Big Bazaar's Retail Push, on Digital

 

It is very difficult to miss an Amazon or Flipkart ad during the time we spend online daily. But last week, I came across an ad that invited people to shop at a supermarket. 

And, to top it off, you had to pay INR 100 to be able to take part.

I am talking about Big Bazaar’s Free Shopping Weekend campaign. The offer upfront was simple, buy your coupon for INR 100 (redeemable against the bill), visit the store March 23-25, shop for INR 2000 and in return get your INR 2000 back* (*TnCA).

Kishore Biyani, the head of Future Group which owns Big Bazaar, has been vocally unfazed over the threat e-commerce players pose to retail and this campaign shows that traditional retail won't be a walkover (consumers win in the end anyway).

Here is why I think it is a great move to get customers out into your stores and keep them away from e-tailers (well, at least for some time). Also, for marketing professionals, there is a point or two to take away from this campaign.

According to the landing page claim, 192,637 bookings have been made. Conservatively assuming there would be 50% more bookings through walk-ins (thanks to in-store advertisements and OOH), we get 2,89,000 bookings.

Revenue generated through sale (again taking a conservative estimate that every bill made through this promotion would be only INR 2,000): INR 58 crore appx.

But wait, every event always has an approximate 10-15% dropout rate, let's take an upper estimate of 29,000 people not turning up (dropout rate calculated only on online booking). So that’s INR 29 lakhs of non-refundable booking in the kitty – which probably covers a good part of the digital budget, if not all.

Revised revenue through sale (2,60,000 bookings): INR 52 crore

Total revenue generated through this three-day campaign: INR 52.3 crore appx.

To put things in perspective, the six brands of Future Retail Limited (Big Bazaar, fbb, HomeTown, Foodhall, E Zone and EasyDay) collectively had a revenue of INR 4,704 crore in the first quarter of 2017.

Coming to the most important part of the promotion – the customer is entitled to get the INR 2,000 spent back.

Here’s how:

The INR 2,000 is given back to the customers as cashback and vouchers in different categories and with an expiry of five months.

Through this, Big Bazaar has ensured the customer will have to come back to their large-format stores again where the chances of spending are high viz. family shopping, festival shopping etc.

This campaign also gives the retailer a chance to woo in new customers, give them a better experience and ensure they visit again. It is established that supermarket and hypermarket chains are competing to build loyalty and give a better shopping experience!

Future Group did try this style of promotion with Brand Factory too last year (tickets for the sale were sold on PayTM). Looks like it has worked and the idea is being used for their other retail properties.