A MARKETING MANAGEMENT PROJECT ON

PREPARED BY: - GROUP A-5 Batch:- 2011-13 Name Nikita Bali Sunny Bhuva Chandan Pahelwani Himani Parihar Sonia Dadlani Roll no. 11004 11010 11047 11049 10022

SUBMITTED TO:Dr. Bhavesh Vanpariya Tolani Institute of Management Studies, Adipur

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DECLARATION We Group: A-5 hereby declare that this project is the result of our personal learning outcomes from the subject Marketing Management. The analysis and data presented in the project is in accordance with the subject Marketing Management.

The source of information collected is given in the references part at the end of the project. We have not copied the project from any of the internet source. This project is from our personal findings on the company Future Group.

We are also grateful to Dr. Bhavesh Vanpariya for assisting and guiding us throughout the project.

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Sr no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Title INTRODUCTION OF COMPANY PRODUCT PORTFOLIO COMPANY ORIENTATION TOWARDS MARKET PLACE ANALYZING THE MACROENVIRONMENT CUSTOMER PERCEIVED VALUE ANALYZING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR BASES FOR MARKET SEGMENTATION

Page no. 4 10 11 16 19 22 24

FIVE PATTERNS OF TARGET MARKET SELECTION

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

BRAND ELEMENTS PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE PRODUCT STRATEGIES PRICING STRATEGIES DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIES PROMOTION MIX PACKAGING AND LABELING VIDEO ADVERTISEMENTS OF FUTURE GROUP REFERENCES

30 34 40 52 54 56 57 59 60

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INTRODUCTION OF COMPANY
Future Group is Indias largest retailer and one of the leading business houses with a strong presence in retail. Its founder and Group CEO is Mr. Kishore Biyani. Future Group India was established in 1994 with a vision to provide diverse services in Indian and Global markets. The business areas of Future Group cover BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), New Media, Security Management, and Construction. Through their strategic investment and services, the future of Future Group shows a rising star in the business sky of India.

Led by its flagship enterprise, Pantaloon Retail, the group operates over 16 million square feet of retail space in 73 cities and towns and 65 rural locations across India. Headquartered in Mumbai (Bombay), Pantaloon Retail employs around 30,000 people and is listed on the Indian stock exchanges. The company follows a multi-format retail strategy that captures almost the entire consumption basket of Indian customers. In the lifestyle segment, the group operates Pantaloons, a fashion retail chain and Central, a chain of seamless malls. In the value segment, its marquee brand, Big Bazaar is a hypermarket format that combines the look, touch and feel of Indian bazaars with the choice and convenience of modern retail.

Lines of Business The company is present across several lines of business which have various formats (stores) operational under it. These include:

Food - Food Bazaar, Chamosa, Spoon, Brew Bar, Sports Bar & Sports Bar Express, Cafe Bollywood.

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Fashion - Pantaloons, Central, aLL, Brand Factory, Blue Sky, Top 10, Fashion Station, Big Bazaar, Lee Cooper (JV), General Merchandise - Big Bazaar, Shoe Factory, Navras, Electronics Bazaar, Furniture Bazaar, KB'S FAIR PRICE Home & Electronics - Home Town, eZone, Collection i E-tailing (Online Shopping) - www.futurebazaar.com Books & Music - Depot Leisure & Entertainment - Bowling Co., F123 Wellness - Star & Sitara, Tulsi Telecom & IT - Gen M, M Bazaar, M-Port, ConvergeM

FUTURE RETAIL: The retails businesses of Future Group in India are divided into three main categories: Retail forms the core business activity at Future Group and most of its businesses in the consumption space are built around retail. Future Groups retail network touches the lives of more than 200 million Indians in 73 cities and 65 rural locations across the country. The group currently operates around 1,000 stores spread over 16 million square feet of retail space. Present in the value and lifestyle segments, the groups retail formats cater to almost the entire consumption expenditure of a wide cross-section of Indian consumers.

Pantaloon Retail India Limited The leading retail formats under this include:

Pantaloons Stores -lifestyle segments and fashion segment. Big Bazaar - a uniquely Indian hypermarket chain Page 5

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Central - a chain of seamless destination malls Food Bazaar - a supermarket chain that blends the look, touch and feel of Indian bazaars with aspects of modern retail like choice, convenience and quality Home Town - , a large-format home solutions store E Zone - consumer electronics Depot - consumer electronics Health & Beauty Malls Online retail through futurebazaar.com Aadhaar- Indias leading rural retailing chain, that is present in over 65 locations in rural India. Aadhaar, an agri-service cum rural retail initiative, provides a complete solution provider for the Indian farmer. Furniture Bazaar - specialized formats for home furniture and home furnishing Ethnicity - India's first concept store, which recreates the experience of a traditional ethnic market in a modern retail format,

Joint Ventures with International Brands

Indus League Clothing that owns leading apparel brands like Indigo Nation, Scullers and Urban Yoga Galaxy Entertainment Limited that operates Bowling Co, Sports Bar, F123 and Brew Bar French retailer ETAM group, US-based stationary products retailer, Staples and UK-based Lee Cooper. Franchisee of international brands like Marks & Spencer, Next, Debenhams and Guess in India.

