Saravana Stores, Usman Road, Chennai
Saravana Stores in T.Nagar, Chennai is certainly a big success story of retail in India and comparable in their low price strategy only to Wal-Mart of USA. I visited the “பிரமாண்டமாய்” store as it is called in Tamil after their popular launch TV ads a few years back. I went with my wife and kid today evening as we wanted to buy a wall clock as a gift for someone in the family. We dreaded the thought as the service in their stores are known to be bad to non-existent, and parking is impossible for miles around the store. Yet we braved it as we were looking for variety at a good price and nothing comes close to Saravana Stores for that combination.
Today was a normal working day so we presumed the crowd won’t be much – how wrong we were!. All the 7 floors were packed with people on every square inch, and each floor had over 100 of their staffs which made the place more crowded than it needs to be. If someone is brought blind-folded here they will certainly think some free distribution is going on here. You couldn’t see an item for more than 5 seconds in an aisle as you have to keep moving to give way to passing traffic. The management will do well for its customers if they remove one or two aisles on each floor to give more moving space.
All said, the varieties they have stocked in every item is as wide as it can get, it was incredible. Can you imagine, they have a whole floor in the annexure building for School Bags alone. If you consider Big Bazaar (BB) to be there competitor then BB will have only 20% of the variety Saravana Store has. After a 30-minute unforgettable shopping experience, we came out in one piece. My 6-year-old son was the happiest of all – with 4 toys on his hand. I was happy too, as I spent only Rs.50 per toy against 10 times of what I would’ve, had I gone to any other toy store in the city.
5 Comments
sangavi
saravana store is the best shopping place in chennai ,but some more improvement wants to be done , there is a trouble in car parking so its giving dis satisfication to the customers . And customers are not properly guided for their shopping …..
sam
Guys want more to know about SARAVANA STORES,JUST WATCH "ANGADI THERU".
Great work By Vasantha balan.
R.BREM KUMAR
Hello,
I am an Electrical Engineer.I came for interview on 29/08/09 from trichy after that i done a purchase at SARAVANA STORE.On that day i worn a new US made shoe purchased at BATA, Trichy(Have Bill).The SARAVANA STORE security stopped me in a suspicious manner and checked my shoe along with other staff.Asked me where you bought? when you bought? Where is the bill? Any person coming for purchase with new worns should come with purchased bill? Is it the rule of SARAVANA STORE? Is this the way of manner a customer has to be treated? Alredy i was walked on the street,the sands sticked on the bottom,hence the fellows understood.I advised those fellows not to treat the customer in a insulting and rowdy kind of behaviour.And also i informed to administrative officer,he also spoke in a supporting manner for their staff.I have made purchase in CHENNAI SILKS,RATHNASTORE,KUMARAN SILK AND MANY STORES AT TRICHY,all bussiness centres treated their customer respectfully except SARAVANA STORE.Such indecent and insulting behavior to customer is been done with the instruction of the Director/President/Vice president.Here after such bussiness people should treat respectfully the customer.Atleast they should learn learn from other bussiness people.I really fed up and hereafter i never visit to SARAVANA STORE.I forward my experience to my relatives and friends to avoid any bussiness with SARAVANA STORE.Whether this message may or may not display in this site? It depends upon the justice.
Regards
R.Brem Kumar
Venkatarangan TNC
Yes Deepak, to an extend I have to agree with you, especially on the part of Landmark quality coming down. The product brands and quality they are stocking are coming down in every visit. Probably thats what will happen when you are part of a multi-national/multi-billion firm from a single company. Ms.Heemu Ramaiah Founder and Former owner of Landmark has sold her entire stake to TATA a year back.
Landmark probably cares more product margins more than quality or customer satisfaction.
Deepak Vasudevan
Hello Venkat,
I would like to share with you about my view on Saravana Stores. The products from Saravana Stores, I feel are of significant good quality though the way they market and put it on display might not be upto the marks. In sharp contrast, the otherwise hi-fi stalls like Landmark often showcase cheap products which just needed to be trashed in a couple of months time.
I recently had a gift clock (the same item as you described in the post). The one purchased at Landmark was just but sh*t. There were a couple of more instances too. And the post sales quality too is disgusting.
If I just say "Landmark is slowly becoming landmark of stale products", it wouldn’t be an exaggeration in another few years.
–Deepak