengths the Sreeleathers brand is ever active to
transform itself from just a brand to the world class one.

General Details:

 Name of Store: Sreeleathers

 Location: 3,4 Lindsay Street, New Market, Kolkata, West Bengal
 Store Format: Speciality Store (Footwear)
 Pricing Strategy: EDLP (Every Day Low Pricing)
 Major Competitors: Khadims.
 Store Operation Time: 9 am to 11 pm.

Methodology:

The basic information is collected from the above mentioned retail outlet. One of the major
problems in collecting the quantitative information is that the store itself is not ready to provide
any kind of quantitative information.

Only qualitative information is collected by visiting their retail outlet on the above mentioned
address. The store manager only allowed our team to move around in the shop and just see their
products and everything just like a customer.

The project is done mostly depending on the qualitative information because of lack of quantitative
data.

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 Objectives:

The main objectives of this project is to understand the footwear retailing in Kolkata. To
understand the business strategy, the business format, store location, store format, store
operation, the target customers etc.

Mostly the problems that occurs form the customers side and a proper recommendation which
could be beneficial for the retailer as well as for the customer.

On an overall to understand the basics of footwear relating and the footwear retail industry.

Findings:

Target Customer:

Sreelethers have a very wide range of target customers. Almost all people of any age are their
target customers if we look product wise. But their pricing strategy have a very great role in
choosing their target customers. The pricing is very normal in other words we can say cheap. So we
can easily understand that their target customers are basically the people who actually belong to
middle class or mostly saying the lower middle class of people.

If we look age wise children, young, matured and senior citizens are their target customers.

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 Esplanade as the Store Location:

In Kolkata the main retail outlet of Sreeleathers is located at the central city, Esplanade. Here they
are operating as an individual speciality store. The space of the store is very huge. It has got two
floors.

A critical analysis of their location shows that they have various advantages as being in that area.
The central part of Kolkata is Esplanade. From a business point of view we can call it a Central
Business District. So no doubt there is a huge established market available already to them. If we
look toward the demographic picture of that area, almost people of every age, income group
gathers there for shopping purposes and it is not also a residential area.

The store has got some other location advantages also.

1. A huge traffic comes over this area on a daily basis, both the pedestrian and the vehicular
traffic comes over here.
2. Accessibility of transportation is also very high. Bus, Tram and most importantly the metro
rail are the major modes of transport here.
3. The total no of speciality show retail store are not very high in this area.

Store Design and Layout:

Mainly there are two floors in which the complete store is divided. The ground floor is for men and
the 1st floor is for women and children. The gents accessories like belt, wallet, executive bags and
luggage bags are displayed at the entrance area. Then all the gents shoes are displayed inside the
ground floor.

The first floor is for women and children. The front area is for children and the inside area is for
ladies shoes and accessories. The frontal part which is for casual and formal ladies shoes and the
back side is for ladies accessories most of a bit of high end.

In the male section the shoes are displayed depending on the categories. The categories are
Formals, Casual, Sandals, Chappals, Sports, Canvaz.

In the ladies section the categories are Chappals, Sandals, Shoes, Sports, Canvaz.

The categories for children are same only the extra addition is of school bags.

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 GENTS FORMALS

G S S G
E I I E
N T S T N
T T A T T
S I I S
N N N
G D G
C S
A C A C P
S H L H O
U A A R
A I
S I T
L R R S
S S S

School bags and carrying bags

Escalator for
1st floor

Entrance
Other carrying bags Executive bags Belts, Wallets

GROUND FLOOR LAYOUT

Drawbacks of Ground Floor Layout:

In our observation there are certain problems of their ground floor layout.

1. The school bags for children are not kept at the children section.
2. Executive bags, other carrying bags and school bags are kept in a very haphazard way.
Proper distinguish is not maintained among these.

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 3. The sandals and sitting chairs are kept so side by side and there is no gap between these
two. While some customers are looking sandals and some are sitting on chairs. Sometimes
the shoes are falling on the sitting persons and they are getting very disappointed.

This problem we observed so many times there.

Ladies Chappls, Sandals

Ladies
Sandals, C C
Shoes. H H
A Ladies A Ladies
I Shoes, I Sports,
R Sports R
Shoes
S shoes S

Children
Section
Ladies Accessories (Mostly high
end)

Entrance

Gents Shoes
Escalator
Bags Accessories
entrance

1ST FLOOR LAYOUT

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 Drawbacks of First Floor Layout:

There are also certain problems of the 1st floor layout.

1. The bags are again kept on 1st floor also. There is no proper separate arrangement for
different products.

2. The chair problems are again here.

3. There is section for high end ladies accessories and in that section also the gents
accessories are kept but the gents accessories are not of that high end. Normal belts and
wallets are kept there.

4. There is a very critical problem with the children section also. The shoes are kept on a
single wall shelf and the height of the shelf is moderately high than of a normal child’s own
height.

5. In some cases we found out that children are looking only to those shoes which their
parents are showing them from the upper shelves. They cannot access to them because of
their lower height.

6. For both the floors the no of shoes kept for senior citizens are very less and even it is kept
for gents it is at very far end or very far corner and the case is same also for the ladies
section that is 1st floor.

