“A STUDY OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARD SERVICE

QUALITY IN RETAIL WITH REFERANCE TO RELIANCE

SMART”

SUMMER TRAINING PROJECT REPORT

SUBMITTED TOWARDS PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF
BACHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
(Affiliated to Chaudhary Charan Singh University Meerut)

Academic Session
[2016-2019]

Submitted By:
AKANKSHA DEEP
Roll No.:169359014

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF:

EXTERNAL SUPERVISOR INTERNAL SUPERVISOR

Mr. Devendar Shukla Dr Silpi Sarna
(Store Manager) (Assistant Professor)
(Reliance Retail Ltd.) IMSUC, Ghaziabad

INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT & STUDIES, GHAZIABAD

(UNIVERSITY COURSES CAMPUS)
NH-24, Adhyatmik Nagar, Ghaziabad
 PREFACE

It gives me great pleasure in presenting the project on “A STUDY OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

TOWARD SERVICE QUALITY IN RETAIL WITH REFERANCE TO RELIANCE SMART”. This
project is basically based on the Customer Satisfaction in from services provided by this organization.

My objective is to present weather customers are happy with the services provide in retail stores or not.
Another objective is to understand the factors effecting the customer decision making. How the factors like
Age, Marital Status, Level of Income and Occupation affects the buying behavior of a customer?

Finally all the research is cumulative. I have, as a trainee, tried to call out priorities interpret and finally put
down my analysis.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At the onset, I would like to express my heartiest thanks to Mr. Vijendra Tiwari (Head H.R) and
then to Mr. Devendra Shukla who gave me an opportunity to undertake a project at RELIANCE RETAIL
Ltd.

I am most obligated to my guide and my mentor Dr. Shilpi Sarna who provided must need
constructive criticism, unending inspiration, valuable and pain taking guidance, encouragement, untiring
and constant help, and above all his positive attitude towards my abilities made the achievement of this
goal, a challenging enjoyable, and rewarding and stimulation experiences.

Lastly I want to pay my hearted thanks to my friends and people who gave to me their valuable
suggestion and guidance in completing my project.

Akanksha Deep
Roll. No: 169359014
 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this Specialization Project is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and
belief, it reproduces no material previously published or written that has been accepted for the award of
any other degree of diploma, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text.

Akanksha Deep
Enrollment No: 169359014
Date:
 INDEX

S.No Topic Page.No

1. Executive Summery

2. Introduction

3. Company Profile

4. Literature Review

5. Research Methodology
1. Objective
2. Research Design
3. Data Collection
4. Sampling
6. Data Analysis
1. Data Interpretations
2. Finding
7. Summery & Conclusion
1. Conclusion
2. Recommendation
3. Limitation
8. Bibliography

9. Annexure

EXECUTIVE SUMMERY
Retail Sector is the most booming sector in the Indian economy and it is presently the largest
employer after agriculture. Some economists say that Retailing is one of the pillars of the economy in
India. Some of the biggest players of the world are going to enter into the industry soon. It is on the
threshold of a big revolution after the IT sector. Although organized retail market is not as strong as of
now, but it is expected to grow manifolds by the year 2025. Indian Retail Industry was valued to 427
b in 2010 and is expected to grow $ 637 b in 2015. The retail market is most fragmented in the world
and only 5% of the entire retailing business is in the organized sector. There are about 300 new malls
Consumers now want the Cheapest, biggest and the quickest products/services from their retailers.
The project depict the main drivers of the retail revolution and how this revolution changes the buying
behavior of the customer, increase in disposable income of the middle class, infrastructure
development and changing customer choice. Organized Retailing was introduced in the last decade
and has emerged as one of the sunrise industries in India. The survey intends to analyze the factors
influencing consumer behavior towards organized retailing, their source of purchasing and the factors
which influence their habit of purchasing from malls and high end retailing sections in Ghaziabad.
Research considered the RELIANCE SMART GHAZIABAD for studying the consumer expectations,
and what are the factors that influence to customer to walk-in, in RELIANCE SMART. As we are
now in the era of booming retailing, lot of organizations are entering into the retail market. My study
was done under the title of “A STUDY OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARD SERVICE
QUALITY IN RETAIL WITH REFERANCE TO RELIANCE SMART’

The present study has been undertaken with the prime objective to determine the factors influencing
customer’s buying behavior while purchasing food commodities from RELIANCE SMART. It also
focuses on finding out the current status of RELIANCE SMART and determines where it stands in
the current market. People mostly come to organized retail as they get quality products at affordable
prices at more discounts/ offer under one roof. It is also clearly known that an organized retail store
sells their goods at a discounted price as compared to the market. Even it provides good service and
ambience to its customers who encourage them to visit and shop more and more times. The project
involves main aspects namely industry profile, company profile, project topic overview, research
methodology and analysis part. In the methodology part, detailed discussion is made on objectives,
research design, data collection method and sampling design. Herein, the primary data have been
collected through structured questionnaires. Based on the analysis of the collected data, findings,
recommendations, limitations and conclusion have been derived. This market field survey is a sure
shot help in knowing the present customers tastes and preferences. And also to know what are the
factors which customers think before visiting RELIANCE SMART. It helped me in estimating the
customer’s future needs, wants & demands. (To improve customer walk-in at RELIANCE SMART).
It also gives an idea how company can enhance its business or increase its sales by working on these
things - provide better customer service than its competitors, increase the variety of merchandise with
deep assortment, arrangement of product in a proper way that creates good store image and provide
membership card to the customers. The study also reveals that consumers also want the company to
include more categories in the food section of the store, provide parking space and employ
knowledgeable sales staff. Suggestions/recommendation of this report will certainly help the company
to improve its performance and business.
INTRODUCTION
 INTRODUCTION TO CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Marketing is the art of creating, satisfying customers by meeting the needs of customers and by creating
value satisfaction for them. As Peter Ducker says “the essence of marketing is that the entire business has
to be seen from the point given of the customer”. However, customers face a vast array of product and
brand choices prices, supplies and to understand the needs and preferences of the customers it becomes
imperative for us to carry out research together information. We believe that customers estimate which
offer will deliver the most value to them and which will deliver and maximize value, within the bounds of
research costs and limited knowledge, mobility, and income they form an expectation of value and act on
it. Whether or not the offer lives up to the value expectation affects both purchase and repurchase
probability. The purpose of any Marketing research is to provide information at a specific time on
customer, trade, competition and the future brands, so as to enable marketers to formulate successful
strategies in their quest for customers mind share and market share. The research helps the marketers to
find out the attributes and variable that influence the customers behavior towards a given product offering
and it shapes the attitudes of the customers favorably towards a specific product, thus by analyzing these
undertones the researcher can find out the levels of customer satisfaction, and the results of the marketing
research can help the marketers to analyze the weak spots in their marketing strategies and can reformulate
their strategies so that they can satisfy their customers and maximize their brand loyalty and profitability.

One of the key challenges for Organizations is how they manage service quality, which holds a great
importance to customer satisfaction. Therefore the role of the service quality in the success of organized
retail businesses cannot be denied. It is vital for the retailer managers to have a good understanding on
what exactly the customer wants. Expectations are well known to service marketers as most definitions of
service quality revolve around “meeting or exceeding customer expectations”. Customers’ evaluation of
the service quality that they receive is conceptualized as being influenced by their prior expectations. This
section describes importance of service quality in those companies involved in organized retail,
relationship b/w customer satisfaction and behavioral intention.
RELIANCE Industries Limited is the largest private sector company in India. RELIANCE enjoys global
leadership in its businesses, being the largest polyester yarn and fiber producer in the world and among the
top five to ten producers in the world in major petrochemical products. Major Group Companies are
RELIANCE Industries Limited, including its subsidiaries and RELIANCE Industrial Infrastructure
Limited. Retail is India’s largest industry, accounting for over ten percent of the country’s GDP and around
eight percent of employment. Retailing in India is gradually inching its way to becoming the next boom
industry. The present study was done in Ghaziabad city and 150 respondents are taken to analyze the
customer satisfaction towards RELIANCE SMART. In the present study, the interaction was made with the
customers and filled the self-structured questionnaire from them. After that, reliable information was
collected and on the basis of that information data were analyzed with the help of statistical tools and
techniques i.e. frequency and percentages.

“Customer Satisfaction: Customer satisfaction means feeling of pleasure after using the product or
service.”

1. Customer satisfaction is a critical issue in the success of any business system, traditional or online. To
understand satisfaction we need to have a clear understanding of what is meant by customer satisfaction.
Customer satisfaction is critical for establishing long term client relationships. Relationship b/w Service
quality and satisfaction is the key to measure user satisfaction.

2. Consumer Behavior: Behavioral intention refers to “instruction that people give to themselves to behave
in certain way”. Repurchase intentions, word of mouth publicity, and loyalty complaining behavior is
major components of behavioral intention. Behavioral intensions as a positive experience would prompt a
satisfied consumer to revisit a store.