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Indian Joint Venture Partners

Manipal Healthcare Talwalkar's Blue Foods Liberty Shoes.

FUTURE CAPITAL HOLDINGS The financial services of Future Group are taken care by Future Capital Holdings. These include:

Asset Management and consumer credit are the prime focus financial services. Around 1 billion USD have been invested in retail real estate and consumer brands outlets and hotels. Future Money - It is a financial supermarket format providing consumer credit Joint venture with Italian insurance major General Insurance for providing general insurance services. Venture Capital Funds and Private Equity Funds through kshitijfund.com Capital Holdings, the groups financial arm provides investment advisory to assets worth over $1 Billion that are being invested in consumer brands and companies, real estate, hotels and logistics. It also operates a consumer finance arm with branches in 150 locations.

BPO (BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING) Future Group has made major investments in BPO industry as a venture into the Information Technology Enabled services (ITES) industry. Future Group has subsidiaries offering IT based solutions. These include:

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Language Services Software Development Content Engineering

NEW MEDIA Future Group has invested in digital media and computer technology for creating innovative and interactive multimedia presentations. These include:

Multimedia Production Broadcasting Publishing Designing

SECURITY MANAGEMENT Future Group is considered as a reliable tailor-made business and security services provider. They develop their own software and machines for security services. These include:

Access Control Systems Time Attendance Systems CCTV Alarm Management Systems

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CONSTRUCTION Future Group brings to you their past experience in quality construction for building and renovating buildings for leasing to business. Future Group is also involved in the designing, financing and legal considerations of the project undertaken. The construction activities of Future Group in India include:

Leasing Landscaping

SUPPLY CHAIN Future Supply Chain Solutions Limited (FSCS), a specialized subsidiary, offers strategic, focused and consolidated approach to meet the groups large supply chain requirements as well as those of select supply and business partners. The Future Supply Chain Solutions team currently oversees the operations of an existing fleet of over 600 dedicated trucks, contracted from established regional and national transport carriers, most of which are now equipped with GPS sets. In addition it provides integrated end-to-end SCM, warehousing and distribution, multi-modal transportation and container freight station. The total consolidated warehouse space that the company intends to have operational by 2010-11 is nearly 7.50 million square feet.

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PRODUCT PORTFOLIO OF FUTURE GROUP As mentioned in the introduction of the company, Future Groups core business activity is retail, along with BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), New Media, Security Management, and Construction. So here below are the logos of their various brands. Please see the IMPORTANT NOTE given below the brand images.

IMPORTANT NOTE:- From the various brands of the company we have mainly focused on BIG BAZAAR in relating the marketing management concepts.

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COMPANY ORIENTATION TOWARDS MARKET PLACE There are mainly five concepts related to company orientation towards market place which are: 1. The Production concept 2. The Product concept 3. The Selling concept 4. The Marketing concept 5. The Holistic marketing concept The concept which applies to Big Bazaar is The Selling concept. The concept says that the consumer if left alone will not buy enough. This is true and Big Bazaar applies this concept by displaying all the product of different brand and its private brand on the shelves.so that the customer have a huge variety of products and can select the best out of it and some schemes are also available which attracts the customer to buy more and even purchase other product. Their need to be aggressive communication with the customer. There is sales person at the counter which helps the customer in finding out the best product for himself. Sometimes the customer might be in confusion whether to buy a product or not, at that time the salesperson tell them about the product and its requirement in their lives. After communicating all this about the product the customer then finally makes a decision of making a purchase. So aggressive communication is required with the customer. This concept also says that their needs to be aggressive marketing of the product so that buyer make a purchase. The main purpose of this concept is to sell more and earn more.

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 This concept overall means that sell what you want to instead of what the customer want to buy. Another concept which relates to Big Bazaar is The Marketing concept. The concept says that Create the best and deliver the best and Big Bazaar does the same through their SACH brand. They try to create the best by the name of Sachin Tendulkar and deliver the quality product.

Next concept comes the HOLISTIC MARKETING which means Everything matters in this market

Integrated Marketing

Relationship Marketing

Holistic Marketing

Internal Marketing

Performance Marketing

It is an approach to recognize the scope of Marketing Activities. These are the four major themes on which any companies' overall position can be judged.

