INTRODUCTION

Marketing is the communication between a company and the consumer

audience that aims to increase the value of the company or its
merchandise, or to raise the profile of the company and its products in
the public mind. The purpose of marketing is to induce behavioral
change in the receptive audience.
According to The American Marketing Association marketing is the
activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating,
delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers,
clients and society at large.
According to David Packard, marketing is too important to be left
alone to marketing department

MARKETING MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHIES

Production orientation
Sales orientation
Market orientation
Societal marketing orientation

RELIANCE
FRESH

BACKGROUND OF THE
COMPANY
Reliance Fresh is the convenience store format which forms part of the
retail business of Reliance Industries of India which is headed by
Mukesh Ambani. Reliance plans to invest in excess of Rs 25000 crores
in the next 4 years in their retail division. The company already has in
excess of 560 reliance fresh outlets across the country. These stores sell
fresh fruits and vegetables, staples, groceries, fresh juice bars and dairy
products.
A typical Reliance Fresh store is approximately 3000-4000 square. Feet
and caters to a catchment area of 2-3 km.
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
Fresh 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. Though
Reliance Fresh 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 Fresh store opened in Hyderabad last October,
not only did the company said the store's main focus would be fresh
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.

Year Established: Reliance Fresh was founded in 2006.

Store Locations: Reliance Retail runs about 1,200 stores across
Multiple formats in 86 cities covering six million sq. ft. Reliance Fresh
Constitutes the mainstay of Reliance Retails business and accounts
For 50% of the 1,200 stores.
Average Store Size: A typical Reliance Fresh stores is of
3,000-4,000 sq ft.
Type of Store: Convenience store format
Position within the Market: Reliance Fresh is positioned as a
Neighborhood store located in within residential areas. It aims to
Provide customers with a variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, and staple
Foods and other products within a convenience store format. Reliance
Fresh aggressively partnered farmers by following a farm-to-folk
Strategy to ensure fresh fruits and vegetables at affordable prices.
Target Consumer: Reliance Fresh targets semi-urban population largely
in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities of India

STORES AND PRODUCTS

Product Categories: Retail outlets offer both food and non-food

Item. Food Items includes vegetables, fruits, food, beverages,
Groceries, and dairy products, refrigerated products. Non-food items
Mainly small catering items.
Pricing Strategy: Reliance Fresh operates on low cost model and
Offers discounted pricing. Sourcing directly from manufactures and
Bulk purchasing provides the company with a price advantage. Thus,
Offering value pricing.
Company Brands & Private Labels Sold: The Company has private
Labels for food, dairy products, beverages and groceries.
Reliance has consciously segregated its vegetarian and no vegetarian
Items by having a separate brand Delight for the
Non-vegetarians with a separate distribution center, as a means to
Cater to vegetarians. Seeing huge opportunities, they have introduced
Many of their own brands.
Key Marketing Tools & Promotions:
Promotional pricing strategy
Holistic advertisement promoting the entire brand
Newspaper advertising
Loyalty schemes through membership cards.

RELIANCE FRESH MARKETING

MIX

Price
Product
Place
Promotion
People
Physical evidence
Processes

PRICE:
Pricing includes the list price, the discount functions available, the
financing options available etc. It should also take into the consideration
the probable reaction from the competitor to the pricing strategy. This is
the most important part of the marketing mix as this is the only part
which generates revenue. All the other three are expenses incurred. The
price must take into consideration the appropriate demand-supply
equation. Reliance fresh came up with a very catchy punch line "Growth
through Value Creation". This was to attract the middle and lower class
consumers and the effect can clearly be seen in the consumer base
Reliance fresh has now. There is even weekend promotions which
basically takes place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mainly on
chocolates. The Wednesday promotion is for fruits and vegetables.

PRODUCT:
Product is the physical product or service offered to the consumer.
Product includes certain aspects such as packaging, guarantee, looks etc.
This includes both the tangible and the non-tangible aspects of the
product and service.
Reliance fresh has intentionally kept its product depth and product width
limited. Reliance Fresh studied the behavior of the Indian customer and
provided a totally different menu as compared to its International
offering. India is the only country where reliance Fresh serve vegetarian.
Even the sauces and cheese used in India are 100% vegetarian.

PLACE:
The place mainly consists of the distribution channels. It is important so
that the product is available to the customer at the right place, at the right
time and in the right quantity. Nearly 50% of U.S.A is within a 3 minute
drive from a Reliance Fresh outlet. There is a certain degree of fun and
happiness that a customer feels each time he dines at. There are certain
value propositions that reliance fresh offer to its customers based on
their needs. Reliance fresh offers hygienic environment, good ambience
and great service. Now Reliance Fresh have also started giving internet
facility at their centers and they have been playing music through radio
instead of the normal music. There are certain dedicated areas for
children where they can play while their parents can have some quality
time together.