3. Service Quality: Service quality is a concept that has aroused considerable interest and debate in the
research literature because of the difficulties in both defining it and measuring it. Service quality defines as
the extent to which a service meets customer needs or expectation. Service quality can be defined as the
difference b/w customer expectations of service and perceived service. If the expectation is greater than
performance than perceived quality is less than satisfactory and hence customer dissatisfaction occurs.
RELIANCE
 INTRODUCTION TO RETAIL

The word „retail‟ means to sell or be sold directly to individuals. Retail is India’s largest industry, and
arguably the one with the most impact on the population. It is the country’s largest source of employment
after agriculture, has the deepest penetration to rural India, and contributes 8% to total employment,
generates 20% percent of India’s GDP (Rajesh Tambala, 2013)
India has some 13 million retail outlets, but many of these act merely as subsistence providers for their
owners and survive on a cost structure where labor and land is assumed to be free and taxes nil. Compare
this with the global retail industry, which is one of the world’s largest organized employers, is at the cutting
edge of technology, and which leverages scale and scope to offer value-added services to its customers.
However, only recently has there been an awakening in this sector, with more organized retailers starting to
make an impact. The liberalization of the consumer goods industry, initiated in the mid-80s and accelerated
through the 90s has begun to impact the structure and conduct of the retail industry. Backed by changing
consumer trends and metrics, liberalization in mindsets driven by media, new opportunities and increasing
wealth, retailing in India, presents a vast opportunity for a variety of businesses - real estate, store design &
operations, visual merchandising logistics and communications, B2C service providers, and FMCG
companies who can add to their offers by partnering this revolution. The Indian Retailing Industry stands
poised to take off into the 21st century. It is one of the fastest growing sectors in the nation
That caters to the world's second largest consumer market. Retail boom is an abating. India has business
volume of $470 billion growing at 11 per cent a year. The middle class drives retailing anywhere in the
world and this segment should have reasonable income. The next driver is availability of variety of goods,
products and brands. The third one is “sense of awareness”.
During the last few years, the Indian retail market has seen considerable growth in the organized segment.
Major domestic players have entered the retail arena and have ambitious plans to expand in the future years
across verticals, formats, and cities. For example, companies like RELIANCE, Tata, Bharti, Adani
Enterprise, have been investing considerably in the booming Indian retail sector. Besides, a number of
transnational corporations have also set up retail chains in collaboration with big Indian companies.
However, going forward, the organized sector’s growth potential will increase due to globalization, high
economic growth, and changing lifestyle. Moreover, high consumer spending over the years by the young
population (more than 31% of the country is below 14 years) and sharp rise in disposable income are
driving the Indian organized retail sector’s growth. Even small towns and cities are witnessing a major
shift in consumer lifestyle and preferences, and have thus emerged as attractive markets for retailers to
expand their presence.

Retail in India

At present the Retail industry in India is accelerating. Though India is still not at an equal pace with other
Asian counterparts, Indian is geared to become a major player in the Retail Market. The fact that most of
the developed nations are saturated and the developing ones still not prepared, India secures a great
position in the international market. Also with a highly diverse demography, India provides immense scope
for companies bringing in different products targeting different consumers.
According to the Global Retail Development Index, India is positioned as the foremost destination for
Retail investment and business development. The factor that is presently playing a significant role here is
the fact that a large section of Indian population is in the age group of 20-34 with a considerably high
purchasing power; this has caused the increase in the demand in the urban market resulting in consistent
growth in the Retail business. And though the metros and other tier 1 cities continue to sustain Retail
growth, the buzz has now shifted from these great cities to lesser known ones. As the spending power is no
longer limited to metros, every tier 2
City in the country has good market for almost every product or service. Due to this, tier 2 cities like
Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Pune, Kolkatta, Ahmadabad, Baroda, Ghaziabad, Cochin, Nagpur, Indore,
Trivandrum etc. provide a good platform for a brand to enter Indian market. However there are a few
precautions for every brand that explores Indian market. As Indian consumers are very curious and have a
broad perspective, they respond well to a new product or concept and there are very fair chances of a brand
surviving well, but every Indian consumer be it an urbanite or a small town dweller needs a feeling of
value for money. Although labeled as tight fisted, Indian consumers are great spenders once they realize
that they are getting value for their money. Also new product /service concepts from the western world are
better adopted first by the urban Indians, the smaller markets respond well to the need based retailing
rather than luxury concepts. As the Indian retailing is getting more and more organized various retail
formats are emerging to capture the potential of the market.

 Mega Malls
  Multiplexes
 Large and small supermarkets
 Hypermarkets
 Departmental stores
Are a few formats which flourishing in the both big and small regional markets As the major cities have
made the present retail scenario pleasant, the future of the Indian Retailing industry lies in the rural
regions. Catering to these consumers will bring tremendous business to brands from every sector. However
as the market expands companies entering India will have to be more cautious with their strategic plans. To
tap into the psyche of consumers with different likes and dislikes and differing budgets a company has to
be well prepared and highly flexible with their product and services. In this regard focusing on developing
each market separately can save a brand from many troubles.
 SCOPE AND IMPORTANCE OF STUDY

1. Need of Study
From the days of industrial revolution when goods & services were produced to the present day, the
emphasis has shifted from the producers to the consumer and his needs, and with the consumer becoming
more involved, in the marketing process there is greater need for information regarding the consumer
needs. Preferences and making them satisfied of the products & services, has led to a constant but
increasing need to conduct marketing research. This research is an insight into the mind of the consumer,
with the help of which the organizations will become aware of their pitfalls and in turn can also make
improvements in the product regarding the level of satisfaction of the consumers towards their offerings in
the market place. The basic need of this project is to know the “Satisfaction” amongst the respondents,
with regard to RELIANCE SMART services and its products.

2. Scope of Study
The study is completely focused upon the objectives. The result obtained from the objectives will be
helpful to the organization in knowing the different opinions of the customers about the company’s
products and services. The study will also be helpful for the company to take steps for solving the issues
related with problems in the service offered. In addition, this will be useful in finding out the valid steps to
trigger the sales. Lastly, the study will also be a corner stone for improving ideas to bring up positive
results in customer satisfaction. The study was undertaken at the RELIANCE SMART by surveying the
visiting customers eliciting their opinions on various parameters affecting their satisfaction level.
COMPANY PROFILE
 COMPANY PROFILE

1. Founders

"Growth has no limit at RELIANCE. I keep revising my vision.

Only when you can dream it, you can do it."

Dhirubhai H. Ambani
Founder Chairman RELIANCE Group
{December 28, 1932 - July 6, 2002}

Dhirubhai Ambani founded RELIANCE as a textile company and led its evolution as a global leader in the materials and
energy value chain businesses. He is credited to have brought about the equity cult in India in the late seventies and is
regarded as an icon for enterprise in India. He epitomized the spirit 'dare to dream and learn to excel'. The RELIANCE
Group is a living testimony to his indomitable will, single-minded dedication and an unrelenting commitment to his goals.

The RELIANCE Group, founded by Dhirubhai H. Ambani (1932-2002), is India's largest private
sector enterprise, with businesses in the energy and materials value chain. Group's annual revenues are in
excess of US$ 30 billion. The flagship company, RELIANCE Industries Limited, is a Fortune Global 500
company and is the largest private sector company in India.
 Backward vertical integration has been the cornerstone of the evolution and growth of RELIANCE.
Starting with textiles in the late seventies, RELIANCE pursued a strategy of backward vertical integration
- in polyester, fibre intermediates, plastics, petrochemicals, petroleum refining and oil and gas exploration
and production - to be fully integrated along the materials and energy value chain.

RELIANCE enjoys global leadership in its businesses, being the largest polyester yarn and fibre
producer in the world and among the top five to ten producers in the world in major petrochemical
products. Major Group Companies are RELIANCE Industries Limited (including main subsidiaries
RELIANCE Petroleum Limited and RELIANCE Retail limited) and RELIANCE Industrial Infrastructure
Limited. RELIANCE Retail is a subsidiary of RELIANCE Industries Limited. It is the largest Private
sector conglomerate of India.

RELIANCE Retail is the retail business of RELIANCE Industries. There are many brand names
under this business such as RELIANCE I-Store, RELIANCE Home Kitchens, RELIANCE Time Out,
RELIANCE Digital, RELIANCE Wellness, RELIANCE Trendz etc.

RELIANCE was established as a textile concern in the year 1966 by Dhirubhai H. Ambani. This company
followed a diversification strategy since its inception. It vertically integrated. This resulted in formation of
many subsidiaries. RELIANCE Retail is one such subsidiary. RELIANCE Retail is a part of the
RELIANCE Industries Limited. RELIANCE industries are actually the largest conglomerate in India. It
has an annual turnover of US$35.9 Billion. It is also listed on 206th position in the Fortune Global 500
companies. The company started off as a small textile company around 30 years ago. And now it has
expanded vertically and horizontally to be India's Numero-uno.

RELIANCE Retail is actually the retail group of RELIANCE Industries Limited. It has a number of brands
like RELIANCE Time Out, RELIANCE Digital, and RELIANCE Wellness. Autozone, RELIANCE Super,
RELIANCE Mart, RELIANCE I-Store.

