Retail Communication Mix

Sales Promotion

Sales promotion is the promotional tool that stimulates consumer purchasing and dealer interest by means of short-term activities. Let’s give some example of the tools they use. 10% off all their house brands if you used POSB Everyday Card. Special events are organized each time they open a store (and this is quite frequent, especially in China!). In each supermarket and hypermarket, they have a reserved zone where they make special displays to present new products.They also use bonuses (buy one, get one free), especially one they want to get rid of their stock.

Public relations

In order to inform the public of the changes that are being made by Carrefour, and to show how this is a good thing to customers, Carrefour has a very efficient information programme. They had set up a website providing relevant information to their customers and if you had signed up with the website, they will send you information regarding the new promotions. Moreover, as Carrefour is one of the biggest French firms, there are many newspaper articles about the group. Overall, these publications are a good publicity for Carrefour.

Merchandise Presentation and Store Design

Carrefour uses Grid Store Layout for their store, where long gondolas are placed in long rows throughout the stores. This layout is most suitable for supermarkets/hypermarkets as they have many merchandises; with the grid layout, they are able to categorise them. With the proper signs at each rows, this store layout enables customers to locate their merchandise easily. It also helps with merchandise exposure as customers will browse through other merchandises as well. However, this layout discourage customers from exploring the store as they will just grab what they wanted and leave the store, leading to limited browsing. It also makes the store look plain and uninteresting as it normally lacks in decor.

Carrefour had always been an innovator when it comes to store design. e.g. softening the look of its warehouse-size buildings by installing wood floors, non-fluorescent lights in some departments and etc. As Carrefour sells many different kinds of merchandise, it uses many different methods to display their products. Especially, for apparels, where they will put up mannequins at the display area or simply hanging them up.

Outline 3 HR practices carried out by Carrefour which are unique in Singapore

The success of Carrefour is largely due to Carrefour’s No.1 asset: Employees. Carrefour possess strong HR principles and policies which they practice worldwide and here are some identified being unconventional in Singapore.

Constructive Listening - LES EXOUTES DU PERSONNEL
To improve job satisfaction, Carrefour is using “Les Ecoutes du personnel” (Listening to Staff). In this programme, groups of employee representatives anonymously express their views, thus enabling Carrefour to identify areas in need of improvement. Being an International Retailer, Carrefour monitors compliance with trade union rights on the basis of an agreement signed with Union Network International (UNI).

In 2007, 20,504 employees participated in the groups, representing 180 hypermarkets
and 109 supermarkets in Argentina, Brazil, China, Columbia, Spain, France, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Poland and Turkey.

As an example, Carrefour Turkey signed a collective agreement in 2008 with the commerce union, a sign of real progress for employees in the areas of compensation and benefits. Carrefour encourages negotiations on improving working conditions at every level. Within the retail sector, Carrefour and UNI collaborate in European Union discussions on sector-specific labour issues.

At Group level, in the early 1990s Carrefour created one of the very first European Committees, called the European Consultation and Information Committee (CICE ), which brings together management and labour from throughout Europe for constructive and in-depth dialogue. The CICE is also involved in the Group’s CSR efforts. At country level, management oversees local social dialogue.

Such dialog is not common or even non-existence in Singapore as Singaporean company often see this as a unnecessary program that is a waste of company's resources.




Wide-ranging Career Opportunities Encouraging Diversity in Local Hiring- TRAINING FOR SUCCESS
Worldwide, Carrefour hires approximately 100,000 new employees every year. The large number hired and the wide varieties of jobs (over 120 different occupations) allows Carrefour to offer job and career opportunities for all population segments including young people, seniors, men, women, disabled individuals, graduates and non-graduates. Diversity comes naturally to Carrefour and its equal opportunities policy powers the career ladder. 75% of all Group managers have risen through the ranks.

