Retailers are facing tough competition and with it the focus is increasingly on prices, which have become one of the key decision making factors that brings in customers. To check on rival's prirces, retailers have taken to visiting rival stores to keep a tab on prices. Key items that prices are checked for on a regular basis include, essential commodities such as rice, dal, oil and sugar.
According to S Raghunandan, an independent retail consultant and former HyperCITY CEO, “Every retail chain would have people who scout around for prices and offers in other stores. The consumers often know of the best prices and retailers can’t afford to be more expensive than the other stores in the catchments.”
4 comments:
When I worked for Petco the managers would go across the street to Petsmart once a month to check out the prices.
Apparently the managers of both Petco and Petsmart had an understanding about it.
Organized retailers are quite realistic about it actually, since most have published promotional handouts listing all the prices. In local mom-and-pop (or kirana as they are called here) stores, shop owners are quite secretive about prices and special deals.
I use to work for a grocery store and my job was a pricing coordinator. It was my job to scope out other stores pricing and adjust ours.
As a manager at Kmart, I too knew of several smaller retailers who would visit us to check prices.
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