With the COVID-19 pandemic raging unabated, the Indian consumer space is going through many changes. While earlier stores had years and years of discovery time, today they need to adopt technology at a faster level and only quality – both in products and service – speaks for business. This is more true for the grocery business than any other segment of the retail sector. Modern grocers have the onerous task of making grocery shopping, arguably one of the most uninspiring chores of modern times, interesting. They need to ensure their stores and schemes are such that consumers want to walk in.
One such store is YESS – Your Everyday Super Store. A leading superstore chain based in Delhi-NCR, YESS came to its inception on September 8, 2019 with a store in New Delhi’s popular high street, Lajpat Nagar. In a short span of 18 months YESS grew from 1 superstore to 3 superstores – the other two stores also located in premium locations of the National Capital Region, namely Preet Vihar and Noida.
The brand grew from strength to strength, gaining a huge, loyal customer base by generating goodwill and providing fresh and high quality products at the best prices in the super competitive retail market in India’s capital. YESS, which has is now rated among the market leaders of NCR in the high end luxurious grocery segment, is strategically located in prominent areas of the city increasing its customer outreach and having a huge on road presence.
Today YESS – which has become one of the most visited superstores for customers who seek to find rare or regular imported and Indian FMCG, Fresh Meat & FnV, General Merchandise products at great prices – is planning to open 15 more stores in Delhi-NCR over the next 2 years.
USP & Differentiation
Offering a class-apart in store shopping experience, YESS has a very high-end luxurious look and feel to give the customer an unparalleled grocery shopping experience. Aside from a huge variety of Indian and imported products, the store provides customers a lot of discounted offerings.
The brand offers a wide range of products which cannot be found anywhere in the north region. Our products range from regular groceries such as ghee, oil, sugar, butter, rice, pulses, spices, biscuits, namkeens, dry fruits, eggs, etc. to imported products such as noodles, chips, sauces, dips, chocolates, ice creams etc.
“YESS is a one stop solution offering the widest range of food, non-food, imported, fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, dairy, organic and allergen caring products, and general merchandise all under one roof. YESS offers more than 35,000 products to its customers, providing the finest quality of the products nowhere to be found in the North region. More so now than ever, consumers want to know exactly what’s in their food, so we provide our highest focus upon selling the quality items such as finely cleaned and procured antibiotic free meat and fish, laboratory tested malai paneer, fresh fruits and vegetables directly procured from the farms, absolutely hygienic rice, pulses, spices, dry fruits, and much more,” says Arpan Aggarwal, Director, YESS – Your Everyday Super Store.
The fastest moving SKUs include: Amul Butter, Potato, Onion, Tomato, Paneer, Sugar, Bisleri Water since they are regular consumables.
Aside from this, propelled by their core principle of ‘freshness’, the in-house chefs of YESS cook special quick pick-me-up mouthwatering dishes such as butter chicken, mutton biryani, Mughlai kebabs, dumplings, and much more in the superstore’s kitchen.
Business Strategies
YESS is committed to opening its stores at the most high-end, yet densely populated cosmopolitan neighbourhoods of Delhi-NCR.
“Our aim is to cater to all the customers of an area and not just a street. We usually target high end areas and big to the road locations of Delhi-NCR and that is why our stores can be found in the most prime locations of the capital. This distinguishes us from the other brands,” says Aggarwal.
The brand is also committed to ensuring that customers can find them online and regularly uses digital media to build interest, create awareness and actively engage with the community viz the brand, products and upcoming launches.
“These days we see a big chunk of the customers focus more on ordering through e-commerce platforms and getting home deliveries. Therefore, aside from a physical presence, we are working on our new e-commerce website which will feature a huge threshold of SKUs for the customers to order from. We keep more than 35000 SKUs in our stores for the customer to pick from, and we have been omnichannel since our inception and will continue to do the same,” he adds.
The brand has a robust marketing budget and advertises regularly on social as well as print media.
“We advertise on social media viz. Instagram and Facebook. Following a mix of digital and traditional, we mostly use print, broadcast, and online media for our integrated marketing efforts, including newspaper ads, radio ads and online marketing. Apart from that, we also advertise our brand and the deals and offers we provide in leading dailies like Times of India and Hindustan Times to attract more consumer attention. We advertise every weekend as well as on special holidays to increase our store traffic.”
The brand is well on its way to launching its own website as well as mobile application.