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 This concept helps companies to have a complete approach towards their requirement. The integrated marketing includes all the following:

Product

Promotion

Integrated

Price

Place

The integrated marketing includes the four Ps i.e. Product, price, Place and Promotion. Big Bazaar takes due care of its product quality, it provide the product lower than its cost to the customer, Big Bazaar is set up at such a place which is convenient for the customer and for the business and it does promotion through different media i.e. television, print etc.

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 Performance marketing :-

Sales Revenue

Ethics

Performance

Legal

Environment

Performance includes sales revenue of Big Bazaar, Legal that is the legal aspects of the business, ethics which they follow and environment of the business.

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 Relationship marketing :-

Customers

Partners

Relationship

Employees

Channel

Relationship:- which includes maintaining relationship with the customers, employees, partners and the channel. Internal marketing :-

Internal

Marketing Department

Senior Management

Other Departments

Internal :- which means one department share profit with other departmental of same organisation is called profit internal sharing.

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ANALYZING THE MACROENVIRONMENT NEEDS and TRENDS Successful companies recognize and respond profitably to needs and trends which could not be carried out earlier. Enterprising individuals and companies manage to create new solutions to unmet needs. Similarly, Big Bazaar identified the need for cheap and discounted products. They started the operation with the tag line Is se sasta aur accha kahin nahin by providing best products at best price. We distinguish among fads, trends and megatrends. A fad is unpredictable, short-lived, and without social, economic, and political significance. A company can cash in on a fad, but this is more a matter of luck and good timing than anything else. E.g. Beanie Babies. A trend is a direction or sequence of events that has some momentum and durability. Trends are more predictable and durable than fads. A trend reveals the shape of the future and provides many opportunities. The percentage of people who value physical fitness and well-being has risen steadily over the years, especially in the under-30 group, the young women and upscale group. Mega trends have been described as large social, economic, political and technological changes that are slow to form, and once in place, they influence us for some time between seven and ten years, or longer.

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 From the above, study we would say that the concept of Mega Trends applies to Big Bazaar as people of India are not used to Big Bazaar (Retail Model). It takes time to adopt it. People are still buying the products from the open market in traditional way. Identifying the Major Forces Companies and their suppliers, marketing intermediaries, customers, competitors, publics all operate in a macro environment of forces and trends that shape opportunities and pose threats. These forces are not controllable but the company must monitor and respond timely to these forces. In the economic arena, companies and consumers are increasingly affected by global forces. The beginning of the new century brought a series of new challenge: the steep decline of the stock market, which affected savings, investment, and retirement funds; increasing unemployment; corporate scandals; and of course, the rise of terrorism. These dramatic events were accompanied by the continuation of other, already-existing longer-term trends that have profoundly influenced the global landscape. Within the rapidly changing global picture, the firm must monitor six major forces: demographic, economic, social-cultural, natural, technological, and political-legal. Technological: One of the most dramatic forces shaping peoples lives is technology. Technology has released such wonders as penicillin, open-heart surgery, and the birth-control pill.

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 Big Bazaar planning and design used advance technologies like scenarioplanning and story-telling. These techniques were mainly used for storedesign layout, store-location selection. The strategy to use user-focused, prototype-based development tool made the brand adapt to the fastchanging external environment. Social Cultural: Society shapes our beliefs, values, and norms. People absorb, almost unconsciously, a worldview that defines their relationship to themselves, to others, to organizations, to society, to nature, and to the universe. Similarly, Big Bazaar launched a campaign Des Badla Ab Vesh Badlo (nation is changing, so change the way you dress), Sone ki Chidiya two years ago. It also follows consumer segmentation according to socialcultural factors. It also promotes environment friendly carry bags with easy to dispose. It also undertakes various activities for the welfare of the society popularly known as corporate social responsibility. Political-Legal: Marketing decisions are strongly affected by developments in the political and legal environment. This environment is composed of laws, government agencies, and pressure groups that influence and limit various organizations and individuals. Sometimes these lows are creating new opportunities for business. Big bazaar is following various laws like labour law and consumer law. It also regulates various safety measures in the store. Big bazaar is also following various government policies, tax policies with regularly paying tax and filling return.

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CUSTOMER PERCEIVED VALUE

Consumers are more educated and informed than ever, and they have the tools to verify companies claims and seek out superior alternatives. How then do customers ultimately make choices ? they tend to be value maximizers, within the bounds of search costs and limited knowledge, mobility and incomes. Customers estimate which offer will deliver the most perceived value and act on it. Whether the offer lives up to the expectations affects customer satisfaction and the probability that the customer will purchase the products again. Customer-perceived value is the difference between the prospective customers evaluation of all the benefits and all the costs of an offering and the perceived alternatives. Total customer benefits is the perceived monetary value of the bundle of economic, functional and psychological benefits customers expect form a given market offering because of the products, services, personnel and image involved. Total customer cost is the perceived bundle of costs customers expect to incur in evaluating, obtaining, using and disposing of the given market offering, including monetary, time, energy and psychological costs.

