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Activation of Organised Retail stores for Personal Care Products.

SIP project report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
PGDM Programme

By Abhishek Sharma
Roll No.: 201832052

Supervisors: 1. Mr. Syed Moonis Alvi (Company Guide)

2. Dr. B B Tripathi (Faculty Guide)

Institute of Management Technology, Nagpur

2018-2020
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am using this opportunity to express my gratitude to everyone who supported me throughout the
course of this PGDM project. I am thankful for their constructive criticism, guidance and friendly
advice during the project work. I am grateful to them for sharing their honest and insightful views on
a number of issues that came up during project.

I would like to thank Mr. Syed Alvi and Ms. Bharti Agnihotri for their support and guidance at
Panasonic India Limited.

I would also like to thank my project external guide Dr. B. B Tripathi from the Institute of Management
Technology, Nagpur and all the people who provided me with the facilities being required and
conducive conditions for my PGDM project.

Thank you,

Abhishek Sharma
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SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION CERTIFICATE

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SERIAL NO. TOPICS PAGE NO.

1. Introduction and Objectives of the study 4

2. Business model/concepts 7

3. Company Analysis 12

4. Tabulation and findings/ result 18

5. Interpretations and conclusions/ summary 23

6. Recommendations 25

7. Limitations of the study 26

8. Scope for future improvements 27

9. Appendices 28

10. Bibliography 29
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INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE OF STUDY

The concept of retailing has not been introduced recently in India. Mandis and kirana stores
have existed in India since the period of hard-core traditional formats. Co-operative stores
like Super Bazar and Kendriya Bhandar came in to existence early. Textile firms like
Bombay Dyeing, Raymond's and Grasim emerged as big players with retail chains in 1980.
Titan which makes premium watches, created the organized retailing concept in India
successfully by establishing a number of Elegant Showrooms.
In the beginning, retail was a source of entertainment and there were weekly markets and
village fairs. This was a historical set up. With time, the scenario of retail changed to
stationary and permanent places of purchase like convenience stores and kiranas. This was
for traditional and pervasive reach. These are neighbourhood stores in local markets. After
the emergence of low costs stores as an initiative by the government, Khadi stores and
cooperatives were given way for the people. There was more availability of resources and big
distribution network. Finally, to improve shopping experience and increase efficiency there
are exclusive brand outlets and modern retail stores to cater to different audiences. Various
departmental stores and shopping outlets are present in reach of many customers.
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• From 3,600 billion US dollars by 2020 from 1,824 billion in 2017 the consumption expenditure
expected to reach that level.

• Economic Growth has made India one of the fastest growing markets in the world.

• The boost in consumer expenditure is by rising income and demand for quality products.

• In retail, India is world’s 5th largest global destination.

• The retail market in India has high bets to grow steadily while modern retail sector in India is
going to rise significantly.

• Modern retail in India to become twice in size over the next 3 years.
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Objective

I got an opportunity to pursue my internship in the consumer sales division of Panasonic to complete
a project in Organised Retail sector.

During the course of my internship I was given an overview on the different categories of products
under Lifestyle Group. Finally, I was assigned a project in Personal Care category of the Lifestyle
Group in the Consumer Sales Division.

The objective of the internship could be summarized in the following points:

1. To understand and determine the factors which influence buyer behaviour of Personal Care
products in Organised Retail stores.
2. To understand and determine the factors which influence buyer behaviour of Personal Care
products on the internet.
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CONCEPTS/MODELS INTRODUCED

Factors affecting consumer behaviour

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Colours used to affect consumer perception

Terminologies used

Ad-to-Sales Percentage – Amount of money spent calculated as percentage of sales.

Inventory Cost (Average) – When we add the beginning cost of inventory for each month and the
ending cost inventory of the last month in the period.

Benefits – The answer of ‘what is in it for customers.’.

Budget – How will the store spend on operation, expenses, merchandise and sales promotion.

Campaign – Advertising schedule of a specific length.

Contribution Margin – The net difference between sales revenue and variable costs.

Conversion Rate – The number of people who come to the store divided by the number of people
who make a purchase.

Cost of Goods Sold: Price paid for the item including the additional costs important to get
merchandise into inventory for sale.
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Customer Relationship Management: Customer relationship management (CRM) is a business

strategy designed to reduce costs and increase profitability by strengthening customer loyalty.

Gross Margin Percent – Sales – Cost / Sales = Gross Margin Percent.

Inventory – The number of items or merchandise available in the retail store.

Inventory Turnover – When the given inventory is replaced and replenished.

Loss Leader – When products or items are sold below the expected cost in order to bring more
customers.

Margin: Gross profit is made when people sell a merchandise or item.

Markup: A substantial percentage included to the cost to get selling price.

Markdown: A substantial reduction in the cost of the article.

Marketing Calendar: It is a tool used by retailers to plan marketing events, merchandising efforts and
media campaigns.

Operating Expenses – When you add all the expenses related with the normal process of running a
store.

Point-of-purchase Display –POP displays are materials or advertising used next to the merchandise
for marketing.