RELIANCE Group was established in 1970's. The RELIANCE Retail was found in the year 2006 as an
operating subsidiary. It has its head office in Mumbai
2. Retail scene in India

Retailing is one of the oldest businesses that human civilization has known. It acts as an interface between
the producer and consumer, improves the flow of goods and services and raises the efficiency of
distribution in an economy. For a strong, stable and consistently growing economy, a well organized and
efficient retail sector is a must. Most of the developed and even emerging economies had adopted the
organized retail long ago and percentage share of organized retail in total retailing has increased over the
years. However, India, traditionally a land of self sufficient villages, has continued to rely primarily on
small, close to home shops. It is only off-late with pick-up in pace of urbanization and rising disposable
incomes that the country started to take a few steps towards the organized retailing. A good progress has
been made in last few years, and the retail industry is off late being hailed as one of the sunrise sectors in
the economy.
With India emerging as an important economic power and per-capita income crossing the $1000 mark, the
country has come to be regarded as the „most attractive retail destination‟ globally. This has resulted in
many foreign companies eyeing India to continue their growth stories. Although the foreign direct
investment (FDI) in the sector has not been completely liberal, foreign firms have entered in partnership
with local companies and the retail industry is ready to take off.
Industry Structure:
In India the retail sector is the second largest employer after agriculture, although it is highly fragmented
and predominantly consists of small independent, owner – managed shops. Retail trade in the country has
burgeoned in the past decade, mainly on account of a gradual increase in the disposable incomes of the
middle and upper-middle class households. More and more corporate houses including large real estate
companies are coming into the retail business, directly or indirectly, in the form of mall and shopping
center builders and managers. New formats like super markets and large discount and department stores
have started influencing the traditional looks of bookstores, furnishing stores and chemist shops. The retail
revolution, apart from bringing in sweeping, positive changes in the quality of life in the metros and bigger
towns, is also bringing in slow changes in lifestyle in the smaller towns of India. Increase in literacy,
exposure to media, greater availability and penetration of a variety of consumer goods into the interiors of
the country, have all resulted in narrowing down the spending differences between the consumers of larger
metros and those of smaller towns.
Retail sector in India is primarily categorized by the type of products retailed, as opposed to the different
retail formats in operation. The Food and Grocery vertical is the largest segment and accounts for close to
60% of the total value addition. This category has the highest consumer demand across all income levels
and various retail formats. The Indian consumer behavior of preferring proximity to retail formats is highly
pronounced in this sector, with food, grocery and allied products largely sourced from the local stores or
push-cart vendor
Apparels and consumer durables are the fastest growing verticals in the retail sector. Mobile phone as a
product category has witnessed the highest growth in consumer demand amongst all retail product
offerings, with increasing penetration of telecommunications in towns and villages. Many other product
categories are also gaining traction predominantly in the urban areas and emerging cities, with increasing
average income and spending power of young urban India. Also, this segment has the fastest pace of
adoption towards organized retail as consumers are getting increasingly willing to try new and innovative
products.
3. History of RELIANCE

1960 - 1980

The company was co-founded by Dhirubhai Ambani and his cousin Champaklal Damani in 1960s as
RELIANCE Commercial Corporation. In 1965, the partnership was ended and Dhirubhai continued the
polyester business of the firm. In 1966, RELIANCE Textiles Industries Put Ltd was incorporated in
Maharashtra. It established a in the same year at Naroda in Gujarat. In 1975, company expanded its
business into textiles, with "Vimal" becoming its major brand in later years. The company held its Initial
public offering (IPO) in 1977. The issue was over-subscribed by seven times. In 1979, a textiles company
Sidhpur Mills was amalgamated with the company. In 1980, the company expanded its polyester yarn
business by setting up a Polyester Filament Yarn Plant in Raigad, Maharashtra with financial and technical
collaboration with E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., USA.

1981 - 2000

In 1985, the name of the company was changed from RELIANCE Textiles Industries Ltd. to RELIANCE
Industries Ltd. During the years 1985 to 1992, the company expanded its installed capacity for producing
polyester yarn by over 145,000 tonnes per annum. The Hazira petrochemical plant was commissioned in
1991-92. In 1993, RELIANCE turned to the overseas capital markets for funds through a global depositary
issue of RELIANCE Petroleum. In 1996, it became the first private sector company in India to be rated by
international credit rating agencies. S&P rated BB+, stable outlook, constrained by the sovereign ceiling.
Moody's ratedBaa3, Investment grade, constrained by the sovereign ceiling. In the year 1995-96, the
company entered the telecom industry through a joint venture with NYNEX, USA and promoted
RELIANCE Telecom Private Limited in India. In 1998-99, RIL introduced packaged LPG in 15 kg
cylinders under the brand name RELIANCE Gas. During 1998-2000, the company completed setup of
integrated petrochemical complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat.

2001 - 2013

In 2001, RELIANCE Industries Ltd. and RELIANCE Petroleum Ltd. became India's two largest
companies in terms of all major financial parameters. In 2001-02, RELIANCE Petroleum was merged with
RELIANCE Industries. In 2002, RELIANCE announced India's biggest gas discovery (at the Krishna
Godavari basin) in nearly three decades and one of the largest gas discoveries in the world during 2002.
The in-place volume of natural gas was in excess of 7 trillion cubic feet, equivalent to about 1.2 billion
barrels of crude oil. This was the first ever discovery by an Indian private sector company. In 2002-03, RIL
purchased a majority stake in Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd. (IPCL), India's second largest
petrochemicals company, from Government of India. IPCL was later merged with RIL in 2008. In the years
2005 and 2006, the company reorganized its business by demerging its investments in power generation
and distribution, financial services and telecommunication services into four separate entities. In 2006,
RELIANCE entered the organized retail market in India with the launch of its retail store format under the
brand name of 'RELIANCE SMART'. By the end of 2008, RELIANCE retail had close to 600 stores across
57 cities in India. In 2010, RELIANCE entered Broadband services market with acquisition of Infotel
Broadband Services Limited, which was the only successful bidder for pan-India fourth-generation (4G)
spectrum auction held by Government of India. In the same year, RELIANCE and BPannounced a
partnership in the oil and gas business. BP took 30 per cent stake in 23 oil and gas production sharing
contracts that RELIANCE operates in India, including the KG-D6 block for $7.2 billion. RELIANCE also
formed a 50:50 joint venture with BP for sourcing and marketing of gas in India.

Post launch, in a dramatic shift in its positioning and mainly due to the circumstances prevailing in UP,
West Bengal and Orissa, it was mentioned recently in news Dailies that, RELIANCE Retail is moving out
of stocking fruits and vegetables. RELIANCE Retail has decided to minimize its exposure in the fruit and
vegetable business and position RELIANCE SMART as a pure play super market focusing on categories
like food, FMCG, home, consumer durables, IT and wellness, with food accounting for the bulk of the
business.

The company may not stock fruit and vegetables in some states, Orissa being one of them. Though
RELIANCE SMART is not exiting the fruit and vegetable business altogether, it has decided not to
compete with local vendors partly due to political reasons, and partly due to its inability to create a robust
supply chain. This is quite different from what the firm had originally planned. When the first RELIANCE
SMART store opened in Ghaziabad last October, not only did the company said the store’s main focus
would be SMART produce like fruits and vegetables at a much lower price, but also spoke at length about
its “farm-to-fork’’ theory. The idea the company spoke about was to source from farmers and sell directly
to the consumer removing middlemen out of the way. RELIANCE SMART, RELIANCE Mart,
RELIANCE Digital, RELIANCE Trendz, RELIANCE Footprint, RELIANCE Wellness, RELIANCE
Jewels, RELIANCE Timeout and RELIANCE Super are various formats that RELIANCE has rolled out.
In addition, RELIANCE Retail has entered into an alliance with Apple for setting up a chain of Apple
Specialty Stores branded as I Store, starting with Bangalore.
3. Company Vision & Mission

Vision

 Through sustainable measures, create value for the nation,

 Enhance quality of life across the entire socio-economic

 Spectrum and help spearhead India as a global leader in

 The domains where we operate.

Mission

 Create value for all stakeholders

 Grow through innovation

 Lead in good governance practices

 Use sustainability to drive product development and enhance operational efficiencies

 Ensure energy security of the nation

 Foster rural prosperity Values

 Our growth and success are based on the ten core values of Care, Citizenship, Fairness, Honesty,
Integrity, Purposefulness, Respect, Responsibility, Safety and Trust.
4. RELIANCE Retail

RELIANCE Retail is the retail initiative of the group and an epicenter of our consumer facing businesses.
It has in a short time forged strong and enduring bonds with millions of consumers by providing them
unlimited choice, outstanding value proposition, superior quality and unmatched experience across all its
retail stores.

Since its inception in 2006, RELIANCE Retail has grown to cater to millions of customers, and thousands
of farmers and vendors. RELIANCE Retail serves over 3.5 million customers every week, and its loyalty
programmed, RELIANCE One, has the patronage of more than 30 million customers. Our nationwide
network of retail outlets delivers a world-class shopping environment and unmatched customer experience
powered by our state-of-the-art technology and seamless supply-chain infrastructure.

RELIANCE Retail has adopted a multi-prong strategy and operates neighborhood stores, supermarkets,
hypermarkets, and wholesale cash & carries stores, specialty stores and online stores and has democratized
access to all types of products and services across all segments for all Indian consumers.