CONSUMER INSIGHT AND PERCEPTION

Big Bazaar is based on 3-C theory of Kishore Biyani. The three C symbolize Change, Confidence and Consumption and according to this theory change

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and confidence is leading to rise in consumption. They divided Indian customers in three categories:-

India One

Consuming class, constitute only 14% of Indian Population They are upper middle class and most of customers have substantial disposable income Initial focus of Big Bazaar

India Two Serving Class which includes people like drivers, household helps, office peons, washer man etc. For every India One, there are at least India two and have around 55% of Indian population. India Three

Struggling class, remaining population of India. Cannot afford to inspire for better living, have hand-to-mouth existence. Needs cannot be addressed by current business models

The potential customers of Big Bazaar are India One and India Two. The customer insights were developed by close observation of the target set. The insights that came out were:

The clean and shiny environment of modern retail stores creates the perception that such store are too expensive and exclusive, and are not meant for India two.

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India two find moves and find a lot of comfort in crowds, they are not individualistic. They prefer to be in queues. Indian-ness is not about swadeshi, its about believing in Indian ways of doing things. Indian customers prefer to purchase grains, grams etc. after touching them, so its better not to sell in polythene packs. Big Bazaar has counters where you can touch wheat, rice, sugar etc. before purchasing. Advertisements about schemes and offers through local newspapers, radio in local languages inspires customer more than the traditional ways. The guards, salesman at the Big Bazaar outlets should not look smarter than customer, so they prefer not to have tie etc. in their uniform. Hypermarkets in India should be situated in city unlike western countries where they are located away from city. Purchased Bags/goods should be sealed at checkout as customer can enter and exit multiple times. For Indians, shopping is an entertainment; they come in groups, with families so Big Bazaar should offer something to every section of family. That also led separate section for clothes, vegetables, food etc. i.e. Multiple clusters within a bazaar. Developed a diversity tracing.

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ANALYZING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR Consumer behavior is the study of how individuals, groups and

organizations select, buy, use, and dispose of goods, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy their needs and wants. A consumers buying behavior is influenced by cultural, social, and personal factors. Cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influence. Factors affecting consumer behaviour : Cultural factors : Culture, subculture and social class are particularly important influences on consumer buying behaviour. In the case of big bazaar, the frequency of visits by the customer and the kind of products they buy influence their buying behaviour pattern. The cultural values of the customer also influence their visit to buy the required products at the big bazaar. Social factors : Social factors such as reference groups, family and social roles, statuses affect our buying behaviour. Reference groups involve family, friends and neighbours. Customers of big bazaar might influence others persons of their reference groups to buy products from big bazaar. Social status of the people influences their buying behaviour. For example, high class people go to big bazaar for shopping. Personal factors : Age and stage in the life cycle are the personal factors which influence customer buying behaviour.

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Children will buy different products from big bazaar according to their choice and middle-aged persons and old-aged persons buy different products.

So the products for all the groups of the family are available at big bazaar, this influence their buying behaviour. Lifestyles of the people also influence buying behaviour. Some people are uneasy to go to the small kiryana shop for their shopping. Buying Behaviour process :-

Total set Big Bazaar V-mart Reliance super Star Bazaar Local department al store

Awareness set Big Bazaar V-mart Reliance Super Star Bazaar

Consideration set Big Bazaar Reliance Super V-mart

Choice set Big Bazaar Reliance Super Decision BIG BAZAAR

The above chart shows the buying behaviour process of the customers. From the total set of Big bazaar, V-mart, Star bazaar, Reliance super and a local departmental store. The customers are aware about Big bazaar, Reliance super, V-mart and Star bazaar. To buy their required products and for shopping they consider Big bazaar, Reliance super and V-mart. Finally customers have a choice to make either to visit Big bazaar or Reliance super. At last consumers take the decision to visit Big Bazaar for the shopping.

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BASES FOR MARKET SEGMENTATION 1. GEOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION:- In this segmentation company calls for division to the market into different geographical units such as nation, state, regions, countries, cities, or neighborhoods. As we are taking one product of our company future group we are going to discuss various segmentations on big bazaar. I. City:- big bazaar is situated in different city like it is in Ahmedabad, Vapi, Vadodara, Rajkot, Surat, Nashik, Nasik, Bharuch, Bhopal, Hyderabad. It is most of situated in metro city where the population is more. II. Rural areas and Urban area:- future group has segmented its retail into two area rural and urban area for rural area they made aadhaar retail by this they targeted that market also those people who all are living over there.

