In a bid to match the fashion aspirations of individuals living in small towns, 1-India Family Mart – a rapidly growing value retail chain owned by Nysaa Retail Private Limited – offers affordable and fashion apparels, lifestyle products and general merchandise to its customers at affordable prices. The brand specialises in apparel for men, women and kids, which makes up 80 percent of its business.
Apart from this, it provides lifestyle products, accessories, home furnishings and household products that give make up the remaining 20 percent of revenue.
“Being an idea-driven firm with customer-centricity at the core of operations, we use Big Data to analyse buying habits and trends. The dynamic backend system analyses the CRM data fetched through the POS systems to comprehend customer buying behaviour to reduce eccentricity in the supply chain process. Being a price-driven business, we are very conscious of pricing. We study data to figure out the best price points to sell the products,” says JP Shukla, Co-founder and CEO, 1-India Family Mart.
Business Model
The brand that caters to customers falling in Rs 5,000-25,000 monthly income bracket, follows a centralised sourcing model of business. It procures material from more than 600 vendors across the country. Once all the material gets accumulated at its centrally located warehouse with a capacity of 80,000 sq. ft. in Gurugram, it is shipped to the stores through an efficient supply chain management system. These vendors create, innovate and find the latest trends in the trade and then supply to the brand.
“1-India Family Mart’s robust inventory management solutions make products available in stores in a short period of 40-45 days to reduce the inventory cycle. The brand which operates 90 stores operating across 72 cities of Eastern and Northern India, has reached a revenue of Rs 420 crore and further plans to invest Rs 200 crore to open approximately 100 stores in the next two fiscals,” says Shukla
Technology: The Mainstay of Retail Success
The use of these intelligent technologies has made it possible for the 1-India Family Mart to maintain low inventory levels across different categories. It also enables them to introduce fresh fashion and merchandise at affordable prices.
“Adopting technology to automate supply and procurement processes has helped us bring significant bottom-line benefits by allowing better productivity, visibility and cost efficiency. We have been trying hard to bridge the gaps when it comes to inventory streaming at the cost centres, but with the advent of technology such as ‘Supplymint’ – a Ginesys backed planning tool – that we have just incorporated recently into the planning eco-system, we have been able to produce results that, are up to the mark and the‘mismanaged inventory demon’is probably out of equation,” he concludes.
