A MARKETING MANAGEMENT PROJECT

ON

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 DECLARATION

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

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

 We are also grateful to Dr. Bhavesh Vanpariyafor assisting and guiding us

throughout the project.

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Sr no. Title Page no.
1 INTRODUCTION OF COMPANY 4
2 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO 10
3 COMPANY ORIENTATION TOWARDS 11
MARKET PLACE
4 ANALYZING THE 16
MACROENVIRONMENT
5 CUSTOMER PERCEIVED VALUE 19
6 ANALYZING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR 22
7 BASES FOR MARKET 24
SEGMENTATION

8 FIVE PATTERNS OF TARGET 29

MARKET SELECTION

9 BRAND ELEMENTS 30
10 PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE 34

11 PRODUCT STRATEGIES 40
12 PRICING STRATEGIES 52

13 DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIES 54
14 PROMOTION MIX 56
15 PACKAGING AND LABELING 57

16 VIDEO ADVERTISEMENTS OF FUTURE 59

GROUP
17 REFERENCES 60

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 INTRODUCTION OF COMPANY
Future Group is India’s largest retailer and one of the leading business houses with a strong
presence in retail. Its founder and Group CEO is Mr. Kishore Biyani.

Future Group India was established in 1994 with a vision to provide diverse services in Indian
and Global markets. The business areas of Future Group cover BPO (Business Process
Outsourcing), New Media, Security Management, and Construction. Through their strategic
investment and services, the future of Future Group shows a rising star in the business sky of
India.

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

Lines of Business

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

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

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

FUTURE RETAIL:
The retails businesses of Future Group in India are divided into three main categories:

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

Pantaloon Retail India Limited

The leading retail formats under this include:

Pantaloons Stores -lifestyle segments and fashion segment.

Big Bazaar - a uniquely Indian hypermarket chain

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

Joint Ventures with International Brands

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

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Indian Joint Venture Partners

Manipal Healthcare
Talwalkar's
Blue Foods
Liberty Shoes.

FUTURE CAPITAL HOLDINGS

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

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

BPO (BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING)

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

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 Language Services
Software Development
Content Engineering

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

Multimedia Production
Broadcasting
Publishing
Designing

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

Access Control Systems

Time Attendance Systems
CCTV
Alarm Management Systems

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

Leasing
Landscaping

SUPPLY CHAIN

Future Supply Chain Solutions Limited (FSCS), a specialized subsidiary, offers strategic, focused
and consolidated approach to meet the group‟s large supply chain requirements as well as those of
select supply and business partners.

The Future Supply Chain Solutions team currently oversees the operations of an existing fleet of
over 600 dedicated trucks, contracted from established regional and national transport carriers,
most of which are now equipped with GPS sets.

In addition, it provides integrated end-to-end SCM, warehousing and distribution, multi-modal

transportation and container freight station.

The total consolidated warehouse space that the company intends to have operational by 2010-11
is nearly 7.50 million square feet.

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 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO OF FUTURE GROUP

As mentioned in the introduction of the company, Future Group‟s core business activity is
retail, along with BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), New Media, Security Management, and
Construction. So here below are the logos of their various brands.

Please see the IMPORTANT NOTEgiven below the brand images.

IMPORTANT NOTE:-From the various brands of the company we have

mainly focused on BIG BAZAAR in relating the marketing management
concepts.

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 COMPANY ORIENTATION TOWARDS MARKET PLACE

There are mainly five concepts related to company orientation towards market place which are:
1. The Production concept
2. The Product concept
3. The Selling concept
4. The Marketing concept
5. The Holistic marketing concept

 The concept which applies to Big Bazaar is The Selling concept.

The concept says that the consumer if left alone will not buy enough. This is true and Big
Bazaar applies this concept by displaying all the product of different brand and its private
brand on the shelves.so that the customer have a huge variety of products and can select the
best out of it and some schemes are also available which attracts the customer to buy more
and even purchase other product.

