Late in the evening when I take a drive to my home back, I suddenly take a diversion to a store to buy a few things and when it’s time to pay, I hand over the cash. But most of the time cashier’s run out of change.
Instead of the few rupees I have owed, the cashier gives me one or two candies to make up the shortfall. Mostly the Cadbury’s Eclairs . I keep wondering how the brand had occupied even this little space in the simple business process.
The other side , Mr.Anandasekaran, the owner of a grocery outlet in Madurai sells everything from shampoos to masalas and wages a daily battle for change. Small change, that is. Change—as in coins—has become a constant headache for Sekaran. None of his customers pays in coins any more, but each wants his due change. Maybe this is due to the paper currency that people pick up from ATM counters and immediately step in to the monthly grocery payments.
Retailers have long been used to handing out sweets instead of exact change. The coin crunch is not just limited to the likes of kirana stores ; even chains such as Spencer’s and Big Bazaar are suffering.
According to RBI, the number of coins in circulation stands at 84,818 million, of which 41.4 million coins were supplied last year. RBI’s Delhi branch alone issues between Rs8 lakh and Rs10 lakh worth of coins every day. The Re1 and Rs2 coins are disbursed in bags containing Rs2,500 worth of coins. coin shortage slowly had raised from 50 paise to 1 rupee and then two rupees and nowadays even 5 rupees. This fact proves that there is an increasing trend in the customers’ zone of tolerance towards coin shortages.
As a person having flair for marketing and selling I would see this challenge as a business space or potential for downward stretch of the brands to penetrate into the market with smaller SKU’s. There are few brands which can occupy a space near the cash collection centre of every retail outlet. Brands and products such as Cadbury Dairy Milk Shots for 2 Rs, watching videos for Rs. 1 from airtel, confectioneries from Nestle, ITC etc., Rs.1 sachets shampoos are potential stuffs to occupy such space.
Imagine on a single day there are about 50 customers walking into an outlet and each customer given a Rs.2/- Cadbury Dairy milk shots then a revenue of Rs.100 per day from one single outlet. On an average in Madurai if we cater to 4,000 outlets then the revenue out of this business space would be Rs.4,00,000/- per day approximately…. Companies with large distribution muscle can look into ……
An idea to develop the Brand Development Index !
The hunger for coins is almost palpable !!
Prof. N.Manjula,
MBA Coordinator,
Thiagarajar School of Management, Madurai