PROMOTION:
The various promotion channels being used Reliance fresh to effectively
communicate the product information are given above. A clear
understanding of the customer value helps decide whether the cost of
promotion is worth spending.
There are three main objectives of advertising for Reliance fresh are to
make people aware of an item, feel positive about it and remember it.
The right message has to be communicated to the right audience through
the right media. Reliance fresh does its promotion through television,
hoardings and bus shelters. They use print ads and the television
programs are also an important marketing medium for promotion.

PEOPLE:
Reliance fresh understands the value of both its employees and its
customers. It understands the fact that a happy employee can serve well
and result in a happy customer. Reliance fresh continuously does
Internal Marketing. This is important as it must precede external
marketing. This includes hiring, training and motivating able employees.
This way they serve customers well and the final result is a happy
customer. The level of importance has changed to be in the following
order (the more important people are at the top):
1. Customers
2. Front line employees
3. Middle level managers

4. Front line managers

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE:
Actual Experiferal evidence
-A good time entry.
-Sign boards.
-Essential eminence of service.
-Good parking place

PROCESSES:
Process Exist are complex on railways like some processes are:
-refund process / claim process.
-Communication process.
-Entraining/Detraining Process.

ANALYSIS
REQUIREMENTS AND EXPECTATIONS:
Customers Experience after visiting the store can be said to be not much
satisfactory. After this entire buzz it seemed to be a damp squib to me.
1. Choice and Range. Reliance Retail is primarily a super market store.
So, one expects a wide range of goods available across various
categories, brands and price ranges. Hardly there is any range available.
Not even, any categories of goods. Just one or two we can easily live
without.
2. Super Markets like Nilgiris, Trinethra (recently bought by Birlas),
Subhikhsa, and Modern Market especially the last one has a superb
range and Reliance Fresh is nowhere in comparison to them.
3. The Ambiance in the shop is good, but as I said nothing much
different from the other super market chains.
4. the staff is cordial and friendly very much eagerly looking forward
to help. After I made the payment, the staff greeting me by saying a
Namaste. This I liked a lot. Especially after horrible experiences of
visiting shops in Kolkata. I do not know why but shop keepers in Salt
Lake have this tendency of looking at you as if why do these customers
keep bothering us, when u visits them.
5. they accept card payment even for payments less than a hundred
rupees.
6. they have this membership card option with a free insurance thrown
in, just to ensure that you show loyalty to them.
As they go through the reviews by the members, they observe that the
same points they have quoted above are bothering them too. Some more
reading, browsing and research made me understand some of the aspects
related to it, which I want to share with you.

1. Customer is the last person in the minds of these supermarket

chains. Though it might be surprising, that's the fact straightly put. What
matters the most is the number. The more the number of stores opened,
the more is the number of people visiting them, the more the chances of
success.
2. The commission they get for selling a product. They are least bothered
about providing a range of goods and brands to the Customer. In
contrary, the companies that pay them the highest commission get to sell
their goods from them. When they have the numbers, companies cannot
afford to ignore them courtesy, the large number of customers visiting
them. But why are the Customers visiting them, when they are not
getting what they want?
3. the feel good factor. The goods we buy here can be easily bought at
any other grocery store round the corner. Then why do we flock to them?
Just because, we feel good. We feel happy becoming a part of another
India, which looks great much unlike the India we have grown in. We
love the ambience. We like being greeted.
4. by making a right balance between the numbers and the feel good
factor, they achieve their targets sometimes much beyond the
expectations they have set.

QUALITY CONTROL:
Quality means watching the services from customer prospective. The
main quality concern of Reliance Fresh is:

To provide hygienic condition inside the stores.

Avoiding as much as possible the delay in the schedule.
Freshness is also one of the concern for Reliance fresh.
Improving the infrastructure to world class level of standards.

ARRANGEMENT AND AVAILABILITY:

The products are arranged on POG basis in end cap which is 4ft
height at maximum, floor stack which is less than 4ft and power
wings. This help in the goods to be in eye sight focuses of the
customers.
They even involve in impulse buy which is near the billing
counter for instant purchases.
The goods are evaluated on 2 basis- LIFO and FIFO depending on
the nature of goods.
The goods are arranged on weekly basis and it is done by
DISTRIBUTION CENTRE. The remaining stock are transferred to
BOH. The excess stock are stacked at top rack.
They arranged the products according to the choices and needs of
the customers and perishable commodities like vegetables, fruits
etc. are rearranged on the weekly basis which avoids the goods to
get spoiled.
Every shelf has unique id according to that the goods are being
arranged so it indicates it is very systematic.
The files like F&V Dump, SUP office file etc. are maintained
which proves that they work very lawfully and systematically. The
main motto of them are customer satisfaction.
Legal notices like prevention of sexual harassment, abstract under
payment of gratuity act, trade license etc. are maintained which
shows it is very legal in every aspects.