Segment (Consumer or Market) – A group of distinct or common habits which are separable from
the rest of the market. Example - Demographics, geographic location or buying habits.

Target Market – The group of consumers to whom you are directing your business concept.

USP – Unique Selling Proposition – What is special about your store and how your store stands out
from your competition.
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COMPANY ANALYSIS

Panasonic Corporation in the past alluded to as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Restricted is a
Japanese worldwide hardware partnership headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Japan. The organization
was established in 1918 by Konosuke Matsushita as a maker of light attachments and developed to
wind up one of the biggest Japanese gadgets makers close by Hitachi, Pioneer, Toshiba, Sony and
Canon Inc.

Despite the fact that Panasonic began its tasks in India in 1972, Panasonic India Private Limited was
shaped to consolidate different interests of the organization in 2008. Around the same time, Mr Daizo
Ito joined as CEO Panasonic India and guaranteed organization's forceful spotlight on India with huge
speculations and extension. He right now fills in as Chairman for Panasonic Regional Headquarters in
India. Mr. Manish Sharma fills in as the present President and CEO of Panasonic India and South Asia.

Panasonic has seen an upward development in the nation with imaginative item contributions,
expanded speculations and special activities. Indeed, even with Japanese roots, Panasonic is viewed as
an Indian organization. It centers around item advancement, ability employing and statistical surveying
in India for work in zones like water, vitality, remote access and sustenance.

Items like camcorders, vehicle sound frameworks, climate control systems, clothes washers, fridges,
microwaves structure an indispensable piece of it product offerings. Panasonic has a wide scope of
customer gadgets, home machines like LCD and plasma TVs. Programmed cookers, vacuum cleaners
and a wide scope of framework items including correspondence ones like cell phones, top quality video
conferencing are additionally included. It likewise bargains in DVD players, home theater frameworks,
cell phones, cameras.

Panasonic India is hoping to collect an income of Rs 12,000 in the current monetary, helped by
development in its B2B and B2C portion. It had recorded a turnover of Rs 10,300 crore a year ago.
Panasonic has named India as their territorial center for development in the rising Middle Eastern,
Asiatic and Western economies. The organization needs to make a comprehension and expertise to
address purchasers based out of India and take the information to developing markets.
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Functional Working of departments and their integration

Porters Five Forces

New entrants threat Low
Competitors threat Low
Suppliers bargaining power High
Buyers bargaining power High
Substitutes threat Medium

Table4: PESTEL Analysis

Political Government stability, regulations by government.

Economic Depends on the inflation of the currency.

Social For grooming and wellbeing of human beings.

Technology Still scope for technical improvements.

Environment Challenges in reaching Tier3 and Tier4 cities to maintain supply chain and service.

Legal Fixed slab rates. Fixed salary range. Same rules for pop-up stores than for any other
company. Permit Needed. Must add units of establishments for each pop-up location.
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TABULATION AND FINDINGS

Took a survey of around 50 promoters as i visited Reliance digital, croma and vijay sales stores in
Delhi.

The percentage of sales executives from different companies.

Store Location

Stores visited in different locations in Delhi/Ncr

Percentage of different products

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Highest number of display models

Philips has the highest number of display models on the shelves.

Preferable brand in hair trimmers

Philips is the preferable brand in trimmers.

Preferable brand in hair dryers

Philips is the preferable brand in hair dryers.

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Percentage of people who come for demo and who buy the product on the first go.

People who come with a fixed mindset to buy a philips product.

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Motivational factors for employees.

Career growth is the most sort after factor for sales executives.

Factors which are important for sales.

Features and brand recall emerged as the two most important factors which influence sales.
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Conducted a survey of 101 customers.

Most of the buyers are in the age group of 24-35.

Gender

Profession of people

Most of the people in the survey were working and had a professional background.
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Products owned by people

Preferred brand by customer

Things you consider are important before buying a personal care product.
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Which type of advertising catches the attention of the people

.

How often do people buy from online portals?

Where do you usually buy personal care products from?

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Which offers do you like?

If you like a product online, how do you find more about its features?

How often do you buy from retail stores?

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When would you go to a retail store?

According to you, which is the best retail store for buying electronics products?

Which factor will make you choose one store over another?
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Where have you come across Panasonic’s line of personal care products?
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INTERPRETATIONS AND CONCLUSION

1. Warranty and battery life emerged as the first two things which men find important while
making a purchase decision for trimmers.
2. At least two to three variants in each category. They usually compare two items of a brand to
make a final choice.
3. As the demand for epilators is relatively low in OR stores, we can skip this product.
4. A separate stand does make a difference. More than 60 percent of respondents liked that.
5. More than 70 percent of the consumers said they would go to a retail store only on a
weekend. As we will be hiring FIS executives for a full time position working 7 days a week,
they can help in other activities. More than 80 percent of the people said that they would buy
personal care products from online channels than offline stores.
6. Out of 102 respondents, 94 said they spend a lot of time online and social media ads catch
their attention.
7. As per the survey, Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube are the most visited sites.
8. More than 80 percent of the people selected amazon as their favourite shopping destination
9. Online reviews are the most important criterion for selecting a product for purchase. This can
be in the form of YouTube videos or ecommerce sites like amazon.