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Rural area

Now in urban area big bazaar is there so that people can get all things in one place by saving their precious time and by giving attractive discount on so much durable and non-durable goods plus they are offering service also. These two segmentations are related with future group so that they can target mass of people easily.

2. DEMOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION:- Big bazaar has done full segmentation on demographic bases they are as follows: Age Family size Gender Income Occupation

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 EXPLANATION: Age:Big bazzar has targeted there customer age wise for kids like they have different section for kids toys, shoes, garments etc. For teenagers they have different section they have caf shops in big bazzar malls so they that can refresh them self by doing shopping. For house wife they give different discount or they have different type days like sabse sastein 4 din or 5 din maha bachat. In this way they segmented it age wise. Family size:- big bazaar also consider family size in its segmentation they provide all quantity of product there were 10 kgs bags are also available and 5 kgs 1kgs bags are also available so that neutral family can also fulfill their need and joint family people will also satisfied there need and if customer want more quantity then they also give different discount our they give buy one get one free offer to them. Gender:- big bazaar fulfill the need of both gender they get things whatever they need whether they are male or female they had also celebrate some special days for male and female that is sabse chikna kaun campaign, detergent mela, india beverage league, dal chawl mela etc.

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 Income:- big bazaar target higher, middle and lower class people so that all kind of people come in there segmentation in India higher class people are less then lower class people so for them big bazaar brings some days so that mass of people get attracted and buy many things from there retail shop. Like sabse sastein 3 din, 5 din maha bachat.

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 Occupation:- big bazaar specifically targets working women and home makers who are the primary decision makers. The large and growing young working population is a preferred customer segment. So that they get convenience goods for them easily and at one place. 3. Psychographic: Lifestyle:- big bazaar enrich the life style of the people they can fulfill needs of whole life in less price by getting different discounts doing shopping in mall. 4. Behavioral:nd skims for them and they fell their status has also been increase by

Occasions User status EXPLANATION: Occasions:- big bazaar celebrates days and give special offer for the customer like on every last week of the year the clear there stock or they give special winter or summer offer for their customer to buy more and spend less. User status:- there were some user status who came to big bazaar for first time and there were some people who go many time big bazaar. Like they go every weekend or some go in one month.

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FIVE PATTERNS OF TARGET MARKET SELECTION Single segment concentration Selective specialization Product specialization Market specialization Full market coverage

In big bazaar there prevails full market coverage and market specialization. They cover full market by income, age, gender, family size.

Full Market Coverage:M1 Age Gender Income M2 M3

Market Specialization:M1 Retail M2 M3

In market specialization big bazaar has their market specialization in retail.

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BRAND ELEMENTS

Meaning of Brand: A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or design or combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors. A brand is a product which has earned a place in consumers life through perception, experience and beliefs .It is the sum of how consumers feel about a product. Brand Elements: Brand elements are those trademark devices that identify and

differentiate the brand. Brand elements are mainly brand name, slogan, character, symbols, URL, person and logos. Our company FUTURE GROUP consists of the following brand elements which differentiate it from others. 1. Brand Slogan: India Tomorrow and Udna hai aj, abhi of Future Group and Is se sasta aur accha kahin nahi!, of Big bazaar. 2. Character: Future group, Big Bazaar

3. Logo: Bird Tolani Institute of Management Studies, Adipur Page 30

4. Person: Cricketer M.S Dhoni and Bollywood actress Asin for Fashion at big bazaar.

There are some private brands of future group which includes FUTURE GROUPs tie up with Sachin Tendulkar for the brand SACH and some of its private brands. Future Group has successfully launched a series of private brands ranging in foods with Tasty Treat, Home and personal care range with Clean mate & Care mate, staples with Fresh & Pure and Premium Harvest, and Sach is a big leap for the company in the direction building its private brands portfolio through its association with an iconic figure like Sachin Tendulkar, will be setting the tone based on Sachins values and mass appeal.

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 Future Group private brands have always launched their products keeping Indianness in mind through consumer insights. Launch of Tasty Treat soups with a mug and Tasty Treat Cornflakes with a bowl are some of the success stories in past . Past one year has seen aggressive roll-outs from private brands with products like Sach toothbrush, Clean mate Diapers, Tasty Treat noodles and soups with both classic and Chinese range, Fresh and pure Desi ghee which has helped in giving consumer quality products at great value. Future group also have tie up with other companies which are as follows:

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PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE A companys positioning and differentiation stratergy must change as the product, market and competitors change over the Product life cycle (PLC). Prodcut life cycle is made up of four things: 1) Products have a limited life. 2) Product sales pass through distinct stages, each posing different challenges, opportunities and problems to the seller. 3) Profit rise and fall at different stages of the product life cycle. 4) Products require different marketing, financing, manufacturing, purchasing and human resource stratergies in each life-cycle stage.

