A REPORT

ON

APNA BAZAAR OUTLET

Submitted To: Prof. Pravin Patil

Submitted By: Gunjan(08BS0001125)

Joginder Singh(08BS0001297)

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Brief Profile:
Apna Bazar, probably the oldest and
largest consumer co-operative multi-
state society with a customer base of
over 12 lakhs. The Rs 140-crore retail
chain that, for over 55 years remained
largely “middle-class”.

The word “Apna Bazaar” means “Our

Bazaar” and that is what they have been
ever since their inception. The trend of
shopping big and buying big started in
the early 1990’s, a momentous time in Indian history. It was a ready-made platform for those
aspiring to have a big shopping presence, big and modern, yet simple and accessible to people of
all income barriers. The idea of Apna Bazaar came about more than a decade back.

Role of Apna Bazaar:

Apna bazaar plays a vital role by market intervention during the shortages of essential
commodities. The distribution of these items is taken up by the Apna Bazaar at a loss to fulfill its
social commitments. At times of need, Apna Bazaar has diverted its manpower and resources,
even at the cost of its own commercial interest, for the public good.

Objectives of Apna Bazaar:

To undertake wholesale and retail distribution of consumer goods and essential commodities;
and to establish department stores;
To foster the growth products and new manufacturing units through market support and
management advice

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 To lower distribution costs and to introduce fair and better trading practices such as fixed
prices etc; and
Eradication of malpractices of traders black marketing, artificial scarcity, cheating in
measurements, adulteration, etc.
Necessity of time – public distribution of essential commodities in rural and urban areas.
Elimination of middlemen.

Management and Organization:

Apna Bazaar is headed by a management team comprising a chairman, vice chairman and Hon
secretaries. The team largely provides direction to the organization and is not involved in the
day-to-day affairs. The day-to-day affairs are managed by an executive team, which consists of a
general manager, additional general manager and office bearers of the organization.

Outlet

Apna Bazaar has a customer base of over 12 lakhs. Apna Bazaar has 80 outlets in Mumbai,
Thane and the neighbouring Konkan region. It has recently opened its first shop outside the state
in Goa.The breakups of the stores are:

Departmental stores 8

Medical stores 4

Supermarkets 7

Franchisee stores 37

Food stores 24

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Items Sold By Apna Bazaar

Apna Bazaar has the following three main

categories of items:
a. Agro products
b. Branded products
c. Rural products

Apna Bazaar sells an immense variety of items through its various departments/retail outlets.
These are described below: -

Furniture:
All type of wooden furniture, steel furniture library furniture, hospital furniture, revolving chairs,
computer furniture, mattresses, pillows, sofa cushion

Household:
Steel utensils, aluminum utensils, non stock, gas stoves, locks, mixer-grinder, juice-cum-mixer
grinder, hot-cases, room heater, room convector, geysers, all type of fans, electrical goods,
washing machine, air-conditioners, water cooler, voltage stabilizer, generator set, crockery,
flasks, plastic items, electrical bulb/tubes and tube fittings, table lamp, emergency light, cell,
torch, electric wire, desert cooler, exhaust fans.

Footwear:
Shoes, sandals, ladies purse, belt, umbrella, school, bag, suit cases, brief cases, file box, file bag,
luggage bag.

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 Textile:
Woolen suiting, tericot suiting and shirting, blanket, blazer, bed-sheets, pillow cover, dress
material, all types of sarees, markein cloth, long cloth, voil, mulmul khadi etc.

Handloom:
Towels, dusters, curtain cloth, bed-covers, carpets, quilt, durries, jute matting, blankets, pillow
covers, door-mats, PVC flooring.

Ready Made Garments:

Pants, shirts, undergarments, socks, sweaters, leather jackets,
ladies suits, petticoats, children garments, rain coats, over-
coats, mosquito mat, curtain tapes, machine oil, raxine.

Stationery:
All types of duplicating, typing, photocopies paper, printing paper, all types of rules registers in
different sizes peon books, dak pads, pens, pencils, pen stands, eraser, markers, sign pens, gum-
bottles scales, colours, art material, sealing wax, white fluid, sutle, stencil and carbon paper, all
type of computer stationery, butter paper, crepe paper, glaze paper, graph paper, file covers, log
books, all type of printed forms (Govt. offices), PVC sheet for binding purposes, transparency
sheets, ledgers, cash books calculators, computer floppy, fax roll, typewriting ribbon, ammonia
paper rolls.