Their need to be aggressive communication with the customer. There is sales person at the
counter which helps the customer in finding out the best product for himself. Sometimes the
customer might be in confusion whether to buy a product or not, at that time the salesperson
tell them about the product and its requirement in their lives. After communicating all this
about the product the customer then finally makes a decision of making a purchase. So
aggressive communication is required with the customer.

This concept also says that their needs to be aggressive marketing of the product so that
buyer make a purchase.

The main purpose of this concept is to sell more and earn more.

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 This concept overall means that sell what you want to instead of what the customer want to
buy.

 Another concept which relates to Big Bazaar is The Marketing concept.

 The concept says that “Create the best and deliver the best” and Big Bazaar does the same
through their SACH brand. They try to create the best by the name of Sachin Tendulkar and
deliver the quality product.

 Next concept comes the “HOLISTIC MARKETING” which means

“Everything matters in this market”

Holistic Internal
Marketing

Marketing

 It is an approach to recognize the scope of Marketing Activities.

 These are the four major themes on which any companies' overall position can be judged.

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  This concept helps companies to have a complete approach towards their requirement.

 The integrated marketing includes all the following:

Product

Promotion Integrated Price

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

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 Performance marketing :-

Sales

Ethics

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

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  Relationship marketing :-

Channel

Relationship:- which includes maintaining relationship with the customers, employees,

partners and the channel.

 Internal marketing :-

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

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 ANALYZING THE MACROENVIRONMENT

 NEEDS and TRENDS

Successful companies recognize and respond profitably to needs and trends which could not be
carried out earlier.

 Enterprising individuals and companies manage to create new solutions to unmet needs.
Similarly, Big Bazaar identified the need for cheap and discounted products. They started the
operation with the tag line “Is se sasta aur accha kahin nahin” by providing best
products at best price.

We distinguish among fads, trends and megatrends.

A fad is unpredictable, short-lived, and without social, economic, and political significance.
A company can cash in on a fad, but this is more a matter of luck and good timing than
anything else. E.g. Beanie Babies.

A trend is a direction or sequence of events that has some momentum and durability. Trends
are more predictable and durable than fads. A trend reveals the shape of the future and
provides many opportunities. The percentage of people who value physical fitness and well-
being has risen steadily over the years, especially in the under-30 group, the young women and
upscale group.

Mega trendshave been described as large social, economic, political and technological
changes that are slow to form, and once in place, they influence us for some time between
seven and ten years, or longer.

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 From the above, study we would say that the concept of Mega Trends applies to Big Bazaar
as people of India are not used to Big Bazaar (Retail Model). It takes time to adopt it. People
are still buying the products from the open market in traditional way.

 Identifying the Major Forces

Companies and their suppliers, marketing intermediaries, customers, competitors, publics all
operate in a macro environment of forces and trends that shape opportunities and pose threats.
These forces are not controllable but the company must monitor and respond timely to these
forces. In the economic arena, companies and consumers are increasingly affected by global
forces.

The beginning of the new century brought a series of new challenge: the steep decline of the
stock market, which affected savings, investment, and retirement funds; increasing
unemployment; corporate scandals; and of course, the rise of terrorism. These dramatic events
were accompanied by the continuation of other, already-existing longer-term trends that have
profoundly influenced the global landscape.

Within the rapidly changing global picture, the firm must monitor six major forces:
demographic, economic, social-cultural, natural, technological, and political-legal.

 Technological:

 One of the most dramatic forces shaping people‟s lives is technology. Technology has
released such wonders as penicillin, open-heart surgery, and the birth-control pill.

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 Big Bazaar planning and design used advance technologies like scenario- planning and story-
telling. These techniques were mainly used for store- design layout, store-location selection.
The strategy to use user-focused, prototype-based development tool made the brand adapt to
the fast- changing external environment.

 Social Cultural:

Society shapes our beliefs, values, and norms. People absorb, almost unconsciously, a
worldview that defines their relationship to themselves, to others, to organizations, to society, to
nature, and to the universe.