The life of a product passess through four different stages mainly:-

1. INTRODUCTION STAGE: The seller tries to stimulate demand regarding his product. He makes promotion campaigns to increase public awareness regarding his product. He tries to explain the consumers how the product is to be used and also explains the product features, advantages and benefits (FAB). The seller at this stage might lose money, but can expect to make profits in the future. As the product is just introduced in the market there are chances that it might be a failure or a winner. Sales are low and profits are below the line because the costs incurred by the seller on the product at this stage are greater than the amount of money he makes after selling the product.

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 The seller might have negative profit i.e loss. Mainly the product at this stage faces more of loss then earning profit for as the product is just introduced and people are unaware regarding the product. Need to spend a lot of money on promotion. For the product which is just introduced in the market it is impossible to compete which the similar type of product, so it is important to make people aware of the product by promoting it through different mediums and heavy expenditure is incurred on promotion at this stage. Limited Product Model the product or skimming pricing which means high price of the product at its introduction stage.

At this stage their might be penetration pricing which means low price of

2. GROWTH STAGE:-

Next comes the growth stage wherein the cosumers are aware of the product, its usage, benefit, features etc. At the growth stage the seller tries to sell a lot and he tries to sell as much as he can to cover up his loss incurred at the introduction stage . As the product is well known by the consumer other competitor companies watch it and tries to introduce a competitor product. E.g. Mens Cosmetic. When the company firstly introduce the Mens Cosmetic cream many people were not aware of it but slowly and gradually as people became aware another company launched the competitor product of it to capture the market. Growth of a product continues until too many competitors are in the market - and the market is saturated.

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 At the end of the growth stage, profits start to decline because when competition arises seller spends more money on promotion to keep sales going. Spending money on promotion cuts into your profit. As a competitor product comes in the market its important to keep our product sales go and for that promotion of it becomes important which ultimately cuts our profit. Large company may acquire small pioneering firms. Gaining wide distribution is a key goal.At this stag it is important that our product is available at every place, so that our consumer dont find any difficulty in getting it. At this stage the product achieves sales volume which createseconomies of scale.

3. MATURITY SATGE: When a product achieves the growth which includes increase profit and sales the next stage from which it passes through is the MATURITY STAGE. At this stage there are many competitors who have joined and the market is saturated. The only way to sell the product is to lower the price and so the profits decrease. It is difficult to tell the difference in our product since most of the competitor product has the same F.A.B. - Features, Advantages & Benefits. At this stage competition can get Horrible and commercials are intense. That is to say, we have commercials almost begging the customer to still buy your product because you still make it just as good. An emphasis on product style rather than function. The marketplace is approaching saturation.

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4. DECLINE STAGE: Newer products are now more attractive - even a low-low price does not make consumers want to buy. Profit margin declines - and so the only way to make money is to sell a high volume. The rate of decline is governed by: How rapidly consumer testes change or How rapidly substitute product are adopted Increase the number of customers - get new customers Increase the amount each customer uses

To increase volume you try to

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 The above is the chart showing the four stages of product life cycle. Big Bazaar comes under the RETAIL head of Future Group and it is at the maturity stage. The following points can be considered:1. Big Bazaar keeps many offers to attract its potential customer like Buy one, get one free, Best deals and sabse saste 3 din.

2. It does more of promotional campaigning through print media, television media to get it customer aware regarding the offers available by them. It also does promotion through celebrities like Dhoni and Asin for the fashion at big bazaar which help them to increase their sales and the other points are explained above.

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3. Theres an increased competition of big bazaar with its competitors. 4. Big bazaar after coming at this stage want to stabilize it profit without making any losses.

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PRODUCT STRATEGIES

Product Levels: customer value Hierarchy Product is not only an offering but it is something beyond that. Is is something which can satisfy the wants and need, which includes special services or goods, events, persons, etc. Product Levels are categorized in five levels which any marketer has to follow which adds more value to customers and these five create customer value hierarchy.

