Retail Experience in India: Changing Landscape

The retail landscape for alcobev products in the country is crowded with impediments as well as new developments and opportunities, which were discoursed upon by the esteemed panel.

Some of the issues which were deliberated upon in ThinkPad Session were the challenges in alcobev retail in India due to extremely regulated nature of the industry, paucity of the number of offline retail liquor outlets in India, the possibility of online sales in alcobev and innovative consumer engagement in duty free outlets, growing role of high-end alcobev options in the wedding segment and investment in improving the overall retail buying experience, among others.

The moderator of the session, Mahesh Kanchan, CEO, Del Monte Foods India, opened the discussion with the observation of different retail buying experience for alcobev consumers in different parts of India while citing the pleasant experience of alcobev buying in sleek retail outlets in Gurugram.

While inviting Avishek Das, CEO, Mumbai Travel Retail Pvt Ltd to share his thoughts, Mahesh Kanchan asked him what could be the reason that while 57 million people fly in and out of India internationally but only 12 to 13 percent actually buy alcohol from the fancy airports despite the availability of best brands, Avishek said this question keeps him awake all night why the percentage was so low. He explained that the challenge at the Mumbai Duty Free was that the bulk business was at the arrivals which “is the disadvantaged leg of the journey.” If one takes a flight from Dubai to Mumbai, one can have 2-3 hours dwelling time for purchase at Dubai airport. Whereas after landing in Mumbai late at night, one tends to be in a hurry, which impedes one’s purchase.

“Though we offer a wide range of brands including 250 single malts from different parts of the world, it is always a challenge to make such flyers buy alcohol at our duty-free shops,” he averred.

Duty Free Experience

“In order to attract the consumers at departure, who are usually short of time and in a hurry to catch the flight, we have introduced a DJ accompanied by music, and this exercise is working really well with us,” informed Avishek. Mumbai Travel Retail has also introduced White Glove Service and those who avail that service do have a dedicated person to assist them and he or she would not have to navigate the 25,000 sq.ft. retail space and stand in queue.

Mahesh took the cue to talk about a retail outlet in suburbs in Mumbai which had great ambience and music. The owner of the said outlet expected that because of such great ambience and music, consumer engagement to increase and his consumers’ were likely to purchase more or better or both from the said outlet than they would have done without the great ambience and music.

Abhijit Das, Head-Marketing, Delhi Duty-Free Services, informed that 60- 65 percent of their sales came from alcoholic beverages. According to him, alco-beverage is the largest category for Delhi Duty-Free Services by margin too.

“Sustainable customer service is our key to success; we strive to ensure that our shoppers’ experience in her/his latest visit is equal or better than that of their last visit with us. For example, if you make a purchase and have an issue with it, you can return it to us within 30 days and be refunded,” explained Abhijit, while pointing out that range, price, interactions with consumers, billing time, after sales service together influenced their shoppers’ overall experiences.

Avishek Das informed that they have a fantastic range of rare and prestigious malts for collectors and
connoisseurs. He also enthusiastically talked about selling Bowmore 1965 from Mumbai Travel Retail for only a price of Rs.42 lakh!

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