Similarly, Big Bazaar launched a campaign Des Badla Ab Vesh Badlo (nation is changing, so
change the way you dress), Sone ki Chidiya two years ago. It also follows consumer
segmentation according to social- cultural factors. It also promotes environment friendly carry
bags with easy to dispose. It also undertakes various activities for the welfare of the society
popularly known as corporate social responsibility.

 Political-Legal:

Marketing decisions are strongly affected by developments in the political and legal
environment. This environment is composed of laws, government agencies, and pressure
groups that influence and limit various organizations and individuals. Sometimes these lows
are creating new opportunities for business.
Big bazaar is following various laws like labour law and consumer law. It also regulates
various safety measures in the store.
Big bazaar is also following various government policies, tax policies with regularly paying
tax and filling return.

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 CUSTOMER PERCEIVED VALUE

Consumers are more educated and informed than ever, and they have the tools to verify
companies‟ claims and seek out superior alternatives.

How then do customers ultimately make choices? they tend to be value maximizers, within the
bounds of search costs and limited knowledge, mobility and incomes. Customers estimate which
offer will deliver the most perceived value and act on it. Whether the offer lives up to the
expectations affects customer satisfaction and the probability that the customer will purchase the
products again.

Customer-perceived value is the difference between the prospective customer’s evaluation

of all the benefits and all the costs of an offering and the perceived alternatives.

Total customer benefits are the perceived monetary value of the bundle of economic,
functional and psychological benefits customers expect form a given market offering because of
the products, services, personnel and image involved.

Total customer cost is the perceived bundle of costs customers expect to incur in
evaluating, obtaining, using and disposing of the given market offering, including monetary,
time, energy and psychological costs.

CONSUMER INSIGHT AND PERCEPTION

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

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

India One

Consuming class, constitute only 14% of Indian Population

They are upper middle class and most of customers have substantial disposable income
Initial focus of Big Bazaar

India Two

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

India Three

Struggling class, remaining population of India.

Cannot afford to inspire for better living, have hand-to-mouth existence.
Needs cannot be addressed by current business models

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

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

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

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 ANALYZING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Consumer behavior is the study of how individuals, groups and organizations select,
buy, use, and dispose of goods, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy their needs
and wants.

A consumer’s buying behavior is influenced by cultural, social, and personal factors.

Cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influence.

 Factors affecting consumer behavior :-

 Cultural factors:
Culture, subculture and social class are particularly important influences on
consumer buying behavior.
In the case of big bazaar, the frequency of visits by the customer and the kind of
products they buy influence their buying behavior pattern.
The cultural values of the customer also influence their visit to buy the required
products at the big bazaar.

 Social factors:
Social factors such as reference groups, family and social roles, statuses affect
our buying behavior.
Reference groups involve family, friends and neighbors.
Customers of big bazaar might influence others persons of their reference groups
to buy products from big bazaar.
Social status of the people influences their buying behavior.
For example, high class people go to big bazaar for shopping.

 Personal factors :
Age and stage in the life cycle are the personal factors which influence customer
buying behaviour.

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 Children will buy different products from big bazaar according to their choice and middle-
aged persons and old-aged persons buy different products.
So the products for all the groups of the family are available at big bazaar, this influence their
buying behavior.
Lifestyles of the people also influence buying
Some people are uneasy to go to the small kirana shop for their shopping.

 Buying Behaviour process :-

Big Bazaar set set

V-mart Big Bazaar Big Bazaar
Reliance V-mart Reliance Decision
super Reliance Super Big Bazaar
Star Bazaar Super V-mart Reliance
Local Star Bazaar Super
department
al store

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

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 BASES FOR MARKET SEGMENTATION

1. GEOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION: - In this segmentation company calls for division

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

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 Rural area

Now in urban area big bazaar is there so that people can get all things in one place by
saving their precious time and by giving attractive discount on so much durable and non-
durable goods plus they are offering service also.

These two segmentations are related with future group so that they can target mass of people
easily.

2. DEMOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION: -Big bazaar has done full segmentation on

demographic bases they are as follows: -
 Age
 Family size
 Gender
 Income
 Occupation

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 EXPLANATION: -

 Age: -
Big bazzar has targeted there customer age wise for kids like they have different section
for kids toys, shoes, garments etc. For teenagers they have different section they have café
shops in big bazzar malls so they that can refresh them self by doing shopping. For house
wife they give different discount or they have different type days like sabse sastein 4 din
or 5 din maha bachat. In this way they segmented it age wise.

 Family size:- big bazaar also consider family size in its segmentation they provide all
quantity of product there were 10 kgs bags are also available and 5 kgs 1kgs bags are also
available so that neutral family can also fulfill their need and joint family people will also
satisfied there need and if customer want more quantity then they also give different
discount our they give buy one get one free offer to them.

 Gender: - big bazaar fulfill the need of both gender they get things whatever they need
whether they are male or female they had also celebrate some special days for male and
female that is “sabse chikna kaun campaign, “ detergent mela”, “ India beverage league”, “
dal chawl mela” etc.

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

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  Occupation: - big bazaar specifically targets working women and home makers
who are the primary decision makers. The large and growing young working
population is a preferred customer segment. So that they get convenience goods for them
easily and at one place.

3. Psychographic: -

 Lifestyle: - big bazaar enrich the life style of the people they can fulfill needs of
whole life in less price by getting different discounts nd skims for them and they fell
their status has also been increase by doing shopping in mall.
4.Behavioral: -

 Occasions
 User status

 EXPLANATION: -
 Occasions:- big bazaar celebrates days and give special offer for the customer like on
every last week of the year the clear there stock or they give special winter or summer offer
for their customer to buy more and spend less.

 User status: - there were some user status who came to big bazaar for first time and
there were some people who go many time big bazaar. Like they go every weekend or some
go in one month.

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 FIVE PATTERNS OF TARGET MARKET SELECTION

 Single segment concentration

 Selective specialization
 Product specialization
 Market specialization
 Full market coverage

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

 Full Market Coverage:-

M1 M2 M3

Age

Gender

Income

 Market Specialization:-

M1 M2 M3

Retail

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

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 BRAND ELEMENTS

 Meaning of Brand:-

 “A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or design or combination of them, intended to identify
the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of
competitors”.

 A brand is a product which has earned a place in consumer‟s life through perception,
experience and beliefs .It is the sum of how consumers feel about a product.

 Brand Elements:-

 Brand elements are those trademark devices that identify and

differentiate the brand.
 Brand elements are mainly brand name, slogan, character, symbols, URL, person and
logos.
 Our company “FUTURE GROUP” consists of the following brand
elements which differentiate it from others.

1. Brand Slogan: „India Tomorrow‟ and „Udna hai aj, abhi‟ of Future Group and „Is se sasta
aur accha kahin nahi!, of Big bazaar.

2. Character: Future group, Big Bazaar

3. Logo: Bird

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

 There are some private brands of future group which includes FUTURE GROUP‟s tie up
with Sachin Tendulkar for the brand “SACH” and some of its private brands.

 Future Group has successfully launched a series of private brands ranging in foods with
Tasty Treat, Home and personal care range with Clean mate& Care mate, staples with
Fresh & Pure and Premium Harvest, and Sach isa big leap forthe company in the direction
building its private brands portfolio through its association with an iconic figure like
Sachin Tendulkar, will be setting the tone based on Sachin‟s values and mass appeal.

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

 Future group also have tie up with other companies which are as follows:

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33
 PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE

 A company’s positioning and differentiation strategy must change as the product, market and
competitors change over the Product life cycle (PLC).

 Product life cycle is made up of four things:

1) Products have a limited life.
2) Product sales pass through distinct stages, each posing different
challenges, opportunities and problems to the seller.
3) Profit rise and fall at different stages of the product life cycle.
4) Products require different marketing, financing, manufacturing,
purchasing and human resource strategies in each life-cycle stage.