Watches:
Watches of reputed companies like Titan

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 Grocery & Toiletries:
Pulses, spices, atta, rice, oils, tea leaves, and various other
edible items, insecticides, disinfectants, phenyle,
detergents, soaps, cosmetics, tissue rolls and napkins etc.

Medical & Surgical Equipment:

All types of medicines, medical & surgical equipment etc

Facilities Offered By Apna Bazaar to Consumers:

Apna Bazaar provides the following facilities to consumers: -

Quality products at reasonable prices.
Variety of items under one roof.
24 hours drugs outlets.
Self-service counters
Items of high quality tested by its quality- testing laboratory.
Display boards and price lists at various counters to enable the customer to make his/her
choice.
Home delivery, but this facility is only available for purchase from branches.
Discount sales periodically on various items

Location:

The location for the store is selected taking in consideration the residential population in the area,
the standard of living of the people, the amount of business the other shops are doing and also
future development that are likely to take place in that area in future.

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Area covered:

Apna Bazaar has 80 outlets in Mumbai, Thane and the neighbouring Konkan region. It has
recently opened its first shop outside the state in Goa. However the density of Apna Bazaar is
high in Naigoan and Chembur

Space required:

The minimum requirement of area for setting up Apna Bazaar is1000 sq.feet. The biggest store is
at Vashi, which is spread across 27000 sq.feet.

Target segments:

The store was started keeping in mind the lower middle class section of the society. But
gradually it has moved up the consumer ladder with the inclusion of the middle class as its target
consumer. Now slowly it is drawing the upper class towards it. It now caters to almost all the
segments of the society depending on the location. In order to attract the upper class & to combat
growing competition in the retail industry it is making changes in its product-mix.

Change in product Mix:

Commodity Tones (2002-03) Tones (2003-04)

Rice 1420 1325
Wheat 1070 1050
Dal 1410 1360
Pulses 800 785

The above table indicates decline in the sales of Rice, Wheat, Pulses etc which shows the change
in the food culture/consumption pattern of the consumer. It indicates that the
consumer’s inclination towards ready-to-eat food is increasing. Taking this into consideration

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Apna Bazaar had made has made appropriate changes in its Product Mix. Slowly the Percentage
of food grains, pulses has declined and that of FMCG products has increased. In a couple of
years the percentage of poultry products in the product mix would increase whereas that of food
grains pluses etc. would decline. This would further change the product –mix of Apna Bazaar.

Store Layout:

Layout of shop Apna Bazaar does not have any specific layout of shop. But in most of outlet the
1st division you would come out is Vegetable, Fruit, Medical product, food grains, and FMCG
product. The only think that is
kept under consideration that
Heavy Product like 5kg Sugar,
10kg Wheat, 5 liter Oil is near
cash counter for convenience of
customer. In case of display they
see to it that display at entrance is
very colorful & attractive. Hence
they display cosmetics & FMCG
product. Besides product, which is
new to the market, are also
displayed to grab attention of
consumer

Product Display:

The brands are displayed in a very attractive manner .The decision to place a Brand on a
particular shall depends upon the Market share enjoyed by the company /Brand. Usually there
are 5 Shelves. Out of which 2nd, 3rd & 4th shelves are most important ones on which the brand
with high market share or high brand equity are placed. These products are always in demand by
the customers.

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Footfalls:

In big stores, like the departmental store at Andheri, there are 2000 to 3000 footfalls in a day (on
weekdays) & on weekends there are around 3000 to 3500 footfalls. In small outlets there are
around 100 footfalls on regular day’s .On
weekends there are 200 to 250 footfalls. The
footfalls are more especially on Sunday.

The footfalls are more in evening between

6.30pm. & 8.30pm .Whereas the footfalls
are comparatively low during the afternoon
slot of 1.30-3.30 pm. Keeping this in mind
stores are closed down during this time. In
this time the staff are rearrange the
merchandise in the store.

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SWOT Analysis:

Strengths:
Goodwill-
Apna Bazaar has built its image over the years as a value for money store, which supplies good
quality goods at economical price.

Number of Outlets-
Apna Bazaar has 80 outlets spread all over Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and the neighbouring
Konkan region, Lanza (Bombay-Goa road), among other places in Maharashtra. All these areas
are easily accessible as public transportation is available, hence providing easy accessibility to
the customers.