This policy largely relies on a significant investment in training as well as the “Cap Careers” tool, which provides a detailed assessment of managerial employees. This tool thoroughly and objectively assesses managers’ skills and performance during individual interviews. Tested in France, Poland and Belgium in 2007, it is now being implemented in every country.

The training policy takes different forms. For example, a management and customer focus for managers in China, a campaign against illiteracy in French hypermarkets, and the creation of a Carrefour Institute in Djakarta, Indonesia.

Managers of Carrefour and its Alfa Retailindo subsidiary will be receiving training, with the goal of 20,000 training days for over 1,900 employees every year.

In Singapore, train of staff by company evolves mainly on the company's aim or goals to gain the "Singapore People Developer" certification. Not many company in Singapore adopt employee-centric training programmes benefiting employees more than employers.

Carrefour's Social and Ethical Approach
Carrefour is world's 7th largest private employer worldwide with over 495,000 employees. Carrefour's everyday HR policy evolve around its Code of Conduct as shown:

9) Customer Service

Outline and describe 5 pitfalls of inadequate or poor customer service give by retailers.


1) Hardly See any Customer Service Officers Around
Even though Carrefour is a very big and has many varieties, but whenever customers need help, we always cannot get anyone to help us. There aren’t customer service officers around the booths or department.

2) Can’t Depend on Their Service
Even if we were able to find a customer service officer, he/she will tell us to wait and he/she will check it out for us. But in the end, we have to depend on ourselves to check it or walk all the way back to the counter to get help as the customer service officer will not get back to us or cannot be found after that.

3) Rude
There was once I needed help, I waited very long for a customer service officer to appear. When I saw a customer service officer, I went straight to approach him and asked if there are other colours for the product that I want to buy. He replied rudely saying ‘all there la, go see by yourself, I am very busy.’ I think this behavior is unacceptable.

4) Fitting Room
The fitting rooms at Carrefour are always very messy and dirty. The floor is very dusty; it makes me feel very uncomfortable to try on their clothing. Not only that, there are hangers all around and I cannot hang my handbag and clothes.

5) Cashier Counters
There are quite a lot of counters in Carrefour. However I realized that they only open one or two cashier counters, not like NTUC or Giant; they always open most of their cashier counters. This makes customers queue for a very long time.

Carrefour's Customer Service Approaches

Much of today's focus on service excellence is on customer service training. Equally important is the ned for innovative ideas that look beyond service training to improve customers' shopping experience. Carrefour's service initiatives demonstrate their active pursuit of innovative solutions to enhance their service.

One of the hypermarket's initiates is the retail industry's first "Queue Busters" that consist of mobile teams that scan and pack customers' purchases to speed up the payment process. Using wireless technology, the new system saves up to 25% of customers' time spent in queues.

Another first in the industry is Carrefour's new electronic shelf label system (ESL). With constant new promotions in the grocery section, the system ensures consistent prices reflected on the shelves and at the cashier, and minimizes human errors during price updates. Also, staff who were previously handling the labelling manually can now spend more time at the sales floor, attending to customers.

Carrefour has even introduced a complimentary internet service at its customer service counter to cater to male customers who tend to wait outside the store while their spouses shop. Other thoughtful touches include a wash basin placed beside the fresh fish section, so that customers can easily wash their hands after hand-picking fish and meat; and handphone charging services for those on the move.

The hypermarket's innovative approach to service does not stop with its customers. A point-based incentive programme "Pat on the Back" is used to develop service champions and reward staff who have demonstrated great service. The points can be accumulated and exchanged for couple or family rewards.

Carrefour's incentive programmes and monthly competitions for the staff boast attractive rewards - luxury hotel and yacht club stays, restaurant vouchers and limousine service to motivate and develop service champions among the staff. 

Incentives for good service quality need not always be monetary. Carrefour's 'Pat On The Back' programme awards Certificates of Appreciation to those who exhibit good customer service. They are promoted as role models in the organization. These intangibles are equally gratifying to the service staff. It was believed that when they feel they are sincerely being appreciated, it drives them to be more passionate about their work and in turn more able to deliver good service truly from their hearts. 

