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Operation Customer Watch

Academic Group 18
Kumar Atulya Sampada Satam Amit Otta Deepthi C Vikalp Babeley Rajesh Goel

Operation Customer Watch

Store Details
CROMA, Ground Floor, Vasundhara CHS, Opp Utpal Shanghvi School, JVPD, Vile Parle West, Mumbai- 49. Working Hrs 11:00 a.m. - 8:30 p.m. Store Contact Number 1800 258 3636 (Toll Free)

Type of Retail Outlet Observed

Consumer Electronics and Durables Megastore

Layout of the outlet: Location, site, area, size, and other descriptions
The store is located in a prime location of Juhu, Parulekar road, a five minute walking distance from Dynamix Mall. With PVR Juhu and Shoppers Stop right next door, the hustle bustle in the region never stops. The Croma Megastore, rightly coined as an electronic version of Alibabas cave, spans over 15,000 sq feet in area. The layout of the store was a standard Herringbone, with a single main aisle running from front to rear. It ensured that the customers had a lot of space to move around and their shopping was aided with interactive displays which helped them find exactly what they are looking for at the same place and do a comparative analysis.

A rough map of the inside portion of the outlet

Shop-in-Shops Ms Kinnect

Easy Finance Secton Computers and Laptops Home Entertainment

Large Appliances

Hand Held Appliances

Office 10 sq m

Office 10 sq m

Office 10 sq m

Office 10 sq m


Sony Viao


Harman !JBL

Office 48 sq m Office 30 sq m


Washing Machines


Billing Counter

Small Communication Appliances

General description about the outlet, type of merchandise, shoppers and a macro level observation summary
The Croma store houses almost all electronic products and appliances under a single roof covering all price ranges possible. In terms of the product mix, we can largely classify them into six major categories:

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Operation Customer Watch

Apart from these, the store also has a unique concept of Shop-in-Shop retail format where it has entered into a contract with certain brands to provide them with exclusive store space of their own. The Croma store in Juhu had four such format stores of Miele (a German Modular Kitchen manufacturer), Sony Viao, Dell Computers, !JBL by Harman and Bose. Being in a prime locality which also happens to be a usual hang-out zone for people, the store attracted customers from every age group. People visited the store with friends, family or just alone to browse and buy what they needed. In the two hours (approx.) that we spent in the store observing customers, we could identify almost 120 unique customers visiting the store. Based on the usual working hours of the store, we can approximate a footfall of around 600-700 customers per day. The store had around 30 sales staff that was present to assist the customers in making a purchase by making suggestions and answering queries. The store had a very bright setup with low level Gondolas and Step level displays to highlight the products. This ensured face to face interaction with the customers. Also, the store had the widest level of product assortment under each category and customers to look at, touch and feel everything before buying. The store also ran several promotions like the Managers offer (clubbing 3-4 products in price promotion), Audio based promotions, Easy Financing with Bajaj Finance, Extended Warranty Smile Club (loyalty programme) and Exchange offers. These offers were extensively communicated throughout the store in the form of Counter displays, Wall Hangings and Reference Pricing (Hand-picked by Croma offers).

A micro level description of shopper behaviour, why, how and what did they do inside the shop
The shoppers in the store lied within a huge range in terms of almost every attribute, be it the age group, people accompanying them or their motive behind the visit. However, on spending some more time on the shopping floor and observing them, some very clear patterns emerged. In terms of the shopping missions of these customers, we could identify three distinct types. These were: The Certain Buyer: They made a purchase once they visited the store. One family who bought a Samsung LCD had made the decision to buy from Croma after having visited other stores for checking for best prices. Another boy, approximately 21-24 years of age made a quick purchase of a pair of Bose Headphones after trying out a few models. The Inquisitor: These customers formed the largest base of shoppers observed. The enquired about every product, its features, price and accompanying promotions, while not making a purchase. A man in his late 20s investigated about all laptops under the Rs. 30k price range asking for discounts, additional accessories, as well as making a request to give a price discount instead of the free antivirus. A woman and her husband browsed through the Large Appliances section enquiring about Refrigerators. None of them however, made a purchase. The Observer: These customers just visited the store to browse through the latest gadgets (mostly in the communications section). They observed and tested the products without making many enquiries and eventually left without a purchase.

In most cases the person playing the role of the buyer was in the store, however, on two separate occasions we observed two customers making their decisions in accordance with someone on the other side of their
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Operation Customer Watch

phone. In one of the cases the person on the other side of the phone could have been an influencer as the buyer took help on which laptop specifications to buy from him. In the other instance, the initiator was on the phone as a father talked to his kid about which mobile he wanted him to buy. We could identify a few shopper classifications based on what influenced them to make a purchase: Kids Choice: These were mostly family customers who were influenced by the choice of their kids or teenage children. In two separate cases, a young boy of around 6 years played table tennis on MS Kinnect and begged his parents to buy it for him. In other instance, a girl of around 17-18 years was found explaining the latest features of a cell phone to an unconvinced father. Deal Seekers: These customers were not loyal to a particular brand but went through asking for all options and checking the best deals and offers before making a purchase. Loyals/Finer Choice: These customers (like the Bose headphone buyer) splurged huge amounts on the brands that they liked, with minimum fuss and little or no outside influence.

Inferences drawn from the information collated through observation method

The layout of the store with almost all electronics and consumer durable products under the sun, arranged in a low-rise, customer friendly manner appealed to the customer. Customers prefer to touch and feel their electronic products before making a purchase. In most cases, the shopper was already well informed about the product he/she was looking for or was at the store to gather more information. In any way, shoppers prefer to make an informed decision in most cases by gathering all possible information about the product. The Shop-in-Shop format was almost empty for most part of the visit. This was probably because the dedicated format wasnt big enough to accommodate all product range. A major chunk of shoppers came only to collect information or browse through the latest technological gadgets and only a few actually made a purchase. The factors influencing the purchase ranged from kids to deals to brand loyalty.

Implications for the Retailer and Marketers

The sales staffs need to be trained in understanding all the details of the products they are selling. In most cases the responses of the staff were reactive to shopper questions and not proactive. If the customer is not very well informed, this can lead to he/she not getting an entire idea of the product and eventually not buying the product. Shop-in-Shop retailers need to identify new and unique ways of attracting customers to their zones, Retailers need to invest into strategies that bundle offers and expand the basket size of the Certain Buyers as the response of the other two segments is unpredictable. The endorsed branding approach of A quality product from the house of Tata should be leveraged as the Tata Credo can make customers believe in not only good quality but also best prices. This was Croma can be the final choice for making purchases even by the Inquisitors.

In all our observations within the store we found that a lot of effort has gone into making Croma into a world class Mega store with an unmatched product mix under the same roof. However, a few steps can still be taken to provide customers with the Aha moment by improving the ways in which they interact with the men and machine at the store. Going with a tag line of We help you Buy, we do believe that Croma has the potential to influence the customer shopping behaviour positively and to its advantage.

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