Modernization-
Apna Bazaar makes use of modern technology to maintain correct supplier bills and giving
accurate bills to customers giving details of each purchase and most importantly showing him the
savings he has made while purchasing from Apna Bazaar. They also possess total details of their
sales and the percentage of sales in each category so they know where the sales are high and
where they are lagging behind.

Genuine Products-
The products of Apna Bazaar are genuine as they purchase it directly from the companies. Lots
of imitations of consumables such as honey, oil, etc. are available in many stores. People get
cheated, as it is not easy to identify them.

CRM-
Apna Bazaar organizes a customer meet for their regular customers called MELAVDA at their
anniversary to build stronger relations with their customers. On this day, the customers are
offered purchase discounts which show that they have taken corrective steps towards customer
satisfaction.

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Weaknesses

Capital-
Raising capital for expansion and improvement is also a constraint. Apna Bazaar is bounded by
the laws of consumer co-operatives due to which they cannot raise funds from open market.
There is also limit prescribed by the consumer co-operatives for number of shares issued by
Apna Bazaar. This is a major drawback for Apna Bazaar.

Ageing society-
Apna Bazar started after World War 2 when there was need of essential commodities at lower
prices. But, after liberalization many super markets and hypermarkets have opened up due to
which there is explosion of choices. Moreover, people today have the money to go for
convenience shopping, and hence, the purpose for opening the co-operative is defeated.

No online retailing-
Apna Bazar does not have information about its products online. They should have their own
website as it is very important in today’s world. They could even learn about customer
grievances by the feedback.

Price fluctuation-
Price Fluctuation is a major threat to Apna Bazar. If the product is bought at a higher price is
has to be sold at that price only so as not to incur losses. For example, the price of oil fluctuates a
lot. So if the price for oil is Rs. 820 for a can when it is purchased, it will be sold at Rs 820 per
can even if the price falls to Rs. 800 per can. In this case the oil available from other shops will
be cheaper.

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Opportunities

Brand building-
Apna Bazaar can take efforts to build its’ brand image. For this purpose, a marketing firm can he
hired. This will attract more and more people to its outlets. Also, they have upgraded their
outlets. This can be the base for attracting more customers as they will soon have all air
conditioned stores.

Expansion-
Apna Bazaar can expand its outlets to other states. At present, they have discovered interests
from Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. The initiation is on the anvil.

Development in suburbs-
People are now moving in the suburbs; infrastructure is developing due to which there is huge
potential to attract more customers.

Retailing boom:
Retailing today is not only about selling at the shop, but also about surveying the market,
offering choice and experience to consumers, competitive prices and retaining consumers as
well. The establishment of supermarkets and convenience stores has been a great effort to
communicate the advantages of organized retailing to customers.

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Threats:

Malls-
There are a large number of malls that offer discounts the discounts offered by them are as good
as those offered by Apna Bazaar because the malls purchase in bulk and can hence afford to give
heavy discounts to the customers. The customer has an explosion of choices and will prefer
shopping at these big malls because of the ambience. They get the complete shopping experience
at malls. Hence, malls are a major threat for Apna Bazaar.

Competition from other stores in terms of-

Customer Centric Approach:

Most other stores take feedback from the customers in form of grievances, opinions and
suggestions. They can find out customer needs and ways to satisfy them.

Image:
Image of a private retailer is more modern and advanced compared to that of Apna Bazaar. The
display is also more attractive in other super markets and hypermarkets compared to Apna
Bazaar.

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Recommendations:

Government interference has had a major effect on the democratic setup of Apna Bazaar.
Therefore, lesser dependence on government should be opted for.

Government should help stores like Apna Bazaar with credit at cheaper interest rates.

Apna Bazaar should improve their capital assets by enrolling more members and also
introduce more product varieties.

In the coming years, the economy will be dominated by the retailing sector. Times are
changing, organizations are changing. Changing according to times is inevitable. Apna
Bazaar has to change its traditional viewpoints. It should adopt new techniques and accept
change wholeheartedly. Bringing qualitative changes in their skill and especially mindset will
help it to survive competition.

Apna Bazaar can open one outlet offering all the products it sells in the 80 outlets so that
people get all products offered by Apna Bazaar under one roof.

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