To ensure that these initiatives add up, Carrefour's bi-annual customer surveys -Service Radar - measure their performance on key service indicators in comparison with their competitors. Areas of strengths and weaknesses in service reflected in the survey are immediately identified and worked upon. 

A multi-agency working committee led by SPRING Singapore and NTUC, with representatives from Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA), Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) and the unions (SMMWU, SISEU and FDAWU1), spearheads the CCI. Singapore Tourism Board and Singapore Retailers Association also support the initiative. The CCI is part of the Go-the-Extra-Mile for Service (GEMS) movement to transform Singapore's service quality in the retail sector.

Tutorial 8 Sharing (E-learning)

The Professional Skills Programme, aka PSP, was launched by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and the Workforce Development Agency (WDA). This scheme is targeted to help the professionals, managers, executives and technicians (aka PMETs).

Prior to PSP, all other skill upgrading programmes are designed for conversion from one profession to another. There was no programmes for upgrading within the same profession. Therefore, with the introduction of PSP, the government is able to upgrade people in the same industry.

PSP also comes under Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (aka SPUR) which is an enhanced funding support scheme developed by WDA in consultation with the tripartite partners which includes the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF).

SPUR encourages companies affected by declining business to retain workers by sending them for training, as opposed to retrenching them. This will help employers to save on manpower costs, better manage their excess manpower during the downturn and at the same time, upgrade their workers to strengthen business competitiveness for the upturn.

For the employees, SPUR aims to redeploy unemployed workers as well as help in-employment workers to up-skill for new and better jobs. Employed and unemployed workers no longer need to wait for their employers to send them for training, as they can now sign up for training at CET Centres directly.


Professional Skills Programme in Singapore

Upon graduation from PSP, PEMTs will receive recognised tertiary qualification certificates from their training institutes and the new scheme is expected to motivate PMETs to improve and stay competitive.

Website: WDA: PSP

Tutorial 8 Sharing (Question 3)

Explain how changing demographics of the workforce in Singapore are changing. How does the change affect staff and recruiting efforts for retail sales and management positions for retailing organisation in Singapore?

In Singapore, we are experiencing an aging population as seen from the graph extracted from SingStat:
Sources: Statistic Singapore- Key Annual Indicator

This means that we are having more mature workers in the working industry. Building on this trend, the government is planning to raise retirement age from 62 to 67. The union is also helping mature workers to remain competitive by providing them subsidised training and upgrading courses.

Having said all these, the change in the demographic will therefore result in more companies to offer re–employment opportunities to those who are nearing the retirement age.

In this case, they save not only on the re-training cost but also tap on the experience of its experienced workers to guide the new entrants. An example is SBS Transit as follows:click here

Carrefour's Retail Store Strategy

The strategy of Carrefour is aimed at achieving organic, sustained, profitable growth in excess of the broad market growth rate. Carrefour had based their strategy on the 3 elements in Retail Store Strategy as follows:
~Target Market
~Retail Format
~Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Target Market
Carrefour, being an international retailer, segments its target market geographically. France is Carrefour's established home market and the group's main priority. The Group is taking the initiative to regain its leadership in France. The objective is to generate growth, firstly by developing its multi-format model, increasing convergence and giving fresh impetus to hard discount formats, and secondly by enhancing sales growth, price competitiveness and its price image.
The Carrefour group's second priority consists of Spain, Italy and Belgium which, together with France, make up Carrefour's "G4" countries. In these mature European countries, appropriate measures will be taken to maintain growth (Spain) or improve performance (Belgium and Italy).
Growth markets represent the Carrefour group's third priority. The Group will focus most of its development resources on countries with stronger growth potential, mainly the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). The Group's development in these regions will be based on various formats aimed at building the customer base (hypermarkets, cash and carry).