Augmented Product

Expected Product

Basic Product

Core Benefit

These four are the first four levels of customer value hierarchy. Core Benefit is what actually a customer wants. It is also known as fundamental level. Marketers have to see themselves as benefit providers and thus this first step is called core benefit. Tolani Institute of Management Studies, Adipur Page 40

 Basic Product is the job of marketer to convert core benefit into basic requirement. Providing any service or product with more facility is the role of basic product. The third level is Expected Product. Wherein marketer is serving the product with those particular conditions & expectations which customer have when they buy any product. At the fourth level stands Augmented Product. It is that level where it exceeds all the expectations of the customers. On this level tough competition starts and the main focus of marketers is to survive in this competition and give their product a position in the market. The fifth level is Potential Product. This stage is where a product exceeds even augmentation. It transforms the product in the future in such a way that customer had never expected or even thought of it. Potential Product is a stage where companies have to continuously find something new for the customers to be served so as to satisfy them. In the above mentioned chart we have not shown potential product as still many companies are trying to reach this level. Future Groups Big Bazaar is on the fourth level. Let us see in more detail:-

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Exceeding the expectations

Discounts & Allownaces

Serving them more widely

Providing Daily Needs

Here we can see that the first level core benefit of Big Bazaar is to provide daily needs of the people at one place. As we know that Big Bazaar is very wide and has all products like food items, perishable products, clothing, apparels etc. Second is Basic Product wherein Big Bazaar tries to serve all these with wide range of options to choose. For e.g. If a customer wants to buy a shampoo, in Big Bazaar they will have lots of choices of all the brands like Head & Shoulders, Pantene, Dove etc Customer here gets wide range of any product what they want to buy. The third is Expected Product. Here the customer expects discounts, allowances, additional benefits as they think that this is such a big place wherein all the products are available, so some discounts can be offered to them. For e.g. If a customer purchases many items of his home needs

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and personal needs, then they will expect to get some discounts and off on some products. Fourth is Augmented Product. Here Big Bazaar is on the level of serving the Augmented Product. As we know something which exceeds customer expectations that is known as Augmented Product. Here Big Bazaar give the facility of home delivery to the customers at their convenient time at their home. This is something which customers of Big Bazaar had never expected. And they are very well satisfied with this service provided to them. And now Potential Product, which is not shown in that diagram because still Big Bazaar has not yet reached that level of exceeding the Augmented service provided by them to their customers. In future they can undergo some more transformations of their products and services and then it can reach the fifth level. There many companies including Big Bazaar who are trying to find something new for the customers. Potential Product is something very different from what they provide. Companies are still between Expected & Augmented product level. As any company including Big Bazaar reaches the Augmented Level that is very soon accepted by the customers and they start expecting to get this service for the lifetime and thus this augmented product turned into expected product. Thus again they have to search for new Augmented product to be served to the customers which exceed their expectation. On this level continuous competitions is to be faced by the marketers to sell their product and maintain their position in the market. Also they have to maintain trust and expectations of their customers. They cannot afford to lose their customers on this level. Tolani Institute of Management Studies, Adipur Page 43

 Product Classifications Marketers have classified the product into different categories:-

Product
Consumer or Industrial

Durability

Tangibility

As we can see in the above diagram that products are classified in three categories that is Durability, Tangibility and Consumer or Industrial. All these have an appropriate marketing strategy.

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Durability

Tangibility

Durable

Nondurable

Service

Nondurable Goods: These are tangible goods and are consumed in one or few uses, for e.g. Soft Drinks, Juices, Soaps, Shampoos, Milk etc These goods are purchased more frequently and therefore marketers decide to make them available in lots of quantity and with lots of options available to customers. This helps customers to choose from wide range available. Durable:- These also are tangible and survive for many uses. Like Refrigerator, tools, clothing etc Services :- These are intangible. Big Bazaar provides all the kind of products durable and non durable. Food items, perishable products, clothing, apparel etc Then use of goods that is consumer or industrial. Big Bazaar provides goods which are Consumer goods. Convenience goods are purchased more frequently by customers as it takes minimum effort to buy. Also it provides shopping goods which customers buy after comparing the price, quality, style. Then comes unsought goods which customer knows about but they dont think much of buying those kind of goods. For e.g. Life Insurance.

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 Product Mix A product system is a group of different but related items that function in a compatible manner. Under this product system there is product mix. A Product Mix is set of all the product and items a particular seller offers to sell. It is also called Product Assortment. A companys product mix has certain length, width & depth of its products.

Product Mix

Length

Width

Depth

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 Firstly let us see what is length, width and depth of the product with an example. Here we will take the example of Future Group.

Retail

Partnership

Width of Future Group

Finance

Services

As we can see in the above diagram that there are four things in width of future group.

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 Now let us see Length of each: Length of Retail:

Lifestyle

Value
Digital
Lifestyle includes Brand Factory, Central, Home Town, Planet Sports, Pantaloons fresh fashion. Value includes Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Fairprice. Digital includes Future Bazaar.com. This is online shopping facility provided to the customers to get more benefit.