RELIANCE Retail has achieved the distinction of being the largest retailer in the country. RELIANCE
Retail’s commitment to bettering lives has been embodied in its pursuit to make a difference on social
socio-economic issues in India. The initiative has brought large number of farmers and small producers to
the forefront of the retail revolution by partnering with them for growth.

Deep insight into India’s economic, cultural and consumption diversity drives RELIANCE Retail’s vision
in the retail universe. The operating model is based on customer centricity, while leveraging common
centers of excellence in technology, business processes and supply chain. More importantly, it has built a
strong and unwavering foundation through its extraordinary people.

RELIANCE Retail has emerged as the partner of choice for international brands and has established
exclusive partnerships with many revered international brands such as Diesel, Super dry, Hamlets,
Ermenegildo Zegna, Marks and Spencer, Paul & Shark, Thomas Pink, Kenneth Cole, Brooks Brothers,
Steve Madden, Payless Shoesource, Grand Vision and many more.

RELIANCE Retail operates over 3,300 stores pan India with nearly 13 million square feet of retail space
and is growing rapidly
5. Competitor of RELIANCE SMART in India

1 Pantaloons Retail Limited– Mumbai, Maharashtra | Establishment – 1997 Business – Retail | Website –
www.pantaloonsfashion.com | It is a flagship company of Future group and one of the leading retail
company in India. The company has more than 1000 outlets across the India and 35000 employees.
Company’s brands include food Bazaar Brand factory, Top 10 and Sitar.

2. Prologue India Ltd– Mumbai, Maharashtra | Establishment – 1997 Business – Retail and Manufacturing
| Website – www.provogue.com It is a lifestyle and fashion company which was established in 1997. The
company’s offering include men’s wear, women’s wear, fashion accessories, apparel and numerous other
products. It has over 250 stores all across the country and rated among the top most trusted brands in India
by trust research committee in year 2011.

3. Shoppers Stop– Mumbai, Maharashtra | Establishment – 1991 Business – Retail | Website –

www.shoppersstop.com | Shoppers Stop is a well known name in retail industry in India and ranked among
the top retail brands in India. The company is operated and managed by K Rhea Corp Group and was
Incorporated in year 1991. It has total 61 stores in India and offers national and international brands of
apparel, fashion and lifestyle.

4.ITC-LRBD– Kolkata, West Bengal | Establishment – 1910 Business – Retail | Website –

www.itcportal.com | Lifestyle Retailing Business division is a premier clothing retail company in India
branding through Wills Lifestyle and John players. The Company has a diversified range of business
activities in FMCG, Hotels, Paper board, Packaging and Agriculture.

5.Trent Ltd.– Mumbai, Maharashtra | Establishment – 1998 Business – Retail | Website –

www.mywestside.com | It is a fully owned Tata group company which was incorporated in 1998 operates
under brand name of Westside, Star Bazaar, Fashion yatra and Landmark. The company offers Men’s &
women’s footwear, cosmetics and fashion accessories from their retail store located in more than 30 cities
in the country whereas Landmark store deals in book and music business.
6. McDonald’s – Oak Brook, Illinois, U.S | Establishment –1940 Business – Restaurants | Website –
www.aboutmcdonalds.com | McDonald is leading global food service provider which has existence in
more than 130 countries worldwide. The company started India operation in 1996 and has more than 300
food chain restaurants in the country. It is a Joint venture with two Indian companies in north & east and
south & western region respectively.

7.Aditya Birla Retail– Mumbai, Maharashtra | Establishment – 2006 Business – | Website –

www.adityabirla.com | Aditya Birla retail limited is a subsidiary of Aditya Birla group established in year
2006 which owns over 500 supermarkets and 15 hypermarkets. The company is rated as top 10 retail
companies in India and received prestigious Master brand Award 2012 by World Brand congress in retail
brand category.

8. Titan Industries– Bangalore, India | Establishment – 1984| Business – Jeweler and Watch retail| Website
– titan.co.in | Titan is joint venture between Tata group and the Tamil Nadu Industries development
corporation established in year 1984. Titan is dominating the Indian Watch Industry since then and become
global international brand. Titan also has a great retail presence in jeweler business and its brand Tanishq is
one amongst the top jeweler brand in India.
6. RELIANCE SMART – Vision, Mission & Objectives

Vision:

Vision to generate inclusive growth and prosperity for farmers, vendor partners, small shopkeepers and
consumers, RELIANCE SMART, a subsidiary of RIL, was set up to lead RELIANCE Groups foray into
organized retail. Since its inception in 2006, RELIANCE SMART has grown into an organization that
caters to millions of customers, thousands of farmers and vendors. Based on its core growth strategy of
backward integration, RELIANCE SMART has made rapid progress towards building an entire value chain
starting from the farmers to the end consumers.

Mission:

Its mission is to delight the customers every visit. RELIANCE SMART will continue to provide
unprecedented value to customers across all its formats and stores. Its mission is to grow through value
creation.

Objectives:

 To get a sense of how well the company is serving customers.

 Offer our customers the widest range of fruit and vegetables at the best prices in the neighborhood

 Offer consistent high quality, unbeatable Freshness and great service so that our Customers know
that we can be trusted every day.

 To utilize customer feedback and provide the company with the tools that is customized to measure
and meet the specific customer perceptions and needs.

 The chief objective of RELIANCE SMART stores is to provide customers first-rate household
products at affordable rates.

 At the same time, the company spares no effort to safeguard the interest of the farmers and
manufacturers.

 The producers get a chance to sell their products directly to the merchandiser, and that too at the
best price.
7. History of RELIANCE SMART

The RELIANCE Retail had to face various difficulties before the launch of RELIANCE SMART, because
of the various circumstances prevailing in Orissa, West Bengal and UP, along with the news focusing on
the dearth of vegetables and fruits stocks. The retail business of RELIANCE then minimized its exposure
in vegetable and fruit business, as a result established RELIANCE SMART positioning a pure super
market play focusing on various categories like IT, consumer durables, home, FMCG and food.

The retail company of RELIANCE may not supply the vegetables and fruits in a few states, the
RELIANCE SMART decided to not to race with local wholesalers partly because of the political reasons as
well as its incapability to maintain a healthy supply chain.

There were three basic reasons for RELIANCE Industries Limited (RIL) choosing foods and vegetables for
entering into retailing.

Firstly, it wanted to go after the very core of the great Indian retail Opportunity. Food accounted for over
two-thirds of the $200 billion Indian Retail market and yet, it had seen hardly any penetration by modern
retail so far. Second, its aim was to build a high-profitability business and food was perhaps the best place
to start. Third, the grossly inefficient food supply chain provided a well resourced and well managed
organization like RIL with an opportunity to think of amending the flaws which would also make business
sense. In the traditional supply chain in India, there were several intermediaries, who added their respective
profit margin to the cost. Besides, there was huge wastage in transit. This offered potential for savings and
profit sand RELIANCE SMART was a Step in that direction. RELIANCE SMART was founded on 30th
October 2006 having its head quarter in Mumbai.
8. Growth of RELIANCE SMART

The first ever a RELIANCE SMART store was established in Ghaziabad, wherein the company, mainly
focused on the Fresh produced vegetables and fruits at comparatively low price along with an introduction
of farm to fork theory.

This was the idea, which was anticipated by the company was to take the supply direct from the farmers
and then sell straightaway to the consumers removing the middle-men off the beaten track.

With an idea to produce inclusive prosperity and growth for farmers, consumers, small shopkeepers and
vendor partners, RELIANCE Retail was set up in order to lead the foray of RELIANCE Group into an
organized retail.
9. Product Range:

 Vegetables and Fruits: This is the specialty of the store as they provide fruits and vegetables and a
lower rate than the market price.

 Household items: In the store one will get all the household items required sometimes they maybe
of a slight higher price but RELIANCE SMART assure quality of these items.

 Food and Beverages: In this area of product line RELIANCE SMART stocks all the premium brand
of food, and beverages it also sells its own brand of food and beverages in their stores and also
supplies their private label to other retail stores.

 Groceries: In this sector RELIANCE SMART is promoting its private label as they are promoting
their own brand and they do the packaging of the product and then labels it privately and then sells
it at a premium as compared to the loose items.

 Dairy products: The dairy products in some location are procured from the farmers themselves and
at some places it is procured by the manufacturer. One can get variety of dairy products in these
stores.

 Refrigerated products: This product line is dominated by the brands available in the market and
very less private labeling is done.

 Non- Food items: Here we get many petty non food items at a premium than market price.
10. Awards & Achievements

 Project Eve was awarded the “Most admired retail launch” of the year by IMAGES Retail Awards.

