Ahead of Women’s Day on March 8, Spencer’s in Mahamayatala, Garia, has been unveiled in a new avatar as an allwomen store — run and led by an all-women staff. This is the only store in Kolkata which has rolled out this format as of now. Besides Kolkata, one of Spencer’s stores in Hyderabad is currently the only other store with this format. The Telegraph caught up with Shashwat Goenka, sector head, retail and FMCG, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, on this empowering move, retail trends in the last three years, upcoming plans and his favourite women leaders.
This is a unique concept...
We have never done this before, honestly, and were having this conversation with the senior leaders at Spencer’s and we have only one senior female leader if you look at the top 10-12 leaders. The discussion was 70 per cent of our consumers were female, so shouldn’t the boardroom reflect that? And, when we got to the crux of it, we realised that the problem starts at the junior-most level. If that’s not there, they don’t get that opportunity to grow and that’s how the concept started. We started this journey a year ago to employ a lot more women. Today, almost 25 per cent of our overall staff at Spencer’s are women. The end touchpoint, the consumer, is practically the lady of the household, at least physically in the stores, that’s the person who is shopping with us. So, we thought of looking at seeing if we can run stores completely with women-only staff, which includes right from the store manager to the guards, from the team leaders to the people who are doing the stocking and customer service, including riders who are doing the delivery.
Both the store managers are people who have been with us and have been promoted to store managers. We are hoping that over the years, this will reflect a change in the boardroom as well.
How excited are the teams?
They are very excited. It is a global phenomenon, women perform way better than men. So, they are like: ‘We’ll do even better numbers with these stores’. (Laughs)
How has retail changed in the last three years?
Retail has changed significantly. There was Covid and what happened with that is, from 99 per cent physical and one per cent digital, we went 100 per cent digital overnight during the lockdown, in the first couple of quarters of the pandemic when people were scared to step out. It stabilised thereafter at a 15 per cent omnichannel business and 85 per cent was back to physical, but what we have seen now is that people who moved to digital, have stayed with digital. Then we have seen a large chunk of people who have decided to come back, but only once or twice a month instead of as frequently as they did before and at other times they want to shop with you over the phone or the app or WhatsApp or website.
The fundamental shift in consumer behaviour is that they know no matter what happens, the food will find a way to get to them. It happened during Covid. They don’t feel the need to go to the store every couple of days to stock up. There are also quick commerce players that have come up.
One of the other shifts that we have seen is because there are so many avenues to shop from, people are not necessarily attracted towards discounts and offers only any more. Convenience has become a large part of their decision when to shop and where to shop.
Is the app more inclusive now?
About four weeks ago we launched a new version of the app where the UI UX is a lot more consumer-intuitive. So, the interface is a lot easier to use.... We have also expanded the range now. It’s only some of those products which are taste and feel-based that we cannot deliver through an app yet, we haven’t transitioned those yet.
The all-women’s team at Spencer’s in Mahamayatala
What are the changes in the product category?
We have made it a lot easier. Earlier, there was a generic category on the app and then inside that, there were 200 items that you had to scroll. We have broken that up further. Now, it’s easy for you to click and scroll. We have improved our search feature as well. Now you can search for the same product in the local language, Hindi and English. Earlier, you had to search for it exactly the way we spelt it.
So, is the focus more on digital now?
There is a lot of focus on digital, but there is an equal focus on the offline business as well, but it is omnichannel. We are looking at the consumer overall and a lot of them are interacting with us over multiple platforms.
When you look at the offline business, in retail overall, we have three formats. The Nature’s Basket format is an extreme gourmet format. We have got the regular Spencer’s Hypermarket format and then the Value Market format as well, which we don’t have in Kolkata yet. We have it in the South and parts of the North. Everything is six per cent off throughout. The range is limited relatively, but still larger than most other players.
What has been the shopping pattern like?
A category we have seen grow is the gourmet portfolio. This is a trend that started in Covid times when people started cooking at home. They want pizza and pasta kits. Earlier no one really bought them.... We have seen the adoption of what was earlier called gourmet fresh. Avocados at that point were an exotic item, now, it’s become a staple. That volume has gone up and we are seeing this across a series of products. Even in mushrooms, for example, earlier only button mushroom was a staple and everything else was exotic. We noticed that shift during Covid where people are wanting to purchase different kinds of mushrooms. Cherry tomatoes were the only other kind of tomatoes apart from regular tomatoes that we ever sold. During the pandemic, we introduced almost 18-20 different varieties. People want those different-coloured tomatoes with different levels of sweetness.
People are wanting to cook a lot more gourmet products at home. The other category that has really picked up for us is the whole category of tea and coffee and it’s not just basic green tea. People now want varieties of green and black tea. In coffee, there was instant coffee and whole beans. Now, there are varieties of whole and ground beans and coffee pods. Also, drip coffee and pour-over coffee... interesting concepts and people have taken to them. People are becoming a lot more nuanced.
On the staples side, gone are times of just sona masoori rice... people now want unpolished and organic varieties. Organic, of course, grew during Covid.
We heard you are revamping Spencer’s at Quest....
We will bring a whole new way of grocery shopping to the city which will be unique in the country as well. We’ll be ready in about three-four months. We are making it a lot more international with the imagery of the mall. We’ll be adding in a lot of experiences as well. It’ll be a holistic, gourmet retail concept.
What kind of international concepts are you getting to Spencer’s?
International chocolates and creating that whole confectionery range which we have already done over the last six months and we are continuously improving on that. There will be an entire baby and infant zone. New parents are the most time-strapped and it is much easier if they get everything in one section.
SHASHWAT’S TOP WOMEN LEADERS...
Indra Nooyi: She has definitely done a phenomenal job with Pepsi and even beyond that she has grown from strength to strength.
Hillary Clinton: She has done a great job in what she has done in her leadership space.
Priyanka Chopra: She has done a phenomenal job of putting India on the global map and more importantly, in a dignified manner.
Nita Ambani: A true inspiration, someone who leads by example, and excels in everything she does, whether it is sports, social empowerment, philanthropy or education. She is someone who pays great attention to detail and combines her vision with her passion for excellence and her compassion. She acquires in-depth knowledge of every subject she is involved with and masters it.
Anamika Khanna: She is someone who reinvents boundaries, she pushes boundaries; she is not only very creative but has a phenomenal business sense. I have seen her as one of my mother’s (Preeti Goenka) closest friends and all through her thought has inspired me.