The visual merchandising:

Visual merchandising is the activity of promoting the sale of goods, especially by their presentation
in retail outlets. This includes combining products, environments, and spaces into a stimulating and
engaging display to encourage the sale of a product or service.

The most preferred and sophisticated products of every assortment are displayed at the front of
the store. There is one more important point in case of their visual merchandising. The
merchandise changes according to the season especially at the time of rainy season.

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The Merchandise: Gents section:

Every shoes of gents section are made of leather. The shoes are available starting form Rs 120 to
Rs. 2000 onwards. Formal, stylish, casual every kinds of products are there. The quality of shoes are
very good relative to the price. Mostly the stylish shoes at that amount of price probably will not be
available in any other retails. The casuals collections specially for summer is very good and stylish.
The display is also very proper with sufficient amount of lighting.

In a particular portion of gents shoes shocks are also available there. The price range is Rs 50 to Rs
120 onward.

The executive bags are very attractive. The price stats form around Rs 300 and it is up to Rs 2500.
The collection is very good with new designs.

The belts are a little bit of high end in comparison to the other products of gents section.

Ladies Section:

The shoes collection is very good. According to one sales person there are some around 400-450
designs available in their show room. The price is very moderate like the gents section. There is one
particular section for ladies accessories and shoes. The products kept at there is of higher price.
Mostly the accessories are of very high price.

One section of gents belts is also attached with the high end ladies section. The collection for senior
citizens is very low.

Pricing:

The price strategy of Sreeleathers is maintaining an EDLP (Every Day Low Pricing). They sell shoes
starting form very lower price and most of the shoes there sold are of lower or medium price. The
high price shoes are very few there.

The range is in between Rs. 100 and Rs 3000. But most of the products are in a range of Rs 300- Rs
700. They gain form sales volume only. Because the quality of the shoes is such a very high margin
is not possible with their pricing strategy.

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 Promotional activity:

Sreelethers normally don’t provide any discount at any time of the year. Once in every year they do
a promotion by high advertisement just before the Durga Puja. The stock becomes high at that
particular time and they also do R&D work on the various designs before the puja season.

The no of sales persons increase at this period. They also increase the operation time.

Service:

The service is not good at all in Sreeleathers. Plenty of sales persons are there. In the ladies section
the entire selling work is handled by gents sales persons only there is no ladies sales persons. The
person sales there works on direct commission basis depending on the no of sales they do. That is
why the sales persons always try to push their products to customers. Customers don’t take this
very normally.

They also don’t provide any training to the sales persons. On the sales floor itself the sales persons
gossips with their colleagues while customers wait for assistance.

The worst thing we observed there at the time of selling also the sales persons take their tiffin.
When we asked them they told us that their management told them to do so as for tiffin there will
be no extra brake will be provided and the food itself is provided by the management.

The sales people also don’t have any proper uniform or dress code. They wear their dress as they
wish. Sometimes they wear very dirty clothes also which create a very impact on customers.

One more problem is there with their billing section. The billing section is not separate there. The
billing counters are just on the selling floor itself. At the time of buying the sales persons take the
money and shoes and goes to the billing counter for payment while the customer just wait there.
The counters are very scattered. There are 5-6 billing counter on the ground floor and on the top
floor some around 4 billing counters are there.

After one purchase is over customer need to take shoes and just move around with the shoes they
have already purchased for another purchase.

We also took feedback of one customer about the payment system. They are not very satisfied
with that. When the sales person just go away with the purchase and the money for payment they
feel very insure if the sales person don’t come back with their purchase or if they just go away with
their money.

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 Competitors:

The main competitor of Sreeleathers is Khadims. Because the price of Khadims is just a little higher
than of Sreeleather’s.

In the Esplanade area Khadims also have large retail shop but the customers are more in
Sreeleathers. Bata is also there but in terms of pricing Bata is mush ahead of Sreeleathers. Their
target customers are either of higher middle or higher income group of people whether Sreelethers
mostly target lower middle of the lower income group.

Conclusion:

In the present scenario Sreeleathers have a very establish market share. They have huge no of
customers and in terms of loyalty the customer loyally level is also very high. The quality of their
product is very good and they adopted such a pricing strategy that in the present economic
scenario customer actually love to shop there. The designs of products is very decent, stylish and
modern and the variability is maximum.

Looking toward their Lindsay street retail outlet it have a very huge advantage of location. The
store operation time is also very prominent.

On an overall they are doing a very good business. Only some of the areas which we think they
need to develop are discussed below.

Recommendation:

The first recommendation we shall suggest is redesigning their store. Because certain problems of
layout are there like placing of shelves and sitting chairs side by side which we have already
discussed. They should think about it. Because the store design is the most fundamental area of
any retail and this is also an issue of very long term.

The second thing is that their creation of sections according to the categories of their products.
They should maintain a proper arrangement.

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The redesign of the children section is also highly recommended as the children cannot access to all
the shelves which are designed for them only because of height problem.

They payment system also should be redesigned. A creation of centralized payment system will
increase more of customer satisfaction.

Lastly the most important recommendation is in improving the service. The cost constrains are
obviously there. But the issue of tiffine, dress and hygiene of sales persons can be addressed very
simply and it will not incorporate a huge amount of cost. What we think is that a proper sales
training is very important as it will provide them a good long run benefit.

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