CONCLUSION
After conducting the survey for both the sales executives and customers, I reached the following
conclusion -
The main factors which influence buying behaviour of customers for personal care products are
Features and Brand recall. This means, it is important for a brand to build its image by regular
promotions and advertising and maintain the image by relevant positioning. As our target group
spends most of the time on the internet, innovative marketing and advertising techniques should be
used to gain their interest. Content is the most important way of drawing attention of the customers
in our target group. New, fresh and updated content on things which are trending on the internet is
important to make best use of advertising.
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RECOMMENDATIONS

As per the responses given by the sales executives, these are the top selling products in each category. We
can take into account the prices of each product and introduce products in the similar price range.

Keeping in mind the consumer profile we should create content(posters/ads/hangouts) for only
our targeted audience.

•We should create content which may catch the attention of a young user who is really active on the
internet and likes to follow trending things.

•For examples – Croma used game of thrones to catch customers attention.

•Similarly, we can use display over shelves or posters with our products to catch peoples attention.
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•We can also use cardboard cut-outs of popular themes running online to catch attention of the people
and increase engagement.

•As our consumer has a tendency to take pictures and put it online, it will increase brand awareness.

Do it yourself stations.
As more than 30 percent people aren’t aware of the existence of line of personal care products in
Panasonic and the market share of the brand in also low, it is important to educate people by giving
live demos and let them try the products themselves.

This should be done in corporate areas and near colleges as majority of our customer base is in the
range of 18 to 35.

Touch and feel factor of the products is important to make them familiar with our range of products.

Separate stands in stores.

•A separate stand does make a difference. More than 60 percent of respondents liked that.

•The stand should be open with racks. Closed stands make people feel unwelcome. They should be
able to lift and read description from the boxes.

•The colour of the stand can be white. White stands for elegance and purity, is a color which is mostly
used as a background.

•One of the brands which I most respect because of their fantastic usage of white color in their
advertisements is Apple

Consumer Behaviour Principles.

•Our promotion and marketing content should be made keeping in mind the factors which influence
consumer behaviour Cultural, social, personal and motivational.

We can take example of fair and lovely ads where we often see a girl either getting a job or winning
some contest after using the cream.

•This is a clear example of how motivation influence consumer behaviour.

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FIS Executives

More than 70 percent of the consumers said they would go to a retail store only on a weekend. As we
will be hiring FIS executives for a full time position working 7 days a week, they can help in other
activities.

1.Help distribute pamphlets and brochures to nearby residential areas, colleges or corporate offices.

2.Can get survey filled up to understand the consumer better. Can thus raise awareness about the
personal care category in their respective areas of work.

3.The executive may also visit the nearby traditional stores or market to get an idea about the sales
happening in that area in his or her free time.

4.The survey found that most of the FIS executives want to grow in their careers and want a steady
income rather than unsteady incentives. We can create an FIS development program to train high
performing FIS executives and help them get better opportunities.

5.This will help increase the loyalty of employees towards the brand and the category.

Offers with products at the stores.

Column1 Column2

Company Per month plans

Amazon Rs.129
prime

Hotstar Rs. 299

Vodafone Rs. 169

Airtel Rs. 169

Jio Rs. 198

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LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Although a great support was provided by the mentor for the project completion but at the same time
there was some limitation for the study. These limitations are listed below;

1. There was no proper plan of action for an intern.

2. There was no study material or proper training plan designed for the intern.
3. Most of the time at office was spent without any work. Only in case of field visits and
data collection the intern could get to do some work.
4. It would have been better if the guide would schedule an appointment for the intern. He
would take two-three days to go through one day’s work, which would eventually delay
the entire process.
5. No compensation for travel and visits. It discourages the intern to go and collect more
information.
6. Lack of enthusiasm to encourage new findings or results.
7. As the company has no marketing culture, emphasis was laid more to increase sales
rather than to build image for future sustainability.
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SCOPE FOR FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS

1. It will be better if the company invests its resources in marketing and branding rather than
boosting sales. It should think long way.
2. The company needs to develop a culture of innovation rather than following already practised
strategies by the current market leader, Philips.
3. The company should design a proper plan of action for the intern to achieve maximum
benefits from their time with the organisation.
4. The company should also invest in raising awareness as around 30 percent of the people
don’t know Panasonic has a line of personal care products.
5. At last, I would recommend for the company to leverage on its strong brand image. People
like the brand but they are just unaware of what all it can do.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

 https://www.ibef.org/download/Retail-Report-2018.pdf
 http://retailertrainingservices.com/glossary-of-key-retail-and-retail-marketing-terms/
 https://www.slideshare.net/Annie1199/panasonic-42476510
 https://wiki2.org/en/Panasonic
 https://panasonic.com/in/
 https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/business/543020-panasonic-expects-turnover-of-rs-
12000-cr-this-fiscal