“We have also noticed that most for customers, the question isn’t just ‘do you have it?’ but also, ‘what does it cost?’ To the first question, our answer is always, YESS we have it. As for the second question, we help customers with creative ‘bill buster’ offers every weekend providing them with free sugar, butter, potato, oil, soft drinks etc. to attract them and also to ensure that their shopping experience is not monotonic,” he explains.
| Increasing Customer Satisfaction YESS is at the forefront of providing many attractive offers including:
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Innovation & Technology
YESS is constantly upgrading its store technologically to get uniquely identified in the market and also for simplifying in-store tasks for both employees and consumers. Some of the revolutionary technologies include:
- Planogram & Store Mapping: Showing the item location at our store according to the checklist of our shoppers
- Self-Checkout Using Just Phones: Letting shoppers scan and pay by themselves to avoid human contact and secure them from the risk of contracting COVID.
- Queue Busters: Eliminating the queue by taking order in line from customers
- Express Home Delivery with Live Tracking: This lets customers know the expected time of arrivalof their order.
- Inventory Management: YESS has successfully tackled the problem of inventory management accurately over all locations leading to a more simplified way of placing the orders to vendors.
Aside from this, since the lockdown, the brand has started paying more attention towards its social media presence, by promoting products, schemes and offers on it on a regular basis, sharing offers and schemes to increase customer interaction, and by broadcasting offer messages to its large customer database. YESS can be found on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
“Besides these, we have generated internship opportunities for students from all over India which again helps us in increasing our outreach. We have effectively managed to use human resources as a strategy to attract our customers. These interns have different skill-sets that help us in generating customer interaction. For example – we have interns who make eye-catching posts for our social media platforms, we have social media marketing interns who promote our stores on their social media handles, and we have sales interns who promote our in-store products,” he explains.
Private Labels
All groceries such as rice, pulses, spices, and dry fruits are the brand’s private label products. “They contribute to a great extent since people in Delhi trust our quality products and they tend to choose our private label products over other company products,” he says.
He also explains that the food category is definitely the winner at YESS, since people mostly come in regularly to purchase their high supreme, authentic and absolutely fresh consumables. Also, due to COVID, YESS saw a sharp rise in the sale of food categories. Other reasons why food sells at YESS is the fact that there is a wide range of imported food items, their private label packaging is very attractive, and the brand focuses on improving the health credentials of our items.
“Also, as the demands of our consumers keep broadening, we constantly add diversity in our food item range. For example, we have a wide range of quick pick-me-up snacks options, many brands which are not easily available in India as well as new brands which are being launched. Then there are many organic products which we have added to our product portfolio that are in high demand. Also, because of the pandemic, people have people have started focusing on their health due to which, we have observed a sharp rise in organic and healthy foods such as hydroponic vegetables, organic grocery, and protein rich foods. All of these are available at our store at competitive prices, discounted rates,” he says.
Noticeable Consumption Trends
There is a significant shift in Indian consumption trends including a desire for better, more balanced quality of life, great focus on health, safety, and luxury. Consumers’ choices have evolved a lot as now they have a great liking for imported products. They are often seen loosening their pockets because of the large variety of products that a brand like YESS has to offer.
“People prefer information-centric shopping, in which consumers search for a great deal about the product or service before purchasing it. Apart from this, the desire to keep up with the shopping trends has also compelled people to make purchases. We have also noticed a growing interest in customized products such as gift baskets because of their belief that whatever they buy should reflect their preferences and needs even if they have to pay extra for it. Besides these, we noticed that there is a great difference between the shopping styles of men and women and for grocery stores, women are more potential customers. Moreover, people have now started valuing both experience and products which is why we offer a luxurious shopping experience at the lowest prices,” he says.
He further goes on to add that before the pandemic, customers used to visit the store on a more frequent basis, buying small amounts of items regularly. But during the pandemic, the customer behaviour has changed, since they now seldom visit the stores, and when they do, they purchase more items in one go. With this, a major transition is seen in home deliveries as during this pandemic, most customers prefer home delivery rather than visiting the store. Also, customers have started to purchase more groceries and less personal care products.
“Another big change that we have observed in grocery retail is a boom in online ordering, large and bulk orders which lead to an increase in our average bill value, and shelf-stable foods such as canned products,” he adds.
In keeping with this changing behaviour, YESS is all set to launch its e-commerce portal as well as mobile app. It is also planning on launching 15 new stores within this financial year covering all the parts of Delhi-NCR.
“After these are launched, we will move towards cities like Chandigarh and Mumbai to increase our outreach and to take our steps to cover all metropolitan cities of India. The ultimate goal is to cover all metropolitan cities of India with YESS stores,” Aggarwal concludes.