 RELIANCE SMART won ‘Rapid Expansion with SMART Hyper Model’ award at IMAGES South
India Retail Awards 2018

 RELIANCE SMART was awarded ‘Hypermarket of the Year’ at Annapurna Food Retail Awards
2017

 RELIANCE Retail appeared in the list of Most Trusted Retailers as per ET Brand Equity 2016
Survey

 RELIANCE Retail recognized as India’s Top 10 Retail Companies to Work for Calendar Year 2017
by Great Place to Work Institute and Retailers Association of India (RAI)

 RELIANCE SMART awarded with “IMAGES Most Admired Food & Grocery Retailer of The
Year: Merchandising, Marketing, Consumer Promotions & Customer Service” at the India Food
Forum 201

 RELIANCE Retail Academy was awarded the Asian Human Capital Award 2013 and a Special
Commendation Prize for Work SMART - A Business Excellence and Workforce Enablement
Programmed
11. Why I choose RELIANCE SMART
Synonymous to its name, RELIANCE SMART is a new age supermarket serving the needs of today’s
SMART and value seeking customers. RELIANCE SMART offers a one-stop shopping experience by
offering SMART produce, bakery, dairy products, home and personal care products, general merchandise
and in many cases are co-located with our fashion & electronics store RELIANCE Trends and RELIANCE
Digital, making it a complete shopping destination.

RELIANCE SMART’s incredible value proposition rewards shoppers more & more for bigger
purchase, every single time they shop with 100% assortment being offered below MRP all year round,
while delivering a world-class shopping experience.

RELIANCE SMART had a turn–over of 70,000 Cr. Rupees generated new opportunities for farmers and
vendors. 50 million plus of loyal customer base reflects that company highly believes in customer
satisfaction

RELIANCE SMART stores are 10000 in numbers across the nation serving the customers in every corner
of the country. RELIANCE SMART provides a quality deal which raises the customer satisfaction, but at
ht same time serves quality services to them. This factor motivated me to join RELIANCE SMART for
conducting my study for summer training.
12. RELIANCE SMART in Ghaziabad

A RELIANCE store has been newly opened approx. 3.5 months ago in Govindpuram, Ghaziabad Uttar
Pradesh. The Store is named under RELIANCE SMART located in Basement of Signature Street, PAAC
Park Govindpuram.

The store is spread in 15000 sat out of which 11500 sat is sales area. Accommodating about 6000 articles
from all prominent Brands as well as in house brands. It is open from 7am to 10 pm and it takes 40 FT &
38 PT to carry out daily functioning of the store. On an average, turnover of store is rupees 50,000 per day,
each store, whereas compared to others cities it is abysmally low. The main aim is to provide good quality
products at lower price and strive continually for customer service and satisfaction. According to one of the
RELIANCE SMART Store’s manager, they were satisfying around 75% of customer expectations.

There are approx 78 CSA’s i.e. Customers Service Associates who help the customers in their purchase
decision and make them feel at ease. CSA’s normally work on two shifts. First shift is from 6.30 AM to
3.00 PM and second one is from 1.30 PM to 10.30 PM In addition to the above, there are 2 store
supervisors for each shift and 1 One Store manager is wholly responsible for major decisions pertaining to
the store. There in total 16 cash tills for smooth flowing of customers in billing area.
There are total 25 categories of products available namely Fruits & Vegetables, SMART food, Beverages,
Dairy, Staple, Personal care, Home Care, Baby Care, Home Appliances, Furnishing & Décor, Furniture,
Processed Food, Confectionaries & Snacks, House ware, Hardliners, Cosmetics, Fragrances, Sports
Equipment, Toys, Stationary, Health, Frozen Food & Luggage.
LITERATURE
REVIW
 LITERATURE REVIEW

Malati, Maheshwari & Jain, (2012) found that customer satisfaction has become a major source of
concern in retail business. The entry of foreign retail players into the Indian market has made it
tough for the Indian players. To keep pace with the demands of the new age customers, the retail outlets
have to devise new strategies and techniques in understanding their needs and fulfilling their requirements.
It was proposed that quality of service is an important indicator of customer satisfaction. Measuring service
quality involves objective feedback from existing customers. The study is based on the five overall
dimensions of service quality and the extent to which the customers expect and perceive services provided
by two retail outlets RELIANCE SMART and More. This paper aims to understand the service quality
gaps of these outlets with respect to the customer expectations and perceptions. The study gives useful and
innovative insights to boost customer satisfaction towards RELIANCE SMART and More.

Wani and Tariq Wani (2011) in their study entitled „A study of comparative customer satisfaction with
special reference to retail outlets of RELIANCE SMART and RELIANCE Mart in Pune city‟; found that
the competition among the retail outlets have greatly affected the customer satisfaction.

Dinesh Kumar & Thirunavukkarasu (2012) conducted a study on the awareness of RELIANCE SMART
among the customers. The study mainly concentrated on general price level, quality about products, and
overall satisfaction about RELIANCE SMART, general awareness, and consumer preferences of
RELIANCE SMART. The study analyzed the primary data collected through a structured questionnaire
with a sample size of 50 selected through Simple random sampling method and concluded that customer
awareness play dominant role in ensuring their satisfaction.

U. Dineshkumar and P.Vikkraman, (2012) analyzed in their study that Customer satisfaction is widely
recognized as a key pressure in the formation of consumers' future purchase intentions. Satisfied
customers are also likely to tell others of their favorable experiences and thus engage in positive
word of mouth advertising. The present study aims to investigate customer satisfaction in the organized
retail outlets in Erode city of Tamil Nadu state in India. The objectives are to identify the determinants of
customer satisfaction in the organized retail outlets in Erode city, to identify the attitude and behavior of
the customers those who are purchasing in organized retail outlets, and to study about the future prospects
of organized retail outlets in the city. Customer satisfaction is a significant subject for most marketers. A
total of 200 questionnaires have been randomly distributed to retail customers. Using descriptive statistics
method, cross table analysis, chi-square test and correlation method (to compare between different means)
the data collected is analyzed. The result of this analysis suggests the degree of customer satisfaction in
terms of services provided by organized retail outlets in Erode.

Dr RajKumar & Miss Priyanka, (2012) Nowadays all the companies have realized the significance of
customer-cantered philosophies. One of the key challenges for them is how they manage service quality,
which holds a great importance to customer satisfaction. Therefore the role of the service quality in the
success of organized retail businesses cannot be denied. It is vital for the retailer managers to have a good
understanding on what exactly the customer wants. Expectations are well known to service marketers as
most definitions of service quality revolve around “meeting or exceeding customer expectations”.
Customers‟ evaluation of the service quality that they receive is conceptualized as being influenced by
their prior expectations. This section describes importance of service quality in those companies involved
in organized retail, relationship b/w customer satisfaction and behavioral intention.

Tyagi (2008) express that retailers looking to adopt a customer-centric strategy to succeed in the
hyper-competitive environment, it is vital to understand the impact of such a strategy on a retailer’s
business functions. While the impact on merchandising is well understood in terms of sharper assortment
and improved customer-centricity with the organization’s overall direction and growth of revenues and
profitability while increasing customer satisfaction levels.

Asikhia (2010) find that customer orientation moderated by marketing information system and
managerial attitude is an efficient strategy of providing and sustaining customer advantage for small and
medium scale businesses in an ever changing business environment and suggested that managers of small
and medium scale businesses should allow their businesses to emerge out of a customers’ need.

Omholt (2002) express that for many retail organizations, the appropriate pursuit of horizontal
strategy becomes one of the most critical ways to establish a superior competitive position. With
increased competition from neighboring and out-of-town centers, increased consumer mobility, and a more
diverse population with regard to household structures and lifestyles, sharing a particular location may not
be enough for a group of outlets or centers to sustain a competitive advantage.

Coca-Stefaniak et al. (2010) found place attractiveness, word-of-mouth customer-tocustomer marketing,

customer service beyond simple product advice, community embeddedness and informal but meaningful
interpersonal relations between shop owner and customers are some of the key pillars of the
“localisation” strategic marketing approach pursued by small retailers.
.
Omar and Abisoye (2008) examine the role price as a determining factor in consumer patronage of grocery
retail stores in the United Kingdom. They suggest that price cues affect consumer store choice. Price
awareness positively impact patronage of retail stores that implement low cost strategies, while
status sensitivity and price/quality plan tend to positively impact patronage of retail stores that
implement higher price strategies. Further, they suggest that it is good to communicating store pricing
policy to the target consumers.

Rao and Manikyam (2012) presents the customers perceptions on the experiences related to the four
specified areas viz. shopping experience, buying experience, service experience and relationship
experience and established the fact that the small scale retailers are providing valued experiences to the
customers. The customer experience management requires an organized effort from retailers,
continual review and committed effort of the management for improvements qualitatively.

Dhume (2012) found the two dimensions viz. personal attention and problem solving had high gap
scores, indicating disparity between what specialty store consumers expected and their perceived
service quality. And identified the sub-components of Personal Attention Dimension: Prompt service,
Customized service, Never too busy to respond, Polite and courteous salesperson, Individual attention,
Enthusiasm and interest at heart, Sales person behavior instills confidence, Service delivered when
promised and for Problem Solving Dimension: Interest in solving problems, Expected to deal with
customer queries, Willingness to help customers, Knowledgeable salesperson.

Martenson (2007) analyzed the impact of the corporate store image on customer satisfaction and store
loyalty in grocery retailing, found that most important for customer satisfaction is the store as a brand.
Retailers must be good at retailing. Customers are satisfied when the store is neat and pleasant and
when they feel that the store understands their needs. Furthermore, satisfied customers were loyal.
 RESEARCH
METHORDOLOGY
 OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
.