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

1. INTRODUCTION STAGE: -

 The seller tries to stimulate demand regarding his product.

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

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

2. GROWTH STAGE: -

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

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  At the end of the growth stage, profits start to decline because when competition arises
seller spends more money on promotion to keep sales going.
 Spending money on promotion cuts into your profit. As a competitor product comes in
the market it’s important to keep our product sales go and for that promotion of it
becomes important which ultimately cuts our profit.
 Large company may acquire small pioneering firms.
 Gaining wide distribution is a key goal. At this stage it is important that our product
is available at every place, so that our consumer don’t find any difficulty in getting
it.
 At this stage the product achieves sales volume which create economies of scale.

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

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

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 The above is the chart showing the four stages of product life cycle. Big Bazaar comes under
the RETAIL head of Future Group and it is at the maturity stage. The following points can be
considered: -

1. Big Bazaar keeps many offers to attract its potential customer like “Buy one, get one free”,
„Best deals ‟ and sabse saste 3 din‟.

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

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3. There’s an increased competition of big bazaar with its competitors.

4. Big bazaar after coming at this stage want to stabilize it profit without making any losses.

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 PRODUCT STRATEGIES

 Product Levels: customer value Hierarchy

 Product is not only an offering but it is something beyond that. Is something which can
satisfy the wants and need, which includes special services or goods, events, persons, etc.

 Product Levels are categorized in five levels which any marketer has to follow which adds
more value to customers and these five create customer value hierarchy.

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

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 Basic Product is the job of marketer to convert core benefit into basic requirement.
Providing any service or product with more facility is the role of basic product.

 The third level is Expected Product. Wherein marketer is serving the product with those
particular conditions & expectations which customer have when they buy any product.

 At the fourth level stands Augmented Product. It is that level where it exceeds all the
expectations of the customers. On this level tough competition starts and the main focus
of marketers is to survive in this competition and give their product a position in the
market.

 The fifth level is Potential Product. This stage is where a product exceeds even augmentation.
It transforms the product in the future in such a way that customer had never expected or even
thought of it. Potential Product is a stage where companies have to continuously find
something new for the customers to be served so as to satisfy them. In the above mentioned
chart we have not shown potential product as still many companies are trying to reach this
level. Future Group‟s Big Bazaar is on the fourth level. Let us see in more detail:-

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 Providing

 Here we can see that the first level core benefit of Big Bazaar is to provide daily needs of the
people at one place. As we know that Big Bazaar is very wide and has all products like
food items, perishable products, clothing, apparels etc.

 Second is Basic Product wherein Big Bazaar tries to serve all these with wide range of
options to choose. For e.g. If a customer wants to buy a shampoo, in Big Bazaar they will
have lots of choices of all the brands like Head & Shoulders, Pantene, dove etc…
Customer here gets wide range of any product what they want to buy.

 The third is Expected Product. Here the customer expects discounts, allowances,
additional benefits as they think that this is such a big place wherein all the products are
available, so some discounts can be offered to them. For e.g. If a customer purchases many
items of his home needs

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 and personal needs, then they will expect to get some discounts and off on some products.

 Fourth is Augmented Product. Here Big Bazaar is on the level of serving the Augmented
Product. As we know something which exceeds customer expectations that is known as
Augmented Product. Here Big Bazaar give the facility of home delivery to the customers at
their convenient time at their home. This is something which customers of Big Bazaar had
never expected. And they are very well satisfied with this service provided to them.

 And now Potential Product, which is not shown in that diagram because still Big Bazaar
has not yet reached that level of exceeding the Augmented service provided by them to
their customers. In future they can undergo some more transformations of their products
and services and then it can reach the fifth level.

 There many companies including Big Bazaar who are trying to find something new for
the customers. Potential Product is something very different from what they provide.
Companies are still between Expected & Augmented product level. As any company
including Big Bazaar reaches the Augmented Level that is very soon accepted by the
customers and they start expecting to get this service for the lifetime and thus this
augmented product turned into expected product. Thus, again they have to search for new
Augmented product to be served to the customers which exceed their expectation.

