The first-ever hypermarket in India was launched by Spencer’s. It is a pioneer in its own way. It was one of the earliest players to get into the online grocery delivery. Today, it boasts of more than a million trading areas spread across the country. It acquired Nature’s Basket in 2019 to offer gourmet food and a truly global experience to its customers and successfully did the strategic turnaround of the acquired business.

Within 1 year of acquisition, it became EBITDA positive in FY21 for the first time ever. It expanded Nature’s Basket from 3 cities to 5 cities and opened stores in South Point, DLF Saket, Punjabi Bagh in Delhi NCR, and Forum Mall and Park Street in Kolkata. The brand has also created a unique platform for the gifting needs of customers - ‘The Gift Studio‘ (TGS). The beauty of the TGS brand is that it offers the choice of building your own hamper from scratch, so one can create gifts as unique as their loved ones.

“We at Spencer’s make sure that our customers get everything they need at prices they like, at whatever time they wish, and wherever our stores are operational. We have a large bouquet of categories to serve our customers:

Unique Fresh Section: Spencer’s offers unique fish and meat, fruits and vegetables– giving the customers more reasons to come to our stores for their daily shopping needs.

Great Assortment of Goods: We offer food and non-food items to our customers. Food and FMCG category includes household needs, health & beauty, frozen dairy, processed foods, staples, and beverages, among others. The non-food category includes apparel, cleaning aid, disposable items, health & hygiene, linen, luggage, plasticware, metalware, and other general merchandise and electrical goods.

Differentiated and Unique Range of Products: We offer a product basket you are highly unlikely to find in other places because we have gone the extra mile sourcing them. Not just that, we delight our customers with a wide range of quality products. We have several private brands, such as 2Bme, Smart Choice, Healthy Alternatives, Hands-on, and Inscapes,” stated Devendra Chawla, CEO, Spencer’s Retail and CEO, Nature’s Basket.

The customer value proposition of the brand is clearly communicated through its vision statement ‘Makes Fine Living Affordable’. These words reflect the very purpose of the brand, and how it is dedicated to providing better shopping experiences by being more accessible to its customers.

“We create value for our customers through products and services. We are a multichannel and multi-format retailer that serves multiple shopping missions of the customers. Our assortment offerings are aligned to serve these multiple shopping missions of our customers through a unique, wide, and differentiated assortment. Our ‘Out-of-Store’ transformational initiatives are in line with our mission to be partner in multiple shopping missions of the customers,” he asserted. “We create a lasting impact by bringing ‘Joy of Shopping’ to customers. We invest heavily in technology to serve customers in a personalized way,” he further added.

OPTIONS GALORE

Apart from offering other brands, private brands as a segment is core to Spencer’s and through this, it comes up with new products at the right price points that bring a unique value proposition to customers. As a business, private brands contribute a substantial part of business and are liked by its customers.

“Spencer’s has been traditionally a very strong brand in the food category. Over the years of our legacy of being the oldest hypermarket in the country, we have deep insights into our customers - what they want, and how their preference changes. This helps us in expanding our assortment basis the expectations of our customers. We don’t stick ourselves with the lenses of food or non-food, we keep the consumer at the center and work on categories that make our consumers a winner. For us, being a companion of customers across their multiple shopping mission and basket needs is a central theme,” Chawla said.

Recently, Spencer’s has worked extensively to bring new products into the organic space and has also onboarded products of several new-age startup brands. All these actions are aligned with consumer preferences. “Pandemic has forced all of us to stop and think in a more meaningful way of what we are eating and what impacts it may have on us in a longer-term perspective. This is very much evident from the changing customer preferences and thus the changing shopping habits. The back of the pack has become more important and is the ‘New Front’. People do tend to go through the content of the products to know more about the products they are eating,” he asserted.

Spencer’s has seen significant traction in the health and hygiene category. Several new players have also entered this category and customers are also becoming more conscious about health and hygiene. The quest for organic products, hydroponics, and natural products is becoming mainstream. DIY categories in several segments especially personal grooming has seen significant adoption among consumers.

JOY OF SHOPPING

As a multi-channel and multiformat retailer, Spencer’s brings a unique proposition to its customers through a wide assortment including products in fresh, bakery, and gourmet foods to serve the overall basket needs of the customers. It is a neighborhood brand and it always strives to be present in the multiple shopping missions of its customers. It strongly believes that customer experience is the unique combination of product and service. It invests heavily in relationship building with customers through personal connections and also building backend technology to take personalization at scale.

“Whenever one thinks to shop at Spencer’s, one visualizes and relates not just with unique, wide and differentiated quality products, but also with a ‘Joy of Shopping’ which is so essential in the overall customer’s journey. We create a lasting impact through our focus on personalized connections with customers and making Spencer’s a great place to shop for customers,” Apart from this, the brand has also been recognized as a Great Place to Work three times in a row.

OMNICHANNEL: THE WAY FORWARD

Spencer’s believes that being true omnichannel is a way forward. In the catchments it is present in, it sees itself as a companion to customers in all their shopping missions and their basket needs.

“Omnichannel for us is not just about a digital channel but we have built a unique ‘Out of Store’ channel which enables customers to place an order through the app, webpage, Whatsapp, or even a telephone. Omnichannel for us is about engaging with customers in multiple ways they want to do. We have travelled a long journey in building ‘Phone par Delivery’ model for our customers but it has long miles to travel,” he explained. “Pre-pandemic, ‘Out of Store’ contribution in business used to be in early single digit and during lockdowns it touched almost 30 percent.

Even now when we are getting back to normal and footfalls are coming back to stores, Out of Store business is at 5-6 times the pre-pandemic level. We are more omnichannel than pre-pandemic,” he further added.

FUTURE PLANS

Spencer’s is optimistic about the demand in the market and believes that this will only get stronger in the coming times. It has been experiencing a strong rebound in footfalls across markets. Categories like apparel and travel needs are bouncing back strongly with the opening of offices, markets, schools, and travel. “We have recently opened multiple new stores and customers have been loving us for our service and product. We have a strong pipeline for new stores in different markets for this year and we are also ramping up our ‘Out Of Store’ channels in these catchments,” he concluded. 

READ MORE: Is Conversational Commerce The Future of Retail Business