 To study the ‘satisfaction’ levels of “RELIANCE SMART” customers.

 To make suggestions for improvement of their products & their services from the customer’s point
of view based on this research to fulfill customer’s needs. .

 To analyze the socioeconomic profile of organized retail customers purchasing commodities from
RELIANCE SMART.

 To study the Factors influencing the preference of organized retail outlet.

 To analyze the overall performance of the RELIANCE SMART on chosen parameters

 RESEARCH DESIGN

For the research study to be accepted, the procedures for conducting it should be significantly expressed.
The whole plan should be defined effectively so that the researcher can have reasons in favor of some
factors and so against some other. As there is a statistical technique for different research study, so it is
highly essential that the procedures and techniques to be applied should be explained carefully, as under:
It has been divided into four parts: -

a) Research Design
b) Sample Design
c) Data Collection Method
d) Data Analysis Procedure

1. Research Design

A research design is the specification of method and procedure for acquiring the information needed. Since
the present study is based on exploratory research design.

2. Sample Design

An ideally selected sample, due to the time and money constraints represents the whole universe. Thus, a
sample should never be too big as to be un-manageable nor too small as to lose its representation. In
sample design, following three aspects are highlighted:

- Determination of sample unit

- Determination of sample technique
- Determination of sample size

Sample Unit
The universe of the study is all the individuals using retail outlets preferably RELIANCE SMART in
Ghaziabad city and the sample size of 150 is to be taken using random sampling technique.
Sample Size
Sample size refers to number of elements to be included in this study i.e. 150 respondents.

Sample Technique

For the present study, the technique of Non-probability sampling (Voluntary Sampling) is used. As the
research was done on 150 respondents those who visited stops to purchase product and were willing to
participate in the survey.

Sample Design:

Type of Consumer No. of Consumer

Retail 150
Total 150

Data Analysis Technique:

Simple tools of analysis like mean, Percentage, Frequency and Analysis have been used to analyze data.
Also tabular and graphical analysis- Simple Statistical Tools like tabular analysis and graphical method
(through bar graph, pie graph, and line graph by using MS Excel).

3. Methods of Data Collection:

Usually, three basic methods are used to collect primary data-

1) Interview
2) Observation
3) Questionnaire
1) Observation Method
It is the most commonly used methods especially in studies relating to behavioral sciences. This method
implies the collection of information by way of investigators own observation, without interviewing the
respondents. The information obtained relates to what is currently happening and is not complicated by
either the past behavior or future intentions or attitudes of respondents.

2) Interview Method
The interview method of collecting data involves presentation of oral, verbal stimuli and reply in terms of
oral-verbal responses. This method can be used through personal interview and, if possible, through
telephone interview.

Personal Interview, The method of collecting information through personal interview is usually carried out
in a structured way. As such we call this interview as structured interviews. Such interviews involve the use
of a set of predetermined questions and of highly standardized techniques of recording. Thus, the
interviewer in a structured interview follows a rigid procedure laid down, asking questions in a given
format and the order prescribed. As against it, the unstructured interviews are characterized by flexibility of
approach to questioning. Unstructured interviews do not follow a system of predetermined questions and
standardized techniques of recording information.

3) Questionnaire
The researcher and the respondents do come in contact with each other if this method of survey is adopted.
Questionnaires are mailed to the respondents with a request to return after completing the same. It is the
most extensively used method in various economic and business surveys & research. Questionnaire to be
used must be prepared very carefully so that it may prove to be effective in collecting the relevant
information.

Structured questionnaire, Using structured questionnaire method, which contains close-ended questions,
collected the primary data with respect the problem chosen. The questions have some options, from which
the respondents have to choose a choice. As the answers lie within a specified range they are called close-
ended questions. Open-ended questions are those questions where no choices are given to respondents and
respondents are free to express their choice or answer. .

The questionnaire is structured i.e. it is presented having form question in sequence, and non-disguised.
Research in common pursuance refers to a search for knowledge in a scientific and systematic way for
pursuant information on a specified topic. Once the objective is identified that next step is to collect the
data which is relevance to the problem identified and analyze the collected data in order to find out the
hidden reasons for the problem. There are two types of data namely. 1. Primary Data 2. Secondary Data

1) Primary Data

Primary data is to be collected by the concerned project researcher with relevance to his problem. So the
primary data is original in nature and is collected first hand.

Collection of primary data

Questionnaire was the source of primary data collection in this research.

2) Secondary Data

Secondary data is the data already existing, which has gone through some standard analysis. Under the
secondary data, the company’s annual reports, broachers, pamphlets, newspapers, journals and internet
were taken into consideration.
The secondary source of data provided insight to understand and define the nature of the problem.
secondary data was collected through various sources like Company Website, Magazines, Internet source,
Store leaflet Government Publication Reports. Various reports and articles from the internet provided the
information regarding the behavior of retail consumers and about area, factors which influencing
consumers in Ghaziabad.
Collection of Data Collection:
Secondary data was collected through web, magazines, journals and newspapers some data was also
collected from Store feedback file and visitors logbook

Keeping in view the nature of this study, questionnaire method was found to be most effective.
ANALYSIS &
FINDINGS
 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTEPRETATION

Research in retail is very important, as customer preferences and choices are dynamic and change
frequently, the retail company needs to understand these before redesigning its processes for
enhancing business and many more. Since customer interaction takes place at the store and nearby
store, there is a big opportunity to gather first-hand information and feedback from customers through
research and survey.

I have done a market field survey on RELIANCE SMART. I have surveyed around 150 respondents
of Ghaziabad who came to visit RELIANCE SMART. The customers gave me valuable information
regarding their preference to retail outlet, factors consider on purchasing Groceries, Fruit &
Vegetables and their consumption pattern in RELIANCE SMART. I collected all the information that
is required for the study and proper analysis is done.

All the analysis and its interpretation are discussed below. Each of the analysis is done as per the
information obtained from the customers and a serious interpretation has been done to best of my
effort.
Q 1. What is Gender of respondent?
A. Male
B. Female
Gender of Respondents

Gender No. of Respondents % of Respondents

Male 44 29.3

Female 106 70.7

Total 150 100

Gender
70.6

29.3

Female Male

Interpretation

From the above chart, out of 150 respondents who visit RELIANCE SMART the larger column is
occupied by the respondents who are Male that is70.6% while 29.3% are Female. By this we can say
that due to dual incomes, even the male are participating in the household work
Q2.Please specify your Age group
A. Below 18
B. 18- 25
C. 25- 40
D. 40 - 50
E. Above 50

Age group No. of % of

Responde Respondents
nts
18-25 9 6
26-40 48 32
41-50 53 35.5
Above 50 40 26.7
Total 150 100

Age
Group 35.3
32
26.6

18- 26- 41- Above

25 40 50 50

Interpretation

From the above graph, we can clearly see that out of 150 respondents, 35.3% respondents are under
41-50 age group, 32% are under 26-40 age group, 26.6% above 50 age and rest, that is 6% are under
age of 18-25. As it is already observed that the customers at RELIANCE SMART are mostly male,
we can say that people tend to act matured to help female by participating in household work like
shopping vegetables and groceries. Below 18 are 0 respondents.
Q 3. Please specify your monthly household income?
A. Less than 10k
B. 10k – 20k
C. 20k – 30k
D. 30k – 40k
E. More than 40k

Income Level No. of Respondents Percentage

Less than 10k 16 10.7
10k – 20k 45 30
20k – 30k 38 25.3
30k – 40k 45 30
Above 40k 6 4
Total 150 100

Income

3 3
0 25. 0
3

10.
6
4

Less than 10k 10k-20k 20k- 30k 30k-40k Above 40k

Interpretation

From the above Table, we can say that out of 150 respondents, 30% respondents are under income
group of 10k-20k rupees/month and 30% under 30k-40krupees/month, 25.3% comes under the
income group of 20k-30k, 10.6% of respondents comes under income group less than 10k
rupees/month and the remaining 4% accounts for Above 40000 rupees/month income group very
low high income class
Q4. What is your family size?
A. Bachelor
B. Newly Married
C. Married with Dependent Children
D. Married with Independent Children
E. Retired
Family Size No. of respondents Percentage
Bachelor 3 2
Newly Married without 39 26
Children
Married with dependent 70 46.7
Children

Married with Independent 38 25.3

Children

Total 150 100

Family Size
46.6

26 25.3

Bachelor Newly Married without Married with Married with

Children dependent Children Independent
Children

Interpretation
From the above table and graph, we can clearly see that, out of 150 respondents, 46.6% come under
family cycle with Married With Dependent Children, 26% comes under family cycle of Newly married
without Children, and 25.3% comes under Married with independent Children and 2% accounts for
Bachelor and there are no retired population in store for shopping.
Q5. What is your occupation?
A. Business
B. Service
C. Professional
D. House Wife
E. Student
Occupation No. Of Respondents Percentage
Business 29 19.3
Service 61 40.7
Professional 29 19.3
House Wife 17 11.3
Student 2 1.3
Total 150 100

