On a busy Thursday at 3.30 pm, with the smell of freshly
baked cakes infiltrating the surroundings, the baker uncle (he wishes to remain
anonymous) as the neighborhood knows him for more than two decades flashes a
welcome smile. He signals at me to wait across and a secondary help brings me
my favourite pastry I had asked for. I decide that this is the perfect place
for my individual project.
About the place
R. M. Cake shop is a small shop which primarily started on a
small scale more than two decades ago. It is miles away from the concepts of
café or cake shops yet it is buzzing with activity. The shop opens for business
at 8 o’clock sharp and works till 21.30 hrs in the evening. It is located at a
co-operative complex built by the Government for small and medium scale
businesses. There is market competition within a mile radius – a French bakery
and bakery run by the Rotary Club of Chennai.
The environment:
There is no place to sit and relax. The IPL is blaring on a
mini television set and there are kids with bats, balls and stumps are busy
gorging on the hot vegetable puffs fresh out of the oven and analysing every
ball of the game. There are a few old
customers buying bread loafs for home and 3 other customers who were waiting
patiently to pick up their orders (mostly cakes from what the Baker Uncle told
me).
What the place sells:
As pointed out earlier, it primarily started out as a bread
and pastry shop in the latter half of the 1990s. I gather from the owner that
there was a steady demand for sandwich breads then and the nearby Italian
eat-out get their daily sandwich breads from this shop since the last 4 years.
Other than bread, they sell pastries, cakes, puddings and ice creams.
A typical day at the cake shop:
The mornings are for making bread and keeping them ready by
8 am. The Italian eat-out that is around 2 miles away sends a truck to load
bread needed for their menu every day. Then, the orders for cakes that day are
attacked and by afternoon, the puffs and puddings are made so that they can be
served as the perfect snacks for the evening. At around 6 pm on a Friday evening, he calls
up his supplier from the wholesale market and places his order for weekly supplies
which reach him before he closes shop for the day.
Cake Shop and the customers:
I caught up with a
customer (Mr Sanchit Jain, who works for an MNC) who said that he has been a
customer at this shop ever since he moved into the locality 15 years ago. He
comes here for the whole wheat bread which, according to him, is more wholesome
than a few other reputed brands in the market.
Another interesting chat with an elderly customer revealed
that he was a regular too and that he took puffs and pastries for his
grandchildren when they returned home from their summer camps. He proudly adds
that he gets a royal treatment as the owner remembers his order and one quick
nod is the only conversation that passes between them before the order is
packed and billed for him.
Knowing individual customer preferences reduces the waiting
time for the customer. Also, the individual interest that the owner takes on a
customer scores him a brownie point from his customers. This personal touch
generates more loyalty from the existing customers.
Income groups:
Many of Uncle’s customers are from the lower and middle
class segments. There are a few elitist customers too who have been loyal to
the bakery ever since its inception.
Advertising?
There is no advertising for the cake shop. The owner said
that mostly new customers are through word of mouth only and their major aim is
to retain the loyalty of an existing customer by providing products of good
quality and improvising constantly.
A few problems that the shop faces:
·
The cake shop suffers from elitist versions of
bakeries as its market competitors. People with more disposable income tend to
shift to the other two competitors in the local market and the shop loses out
on the revenues from these customers.
·
Since the products are perishable, stocking and demand
forecasting becomes a major issue. Sometimes, there arises a situation when the
customers had to turn back empty-handed because the product was sold out. There
are lean days when all products produced are not sold.
Swetha U
FT13182
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