Retail Format
Carrefour owns many retail formats and brands under its group brand: GroupeCarrefour (Carrefour SA). They have presence in retail formats like: Hypermarkets, Supermarkets, Hard discount stores, Convenience stores and Cash & Carry.
Some of GroupeCarrefour's brand are:
Hypermarket format: Carrefour, Atacadão, Hyperstar
Supermarket format: Carrefour Bairro, Carrefour Express, Carrefour Market (Formerly Champion as of 2008), Champion Mapinomovaoe, Globi, GB Supermarkets, GS, Carrefour mini, Gima
Hard discount stores format: Dia, Ed, Minipreço
Convenience stores format: 5 minutes, 8 a HuiT, Marche Plus, Proxi (supermarket), Sherpa, Dìperdì, Smile Market, Ok!, Contact GB, GB Express, Shopi (supermarket)
Cash & Carry format: Promocash, Docks Market, Gross IPer.



Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Client-oriented culture: getting to know their customers better in order to serve them better
With 19.5 million loyalty card-holders in France and Spain, GroupeCarrefour has an excellent base from which to forge closer relationships with customers. As a multi-format retailer, Carrefour can offer solutions addressing a wide variety of shopping habits.
In 2009, the Carrefour group is enhancing its knowledge of customers, with the aim of serving them better and improving its brand image. In stores, the Carrefour brand will be conveyed in a way that is closer to the customer and more emotionally involving. By being more competitive, the brand will again become a tool for winning customers, enhancing customer loyalty and distinguishing Carrefour from the pack. In towns and villages, as convergence accelerates, the Carrefour brand will provide its best stores to more customers. In this way, Carrefour will make customers want to come, and keep coming, to its stores, regardless of the format or product offering. By focusing on retailing, Carrefour will become customers' preferred retailer.


Transformation: increasing agility, execution quality and competitiveness
Carrefour's success is based on the talent and motivation of its staff. To increase efficiency and competitiveness, and in order to improve as a retailer, the Carrefour group is about to transform itself. It will redesign its organisation, enhance synergies between sales and purchasing, and create new relationships between head offices, countries and stores.
Sharing of knowledge and best practice will form the heart of this transformation process, which will be carried out by, and for the benefit of, our staff. Our employees' skills will be developed, and new careers will be offered to them, because as well as being the preferred retailer, we want to be the preferred employer.

Innovation: regaining initiative and leadership
Carrefour invented the hypermarket in 1963, own-brand products in 1976 and "Filières Qualité Carrefour" quality-guarantee systems in 1992. As a result, innovation is in our genes. To serve customers better and form closer ties with them, the Carrefour group will again tap into its pioneering spirit and step up innovation. Hypermarkets, which are a crucial tool in winning new customers, are entering the era of tailored services and adopting new roles. Objective:
to make the store experience exciting again, to win or regain the hearts of all customers.
Today, customers visit various types of stores, and so the Carrefour group is making its formats more complementary and introducing innovative new store concepts. In France, Carrefour is opening pilot convenience stores, i.e. Carrefour City in city centres and Carrefour Contact on the outskirts or in the centre of small towns. In Taiwan, Carrefour has created Carrefour Convenient Buy, a store open 24 hours a day. Carrefour is a multi-format group, and intends to be a multi-channel retailer too, strengthening its presence in e-commerce. The in-store offering will be enhanced with the launch of new product ranges that meet customers' current needs.
Together with other innovations, Carrefour will become a multi-service retailer.

Pricing Approach - EveryDay Low Price!

EDLP simply refers to charging the same price all the time, at a low price. This pricing approach allows retailers like Carrefour to minimize its advertising expenses and labour costs. 

Furthermore, it can help to build loyalty as there is guaranteed low prices to customers. There will also be fewer stockouts and higher inventory turns.

This is a way of addressing the current economic worries of consumers and of winning over new customers. In today’s tough economic environment, Carrefour wants to provide consumers with a tailor-made solution for keeping a grip on spending on everyday needs while offering the support of a national brand.