Occupation
49.3

26.7

11.3
8
1.3 1.3

Business Service Professional House wife Student Others

Interpretation

Figure depicts that among 150 respondents, 49.3% are Services who belong to both Government and
non government Organizations, 26.7% of the respondents are Entrepreneurs, 11.3% of them are
House wife's, 8% comes in other occupation like Retired Employees, 1.3% accounts for Professional
Occupation like Doctors, Lawyers etc..,, and 1.3% comes under students i.e.,, Bachelors. A lot of
service class is there to purchase goods from their income.
Q6. How often you visit to RELIANCE SMART?
A. Only for important product
B. Once a week
C. One a mouth
D. Weekends
E. It’s my first time
Visit to RELIANCE SMART No. of Customers Perce
ntage
Once a week 53 35.3
Only for important product 81 54
Weekends 14 9.3

Once a Month 2 1.3

Total 150 100

Visit to RELIANCE
SMART 52

35.3

9.3
2 1.3

First time Once a Week Important Weekends Once a

product Month

Interpretation

The Figure shows that 52% of the respondents visit the RELIANCE SMART stores only for a specific
product, while 35.3% visit once a Week, 9.3% visit in the Weekends, 2% visited for the First Time
and only 1.3% visit Once a Month. Almost respondents have been in the store at least once.
Q7. What is your purpose to visit RELIANCE SMART?
A. To Purchase
B. Just to Visit
C. To know about new offers
D. To know about new product
E. If good offer found then, Purchase
Purchase Plan No. Respondents Percentage

To Purchase 120 80

If good offer found then, 30 20

Purchase
Total 150 100

Objective to visit the store

80.0

20

0.0 0.0 0

To Purchase Just for Visit To know about to know the new If good offer then
The new offer products to purchase

Interpretation

The Above Figureureure, the larger pie is occupied by the respondents who come to RELIANCE
SMART to Purchase 80%, followed by the 20% with the respondents who come to Purchase If the
Offer Is Good. That is 20% of customers do 80% shopping here.
Q 8. Are you aware of promotional offers at RELIANCE SMART?
A. Yes
B. No
Awareness Of Promotional No. Of Customers Percentage
Offers

Yes 112 75

No 38 25

Total 150 100

Percentage

No
25%

Yes
75%

Interpretation

In the Figure, 74.6% of the respondents say that they are Aware of the Promotional Schemes offered by the
store and 25.3% of the respondents say that they are Not Aware of the promotional Offers at the store.
RELIANCE SMART need to work on its advertisement campaigned.
Q9. Which is the preferable of your product choice?
A. Fruits & Vegetables
B. Groceries
C. Both
D. None
E. Others (please specify)

Sections Preferred No. of Customers Percentage

Fruits and Vegetables 11 7

Groceries 69 46

Both 70 47

Total 150 100

Sections Preferred
Groceries Fruits and Vegetables
Both

7.3

46.6

46%

Interpretation

From the Figure we can clearly see that Larger share of the Doughnut is occupied by the respondents
who visit RELIANCE SMART for purchasing Fruits And Vegetables that is 46%, followed by 47% of
the respondents visit RELIANCE SMART for purchasing Both and 7% of the respondents visit the
store for purchasing Groceries. Most people purchase both Groceries and fresh fruits.
Q9. What is your budget for spending in RELIANCE SMART?
A. Below 500
B. 500-1000
C. 1000- 1500
D. 1500-2000
E. Above 2000
Spending No. of Percentage
Pattern Customers
Below 500 69 46
500 – 1000 62 41.3
1000 – 1500 19 12.7
Total 150 100

Budget

1000-1500
13%

Below 500
46%
500-1000
41%

Interpretation

The Figure shows that maximum share that is 46% of the respondents spend Below 500 rupees each
time they visit RELIANCE SMART, followed by 41% respondents who spend 500-10000 Rupees
when they visit store and the rest 13% of the respondents spend 1000- 1500 rupees, each time they
visit the store. No purchase above 1500 rupees is made due to store location in residential area.

Q10. How do you get to know about RELIANCE SMART?

A. Hoarding
B. Pamphlets

C. SMS

D. Word of mouth

E. Others (Please specify)

Aids No. of customers Percentage
Hoardings & Boarding's
Aids
34
Used 23

Leaflets & Pamphlets 80 Hoarding 23% 53

Through SMS Message36 24
24%
Total 150 100

Pamphlets, 53%

Interpretation

From the Figure, 53% of the respondents say that they encounter mostly Leaflets And Pamphlets,
24% of the respondents say that get SMS in regular intervals regarding the Promotional offers and
discounts, while 23% of the respondents say that they get to know the offers by Boarding's &
Hoardings. There is a significant lack of word of mouth in promotion of store.

Q11. The Promotional offers at RELIANCE SMART are attractive and induce you to make a
purchase?
A. Strongly Agree
B. Agree
C. Neither Agree nor Disagree
D. Disagree
E. Strongly Disagree
Attractive Offers No. of respondents Percentage
Strongly Agree 58 39
 Agree 45 30
Neither Agree/Nor 41 27.3
Disagree
Strongly Disagree 6 4
Total 150 100

Attractive
Strongly AgreOffers
Neither Agree/ nor Strongly
Agree e Disagree Disagree

4
%
27. 39
3 %

30
%

Interpretation

In the Figure, 39% of the respondents Strongly Agree that the offers offered at RELIANCE SMART
are attractive, 30% of the respondents Agree that they are attractive, while 27.3% of the respondents
neither Agree/ Nor Disagree with the same and the remaining 4% of the respondents Strongly
Disagree. RELIANCE SMART is successful in attacking customers through offers.
 Q12. What improvement do you want from RELIANCE SMART?

A. Value added Service

B. Fast Billing

C. Provision of Polythene

D. Maintenance of hygiene

E. Others (please specify)

Services Expected No. Of Customers Percentage

Fast Billing 69 46
Customer Service 24 16
Provision of Polythene 30 20
Maintenance of Hygiene 27 18
Total 150 100

Service

Hygiene
18%
Fast
Polythe Billing
ne 20% 46%
Cr
Servic
e 16%

Interpretation

From the Figure, 46% of the respondents expect improvements in Fast Billing, 20% of the
respondents expect the Provision of Polythene Covers rather than net bags, 18% of the respondents
expect Maintenance of Hygiene and 16% of the respondents expect Value Added Customer Service.
There is a significant need to fasten the billing process.
 FINDINGS

After completing the survey and analyzing the responses of the persons contacted, the following
findings can be availed:
 Demography of Ghaziabad city is perfect for retail business. In this area, majority of the
consumers fall in the age group of 26-40 that is 32% and 32.5% of the respondents belongs to
41-50 as the most of the respondents come in the young age, these age group are tend to have
a fast and busy life hence they prefer to shop in well organized outlet and old aged like to visit
outlet, which is nearby rather than a unorganized mandi which is far off.
 Ghaziabad city is a mixture of joint family and nuclear family as per the family life cycle,
46.6% come under family cycle with married with dependent Children, followed by 26% that
is newly married with no Children.
 Residential areas of the Ghaziabad city are well employed which accounts for 49.3% 26.7% of
the respondents are entrepreneur because of which, they prefer to buy ready to eat, ready to
cook sort hence they prefer organized store where everything is graded as per the quality
norms.
 As we know, in this area, most of the respondents are service holders, this means, 30%
respondents are under income group of 10000- 20000rupees/month and 30% under 30000-
40000rupees/month, 25.3% comes under the income group of 20000-30000 hence at
RELIANCE SMART people come for shopping for their daily needs as they get value for
their money. So we can conclude that, RELIANCE SMART is the hub of shopping for middle
class income group. As the store offers reasonable prices on each and every product.
 Most of the people around 52% of the respondents visit the RELIANCE SMART for
important product, while 35.3% visit once a week this shows that majority of the respondents
visit store at least once.
 RELIANCE SMART is purely a shopping store most of the respondents visit RELIANCE
SMART for purchasing which accounts for 80% and 20% of the respondents visit the store to
purchase if good offer is found.
 Most of the respondents prefer to purchase both the groceries and Fruits and Vegetables that is
47% and 46% of the respondents prefer to buy Fruits and Vegetables.
 The spending pattern of the customers at RELIANCE SMART is dominated by 46% of the
respondents, who spend below 500 rupees each time they visit RELIANCE SMART, followed
by 41% respondents who spend 500-10000 rupees.
 The customers who visit the store are aware of the RELIANCE Private Brand that is 61.3%
and 38.6% of the respondents are not aware of the Private brands that RELIANCE SMART
offers.
 At RELIANCE SMART, 74.6% of the respondents say that they are aware of the Promotional
Scheme that is offered by the store and 25.3% of the respondents are not aware.
 Respondents are encountered with various Promotional aids like 53% of the respondents find
the offers from Leaflets and Pamphlets, 24% of the
 respondents get through while 23% of the respondents get to know by Boarding's &
Hoardings
 At RELIANCE SMART, 39% of the respondents Strongly Agree that the offers offered at
RELIANCE SMART are attractive and 30% of the respondents Agree.
 The Services that RELIANCE SMART offers have to be improvised as 46% of the
respondents expect improvements in Fast Billing, 20% of the respondents expect the Provision
of Polythene Covers rather than net bags, 18% of the respondents expect Maintenance of
Hygiene and 16% of the respondents expect Value Added Customer Service.
Most of the customers complained:-

 In RELIANCE SMART, the customers want that their time should not waste after shopping,
number of cashiers should be increased, and waiting process management should be made
good.