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 Length of Finance:-

Finance
Future Future Future Capital Generali Venture. Holdings
Finance has different section that is Future capital holdings. In this capital is provided to small companies who require finance. Future Generali has two sectors General Insurance & Life Insurance. Future Venture has tie ups with many other brands to make it more popular and give customers a wide range to choose from. The most popular venture of Future Group was with Aadhar Retailing Limited. This was a venture for rural areas and to serve people of rural areas.

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 Length of Services:-

Logistics & supply

Learning & Development

Media

Brands

Telephony

Future Group has many learning programs for the people in tie up with IGNOU. It has also launched Indias first owned retail channel named Future Tv Also it has launched a magazine named My World. It has tie up with many Brands to widen the range and give people many options. It has tie up with Tata Docomo and is serving T24.

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 Length of Partnership:- This is different types covered of future group in which ways they carry over their partnerships.

Collaborations Assistnace Brand Building

Here they Collaborate with many service providers & other big names of products. They join hands to build the brand and widen the range of their product list.

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PRICING STRATEGIES PRICE MIX: Value pricing Psychological pricing Loss leader Explanation: Value pricing:value pricing means company wants to win loyal customers by changing a fairly low price for a high-quality offering. Same way big bazaar do the same thing big bazaar give lots of discount to attract the customer so that they can get good quality product in low price.

Psychological value:- psychological value pricing means that the seller use this to attract its customer by keeping less numerical value so that psychologically customer thing that there they are saving some amount then other place eg they are getting thing in 111,999,9999 or they use that by giving high and low price of the commodity and saying save Rs 2 or 3 there they are playing with the mind of the customer very easily.

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 Loss leader:- big bazaar is also applying loss leader value in loss leader the company is bearing loss of one product for selling the another product like big bazaar give so many time offer like buy one get one free and they are doing this because some time they have to clear there dead stock so that by not getting any price of the commodity at least they get something of the commodity or product.

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DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIES The producer and the nal customer are part of every channel. We will use the number of intermediary levels to designate the length of a channel. Figure illustrates several consumer-goods marketing channels of different lengths. A zero-level channel (also called a direct-marketing channel) consists of a manufacturer selling directly to the nal customer through Internet selling, door-to-door sales, home parties, mail order, telemarketing, TV selling, manufacturer-owned stores, and other methods. A one-level channel contains one selling intermediary, such as a retailer. A two-level channel contains two intermediaries; a three-level channel contains three intermediaries. From the producers point of view, obtaining information about end users and exercising control becomes more difficult as the number of channel levels increases. Big Bazaar is following one level distribution channel in which it performs role of retailer and purchase goods directly from producer and then sell it to the customer. Distribution channel is one of the reason why Big Bazaar is able to sell product at lower cost. The chart given below shows the following:-

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PROMOTION MIX Promotion Mix is a system wherein different types of methods are followed to promote a product and make it popular. Future Group also undertakes Promotion Mix for Big Bazaar. There is thin line difference between Advertisement and Promotion. Let us see each in detail: For Advertisement Big Bazaar choose Television Ads, pamphlets, FM radio in metro cities. They keep showing about new offers for the customers. Also with the help of Internet, Brochures & Direct Mail Big Bazaar try to attract their customers more and more. The second is Promotion of the product. It has to be decided how to promote the product in what ways and with different tools available. Big Bazaar choose to promote themselves by providing its customers discount coupons, Membership Cards, On time Home Delivery, cash refund offers, Price Packs, Gifts, Points redeem option to get more discount, Organizing different contest, Product warranties. All these are opted by Big Bazaar to promote themselves. Big Bazaar provides some or other scheme and offers for the customer every time one after other to attract the customers and maintain their value with them. Promotion Mix plays a very important role for any position in the market. companies

development. This helps to establish themselves and maintain their

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PACKAGING AND LABELING PACKAGING:-

Packaging is defined as all the activities of designing and producing the container for a product. Packages might include up to three levels of material. Like big bazaar have their packaging of their polybag which they give to their customer when they shop from there store and go home packaging is also a sign of remembrance or for promotion of the shopping centre name or product name. For some company they take packaging very seriously and they say that packaging is very crucial part of their product.

LABELING:The label may be a simple tag attached to the product or an elaborately designed graphic that is part of the package. It might carry only the brand name, or a great deal of information. Even if the seller prefers a simple label, the law may require more. As big bazaar has some of their brands name sach, treat etc. They also contains label on the back side which is shown in picture of sach toned milk label helps the customer to now that whether the product is healthy or not and what kind of ingredients it contain.

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REFERENCES Search engine :- WWW.GOOGLE.COM WEBSITES :- WWW.FUTUREGROUP.IN HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/FUTURE_GROUP

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