Shop in Shop THE Humble Best

Fundamentally in retail, there are four basic formats - the Multi-Brand Store, the Brand or the Exclusive Stores, the Experience Zones and the fourth format - the Shop in Shop. "The Shop in Shop is basically where a vendor takes a place on rent for a stipulated period of time which normally varies between 100-150 sq. ft. in a supermarket or a hypermarket for setting up a kiosk. The supermarket is basically a big cauldron of assortment like grocery, clothes, consumer electronics, and perhaps food court where people invariably drop in for their various day-to-day needs," says Parveen Sahni, Director - Retail, Canon India (P) Ltd. Thus, this proves to be an ace place to showcase any product to this huge number of onlookers who can be potential buyers. For IT offerings, normally the SiS works well for accessories. However, the major challenge in SiS is that they cannot display a range of products and cannot give experience which is inevitable for product category like imaging or printing.

Pros and Cons of Shop in Shop…

Shop in Shop has its own pluses and minuses. The plus point is that if a buyer is looking for a particular brand of accessories or peripheral products, it will be convenient for the customer to purchase as he can readily walk in with a trolley and buy from the kiosk he wants to buy. The negative point is that the customer cannot get an experience in real terms. Moreover, there is no guarantee of the kiosk. In case a kiosk of USB is not generating enough revenue, the lessor will rent it out to some other vendor on the termination of the contract. So, a kiosk of USB today can become a kiosk of shampoo tomorrow.  Thus, SiS for consumertronics or higher categories is not really popular.  

Significance of Shop in Shop for Vendors…

However, product categories like USBs find Shop in Shop very practical. As a part of its Shop in Shop strategy, SanDisk has created "Memory concept stores" to reinforce its presence in the Indian market. These "Memory Concept Stores" are present across prominent large format retail outlets in India and represent the entire range of SanDisk's portfolio. It brings a fresh new look to create a uniquely satisfying customer shopping experience. The consumers will be able to experience a wide variety of new products, ranging from USBs, imaging cards, to mobile memory cards. 

According to Manisha Sood, Country Manager & Director, SanDisk India and SAARC, "Shop in Shop serves as an effective tool to gain consumer mindshare by providing them unparalleled product experience. SanDisk will continue to build its retail presence in a growing number of key cities and urban centres and is leveraging the growth of the consumer electronics products such as digital cameras, computers and mobile phones. SanDisk's strategy is to work with key retailers and distributors to offer a broad range of SanDisk products. Presently, we have more than 1,000 city distributors and SanDisk products are available over 20,000 retail stores. With a robust channel network and specialized distribution, SanDisk is easily available to consumers across cities pan-India."

There are also product verticals like mobile phones which allow customers to reap utmost benefits in Shop in Shops. Faisal Siddiqui, Country Manager, HTC India, Asia, emphasizes, "We have started launching some shop in shops. We have created store in store retail outlets wherein we have partnership with the retail outlets. HTC will soon be present through shop in shop in major locations. We want to open stores where people want to buy things which also allows them to experience the phones and for that we have partnership with the top Retail outlets."

Finally…

For some product categories, retailers say that they don’t find standalone outlets cost effective   for their high rentals. Retailers admit that they face problems in running brand stores, particularly during a downturn. It is also difficult to generate enough footfalls in speciality formats. In such cases, Shop in Shop is a better alternative. Retailers have to shell out more rent per square feet in speciality formats than hypermarkets where they take comparatively large space and get cheaper average rates.