 We never understand the pricing strategy of RELIANCE SMART.

 Product assortment is not good.

 Arrangement of products is systematic but, unavailability of the product in shelf, that’s we

face problem many times for selection of products.
 Most of the groceries products are not available in sufficient amount.

 Most of the time fruits & vegetables products are not available in the store on Daily basis.
 Most of the customers were not too happy with level of service.

 Products are not updated; new launched products are not available on shelf.
SUMMARY &
CONCLUSION
 RECOMMANDATION

To make recommendations to improve the competitive position of RELIANCE SMART with other
organized retail competitors in Ghaziabad.

 Adopting customer-oriented thinking:-

My first recommendation is to adopt customer-oriented thinking which requires the store to define
customer needs from the customer’s point of view because “a customer is a person who brings us his
wants. It is our job to handle them profitably to him and to ourselves”.

RELIANCE SMART should try to adopt some strategies like- Focus on target market, customer
needs, integrated marketing.

 Focus on Target market-

We know that we cannot satisfy every need or demand but we can define our target market and try to
fill all the requirements of that market.

 Customer needs-

RELIANCE SMART should take customer oriented thinking which requires giving chance to
customer to think and state about his or her need. Store can respond to customer’s requests by giving
customers what they want, or what they need. Store should try to convert somewhat satisfied
customer into very satisfied customers.

RELIANCE SMART can do this thing if:

 Any product or service should match customer’s expectations.

 Store must stay in touch with customers after the sale to ensure that they are satisfied and
remain satisfied.
  Integrated marketing-

The Stores success depends not only on how well each department performs its work but also on how
well the various departmental activities are coordinated. For instance- HR department should hire
good and educated sales persons and training department should train them perfectly time to time.

 More Emphasize on Sales assistance:-

RELIANCE SMART should give more emphasize on the training of sales force available at the stores
with the information of new products and schemes, so that they are fully equipped with the
information and schemes related to the product, hence they can improve in their working skills.

 The need for customer retention:-

Losing profitable customers can dramatically impact stores profits. The cost of attracting a new
customer is estimated to be five times of the cost of keeping a current customer happy.

 Adding Financial Benefits:-

Store should offer some financial benefits to the customer.

They are: Through “frequency marketing programs (FMPs), we can provide rewards to customers
who buy frequently and/or in substantial amounts.

Store can offer “price club cards” to its customers that provide member customers with unadvertised
discounts on particular items.
 LIMITATIONS

Certain Limitations do creep in a research study due to constraints of the time, money
and human efforts, the present study is also not free from certain limitation, which
were unavoidable.

Although all effort was taken to make the result of the work as accurate as possible as
survey, but the survey has following constraints.

 The research was conducted only in one outlet of RELIANCE SMART in Ghaziabad
city. So, the findings and suggestions may not be applicable to other cities.
 Due to very large size of the population, only a selected sample of customers could be
contacted; and hence they may not be the true representatives of the population.
 Due to fast pace of life, some customers were not able to do justification to the
questionnaire.
 The data was collected solely on the basis of information given by consumers selected
in the sample.
 Personal biases of the consumers might have come while answering the questionnaire.
 CONCLUSION

Undoubtedly, the retail sector is one of the key sectors in the Indian economy. The major contributive
part of retailing in the Indian economy would ensure the prosperity of the nation in terms of
employment creation and deployment of resource. However, the spread of organized retailing among
various countries varies depending upon the socio- economic factors related to the country. With the
changing demographic features and improvement in quality of life of urban India, the Indian retail
sector is witnessing a tremendous growth.

This study is mainly focused on the factors which generally influence the consumer whilst their
purchase at the organized retail sector. Apparently, the retail consumer attitudinal dimension forces
them to have diversified patterns at various buying spots. The situation makes the RELIANCE
SMART more vigilant about adopting consumer-friendly marketing strategies in terms of selling the
best quality products and services continuously to the consumers.

It seemed from the study that the customers are quite satisfied with RELIANCE SMART.
RELIANCE SMART a major shopping mall for today’s customers. It is a place where customers find
variety of products at a reasonable price. RELIANCE SMART has a good reputation of itself in the
market. It has positioned itself in the market as a discounted store. It holds a huge customer base. The
majority of customers belong to middle class family. The youth generation also likes shopping and
moving around RELIANCE SMART. Play most of the times at store.

So that Company can enhance its business or increase its sales by doing these things; provide better
customer service than its competitors, increase the variety of merchandise with deep assortment,
arrangement of product should be in proper way that creates good store image, provide membership
card to the customers. Company should also include more categories in the food section of the store,
provide parking space and employ knowledgeable sales staff.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Print Sources:-

Berman B and Evans J.R, (2008). Retail Management, 10th edition, published by Pearson
education, Inc.

Burlakanti & Romala srinivas, (2013). “The Most Influential Factors Of Consumers Buying pattern
At Organized And Unorganized Retail Stores With Special Reference to Kakinada City, Andhra
Pradesh” Indian Journal of Marketing, 62, pp. 14 – 23.

Carpenter and Moore, (2006). "Consumer Demographics, Store Attributes and Retail Formats Choice
in the US Grocery British Food Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 34, pp.434 – 452.

Dr. Rajkumar& Miss Priyanka, (2012). Service quality dimensions and behavioral intentions Of
RELIANCE SMART, 1,(4), pp. 42-43

Kishore, B. (2005). Who Will Execute The Great Indian Retail Dream? Image Retail, 1, pp. 14-22.
Smita V.G. (2012). “Factor influencing the Buying Behaviour of Organized Retail Consumers: A
study on Food and General Stores in Visakhapatnam.” Indian Journal of Marketing, 49, pp. 23 - 33.

Kumar, Thirunavukkarasu, (2011). An Empirical Study on Customer Contentment towards RELIANCE

SMART , PP 73-75
Louden D.L. & Bitta Delia (2010). Consumer behavior, 4th edition, published by Tata Mc. Graw hill.

Srivastava, R.K. (2008). "Changing retail scene in India”, International Journal of Retail & Distribution
Management, 36 (9), pp.714 –721.
Internet Web Page:-

A brief report on Retail Sector in India August 2012.

A T Kearney (2010). Global Retail Development Index (GRDI) 2010.

Equtitymaster.com http://www.dnb.co.in/IndianRetailIndustry/overview.asp
http://www.equestindia.com/eq/article_3.asp

http://www.imap.com/imap/media/article_documents/IMAP_Global_Re tail_Industry_Report
BEDF5F30C7201.pdf http://www.integraluniversity.ac.in/12052010/Kalyansundaram.pdf
http://www.plunkettresearch.com/retailing-stores-market- research/industry-and-business-data
 ANNXURE

Dear Sir/Madam,

I request you to please co-operate & fill the questionnaire to facilitate study on “A STUDY OF

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARD SERVICE QUALITY IN RETAIL

WITH REFERANCE TO RELIANCE SMART”

Your information will be kept confidential & will be used only for study purpose.

Name: _

Address (location):

Contact No: _

Q 1. What is Gender of respondent?

A. Male
B. Female

Q2.Please specifies your Age group;

A. Below 18
B. 18- 25
C. 25- 40
D. 40 - 50
E. Above 50
Q 3. Please specify your monthly household income?

A. Less than 10k

B.10k – 20k
C.20k – 30k
D.30k – 40k
E. More than 40k

Q4. What is your family size?

A. Bachelor
B. Newly Married
C. Married with Dependent Children
D. Married with Independent Children
E. Retired

Q5. What is your occupation?

A. Business
B. Service
C. Professional
D. House Wife
E. Retired

Q6. How often you visit to RELIANCE SMART?

A. Only for important product

B. Once a week
C. One a mouth
D. Weekends
E. It’s my first time
Q7. What is your purpose to visit RELIANCE SMART?

A. To Purchase
B. Just to Visit
C. To know about new offers
D. To know about new product
E. If good offer found then, Purchase

Q 8. Are you aware of promotional offers at RELIANCE SMART?

A. Yes
B. No

Q9. Which is the preferable of your product choice?

A. Fruits & Vegetables

B. Groceries
C. Both
D. None
E. Others ( please specify)

Q10. How do you get to know about RELIANCE SMART?

A. Hoarding

B. Pamphlets

C. SMS

D. Word of mouth
E. Others (Please specify)

Q11. The Promotional offers at RELIANCE SMART are attractive and induce you to make a
purchase?

A. Strongly Agree
B. Agree
C. Neither Agree nor Disagree
D. Disagree
E. Strongly Disagree

Q12. What improvement do you want from RELIANCE SMART?

A. Value added Service

B. Fast Billing

C. Provision of Polythene

D. Maintenance of hygiene

E. Others (please specify)

Q. 13 Do you have any specific complaint or suggestion then please specify.