THANKING THE CUSTOMER - THE NEW YEAR SALE AT VIVEKS

B C Kishore, Associate Vice President, Viveks, on their innovative New Year scheme and the Consumer Durable market in Chennai.

This year's New Year sale will be Vivek's 25th New Year sale - the silver jublee sale. The sale was started in 1977. No commercial motives are attached to the sale. It is purely customer-oriented. Our founder, Kodandaraman wanted to show his gratitude to the customer and chose the New Year for that. Whenever the customer buys a product, he leaves behind a profit margin for us. The Customer is the source of our existence. It was this, which prompted us to start the New Year sale. On that day, the customer can buy any product at Viveks, at the cost price.

We started off with some really crazy schemes. On the 10th year of the sale, in 1986, we gave free gifts with every purchase, a rather unique scheme at that time. On the 20th year of the sale we gave prizes worth Rs 20 lakh, which included Maruti Cars, gold and silver jewellery and even a free trip to Singapore. In 1999, we offered free housing for a lucky winner, leaving the choice of the premises and location to the customer. The winner happened to be from Madurai and we accepted his choice to build a house in Madurai.

The total volume of sales done in each New Year sale at Viveks...

The turnover was approximately 1 to 1.5 crore initially. It was Rs 18 crore last year. This year we expect it to touch Rs 20 crore. The entire group makes a business of Rs 40-45 crore on that day.

We have a work force of nearly 700 people in Chennai alone. And nearly 1,046 suppliers in the city.

It is 1,000 customers per day. On the New Year it touches nearly 40,000.

Obviously New Year. And Diwali comes next.

There is tremendous potential for the retail Consumer Durable market in Chennai. Business has been low for the past few months. We still have no clue as to why they did not buy. Actually, the market projections for Diwali were bleak - a nearly 20-30% dip in sales. But we still managed to sell better, contrary to the market trends. We expect the New Year sale to be better.

The New Year sale that we kick-started in the Consumer Durable market has spread to other businesses in Chennai. Textiles and Jewellery have joined the fray. I came across an interesting sight this New Year. A bindi seller on the pavement had put up a New Year sale! That speaks volumes about the popularity of the New Year sale, which we started.

I think it happened by accident. Viveks was here. Nilgiris also had a strong presence. RPG decided to go retailing in a big way as they had Spencer with them. Naturally, Globus and Lifestyle also joined the race. That's how it has been.

Middle and the upper middle class.

Most sought after products in Chennai this year?

It has been Television, Refrigerators and Washing machines. Of late, Music systems are catching up. Mobile phones and IT related items are also picking up.

As for household appliances, women go around to do some window-shopping, but the decision-maker still is the head of the family. As for entertainment related products, the younger ones in the family decide a lot.

Quite a lot of celebrities shop here. Cricketer Srikkanth shops here. Kamal Hassan buys from us (though he does not come here personally to shop).

We propose to open a branch at Anna Salai (Mount Road) and one in Coimbatore in February. Probably Bangalore will also have one more outlet.

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