Variety & Assortment of Carrefour

Carrefour Singapore has over thousands of products sold in this largest hypermarket chain in the world, in terms of size.

Carrefour has a wide range of products, from food to household electrical products, clothes, france products, pet's food, baby and kid's neccessaries, laptops, technology equippments but also organic products.

Carrefour also have their own house brands like 'Big Saver', 'Bio', 'Reflets de France', 'Quality Line', 'Blue Sky' and 'Carrefour Home'.

The house brand items represent solid, reliable quality - at least on a par with well-known market leaders. Carrefour brand items are often distinguished with innovations to make life easier - just the way you want it - it such as handy resealable packaging to optimize freshness.

Explain 2 challenges faced by Carrefour

The convergence of internet shopping has proven to be a challenge for Carrefour in Singapore. According to Singstat, internet broadband penetration experienced a double-digit growth in the past years. The implication of it as reported in the report was growth in the internet shopping sector in Singapore. In view of this trend, the challenge faced by Carrefour Singapore was the absence of internet shopping on its sites.

Wile its competing competitors (Cold Storage and FairPrice) had well established online shopping system. This essentially means that Carrefour is missing out on this share of the pie. And in future, if Carrefour is to introduce an online shopping portal, Carrefour will have to overcome the marketing and publicity barriers to make it portal known.

A jointed publication by PricewaterhouseCoopers and TNS Retail Forward acknowledge the changing landscape of retail environment. It states that with the changing of demographics, the Baby Boomers will no longer be the main target market for retailing.

Instead, Gen Y and X will be the mainstream focus for revenue and growth. As this is a diverse group in how they shop, where they shop and how they spend their money. This will represent a challenge to traditional retailing. Additionally, consumers will increase their focus on purchasing products from socially responsible and “greenfriendly” manufacturers and retailers.

This is yet another challenge to Carrefour as they have yet embrace themselves in a Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) statement/commitment. Carrefour's competitors however, had been actively involve in the arena of CSR for years with Cold Storage hosting its "Child Run Marathon" last Sunday and FairPrice to donate up to S$50 million to its Foundation within 10 years to aid needy families.

Therefore, for Carrefour to be profitable and growing, it must appeal to the growing market segment and to do so, engage themselves in a CSR statement/commitment.

Carrefour: "Life, The Way I Want it!"

Carrefour is a French international hypermarket chain, with a global network of outlets worldwide. It is the largest hypermarket chain in the world in terms of size, and the second largest retail group in the world in terms of revenue and third largest in profit after Wal-Mart & Tesco.

Carrefour is present in 29 countries throughout the world with more than 12,217 stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets and convenience stores. It operates mainly in Europe, China, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and in the Dominican Republic, but also has shops in North Africa and other parts of Asia and is also the first ever hypermarket in Singapore.

Carrefour offers one-stop shopping destination with a wide range of food and non-food products, at great discount prices and excellent customer service.

In 1989, Carrefour became the first international retailer to establish a presence in Asia when it entered Taiwan through a joint venture with Uni President Enterprises Corporation. It leveraged the experience it gathered in Taiwan to expand into other Asian markets.

In 2007, expansion accelerated outside France, particularly in Asia, with the building of 36 new hypermarkets, including 22 in China - where the Group broke its record for store openings in a one-year period.

Greetings

Hi!
Welcome to Retail Buster! Just a simple greeting post. We are still awaiting the entrance of 2 other admins(Luo Ping & Wei Lun).

So, some info about us:
We are a group of 4 NYP students who created this blog for one of the module in our course, BM 0209- Retail Store Operations Management. This blog aims to comment on the retail scene in our island, Singapore.

As this blog was created for educational purposes, we would like to publish some GROUND RULES as follows:
~NO SPAMMING
~NO VULGARITIES
~NO PERSONAL INSULTS
~EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS ENCOURAGED
~TAKE COMMENTS/FEEDBACK POSITIVELY

And yes, that should be all for now, till next time!

hAn