The Hypermarket

What sets Jumbo Saver apart from most other hypermarkets operating in India at the moment is their tight control over the back-end. They manage to give shoppers potatoes and onions at Rs.9.90/kg (the going market rate being nearly Rs.15-20/kg for potatoes in urban centres) or FMCG products at a cut below the MRP while ensuring that the same is fresh and quality product or merchandise. This competitive pricing is mainly due to their well-streamlined sourcing and products brought in from their own fisheries, hatcheries and local fields.

Says Malpani, “It takes us less than 24 hours to bring fresh produce from the fields to our shelves. For the most part fruits and vegetables cut from the farms early in the morning are put on our shelves that very day. The same goes for seafood, meat and poultry, which come from our own fisheries and hatcheries. The freshest product at the very best price is what we offer our shoppers.”
What used to be run on a smaller scale for their Monday 2 Sunday supermarkets, has simply taken on a much larger scale at their first hypermarket. Offering over 2,00,000 SKUs to the buyer is after all, no mean feat. Apart from Jumbo Saver's own branded products, other brands are also available, but always at a competitive price.

Innovative features at the hypermarket include a bakery area where all products are baked right there on spot. Built on the lines of the innumerable bakeries operating in this part of the country, the fresh bakery section brings a whiff of the neighbourhood into this organised retail format. The same goes for the meat and fish area. Apart from the freshness of the products on offer, shoppers can also buy meat roasted right there for them. Considering the catchment demographics, halal meat is also on offer.

Going by customer reactions, the various factory outlets have been the greatest hit with Jumbo shoppers; followed by the fresh meat offerings, fruits and vegetables, apparel and seafood – strictly in that order.

Paying Attention to Detail

Jumbo Saver does not have retail professionals from Carrefour and Panda on the team for nothing. That a lot of research has gone into the development of the value format shows in various little details. The very first point that will attract the attention of any harried bulk household grocery shopper is the presence of a travelator instead of the usual escalators leading down from the hypermarket right into the parking area. No more waiting for empty elevators to squeeze your shopping cart and manoeuvring it through people mazes to get to your car or outside the mall anymore. Shopping carts with attached perambulators for parent/guardian shoppers is another great idea.

Another thing they wouldn't let you miss at Jumbo Saver are the signages! They're all over the place, very neat and organised, boldly screaming out the menswear or the durables sections. You can hardly miss them, which is a very good idea actually. The hypermarket has 22 cash counters, including express counters. But what's amazing is that Jumbo Saver has actually trained a team of skaters for the cash counter area over three to four months. These 'runners' as they are called rush out to get last-minute shopping items for shoppers already at the check-out points. About four to five runners operate at each of the three shifts. Barely a month-old, the value retailer is slowly settling down with its fresh retail concept and all that comes as part of the package of running such a huge business. Staff retention is a problem at the moment, says the management.

Future Plans

The 1,40,000 sq.ft Jumbo Saver hypermarket and value retailing format is the group's first and smallest among their plans for a retail chain. This is to be followed by seven to eight much larger outlets over the next year. The group plans to open their next hypermarket by March 2007 in Bangalore . Plans are on for setting up the second Jumbo Saver in a high traffic area of Bangalore , probably around the Koramangala area.

Kudos to the group for thinking out-of-the-box and fashioning an original concept in taking up huge space within a mall and filling it up around a core concept of “value-retailing”. We believe this is just the beginning of many more such innovations in the retail sector to hit the country very soon.