 On this level continuous competitions are to be faced by the marketers to sell their product
and maintain their position in the market. Also, they have to maintain trust and
expectations of their customers. They cannot afford to lose their customers on this level.

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 Product Classifications

 Marketers have classified the product into different categories: -

Product

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

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 Durability

Tangibility

Durable Service

 Nondurable Goods: These are tangible goods and are consumed in one or few uses, for e.g.
Soft Drinks, Juices, Soaps, Shampoos, Milk etc.
 These goods are purchased more frequently and therefore marketers decide to make them
available in lots of quantity and with lots of options available to customers. This helps
customers to choose from wide range available.
 Durable: - These also are tangible and survive for many uses. Like Refrigerator, tools,
clothing etc.
 Services: - These are intangible.
 Big Bazaar provides all the kind of products durable and non-durable. Food items,
perishable products, clothing, apparel etc.
 Then use of goods that is consumer or industrial. Big Bazaar provides goods which are
Consumer goods. Convenience goods are purchased more frequently by customers as it
takes minimum effort to buy. Also, it provides shopping goods which customers buy after
comparing the price, quality, style. Then comes unsought goods which customer knows
about but they don’t think much of buying those kinds of goods. For e.g. Life Insurance.

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 Product Mix

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

Product Mix

Length Width Depth

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

Width of

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

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

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

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 Length of Finance: -

Finance
Future
Future Future
Capital
Generali Venture.
Holdings

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

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 Length of Services: -

Logistics & Learning &

Media
supply Development

Brands Telephony

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

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

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

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 PRICING STRATEGIES

 PRICE MIX: -
 Value pricing
 Psychological pricing
 Loss leader

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

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

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

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 DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIES

 The producer and the final customer are part of every channel. We will use the number of
intermediary levels to designate the length of a channel. Figure illustrates several consumer-
goods marketing channels of different lengths.

 A zero-level channel (also called a direct-marketing channel) consists of a manufacturer

selling directly to the final customer through Internet selling, door-to-door sales, home parties,
mail order, telemarketing, TV selling, manufacturer-owned stores, and other methods.

A one-level channel contains one selling intermediary, such as a retailer.

 A two-level channel contains two intermediaries; a three-level channel contains three

intermediaries. From the producer’s point of view, obtaining information about end users and
exercising control becomes more difficult as the number of channel levels increases.

Big Bazaar is following one level distribution channel in which it performs role of retailer and
purchase goods directly from producer and then sell it to the customer. Distribution channel is
one of the reasons why Big Bazaar is able to sell product at lower cost. The chart given
below shows the following: -

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55
 PROMOTION MIX

 Promotion Mix is a system wherein different types of methods are followed to promote a
product and make it popular. Future Group also undertakes Promotion Mix for Big
Bazaar. There is thin line difference between Advertisement and Promotion. Let us see
each in detail: -

 For Advertisement Big Bazaar choose Television Ads, pamphlets, FM radio in metro
cities. They keep showing about new offers for the customers. Also, with the help of
Internet, Brochures & Direct Mail Big Bazaar try to attract their customers more and
more.

 The second is Promotion of the product. It has to be decided how to promote the product
in what ways and with different tools available. Big Bazaar choose to promote themselves
by providing its customers discount coupons, Membership Cards, on time Home
Delivery, cash refund offers, Price Packs, Gifts, Points redeem option to get more
discount, Organizing different contest, Product warranties. All these are opted by Big
Bazaar to promote themselves.

 Big Bazaar provides some or other scheme and offers for the customer every time one
after other to attract the customers and maintain their value with them.

 Promotion Mix plays a very important role for any company’s development. This helps to
establish themselves and maintain their position in the market.

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 PACKAGING AND LABELING

 PACKAGING: -

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

 LABELING: -

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

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Thank You

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