CONT'D...

The next day I reached the store at 10am. I made sure I come early.
The way to the staff entrance was from behind the store. I literally had to jump over trashes thrown here and there. There was an entrance to the store from behind, where I noticed a security guard. When I enquired him where the staff entrance is he pointed me towards a spiral staircase made of iron taking to one level above the ground floor.
“So every day I shall have to climb these steps to get inside the store”.
I climbed the stairs with great difficulty and entered in. I noticed another security guard sitting here. There were many registers piled up on the table, with lots and lots of dog’s ears on them. He told me to enter my name, date and sign in one of the columns. I did as told and went inside. As I entered to my right side there was a small opening aisle and few small cabins were situated. Just adjacent to this aisle was a door which takes you to the shop floor. It was around 10 am and I could see that only few staffs had arrived. As Sarika had also not arrived I thought of taking a round of the entire store
The back- office was a partition made at one end of the store on the first floor. As I came out of the office I noticed huge fixtures made of slotted angles aligned in single long rows. The men’s section was located here. I could notice all the merchandise either stacked or racked randomly. All the employees had a uniform, a bright yellow shirt with the Big Bazaar logo on the right side pocket and dark navy trousers. An identity card placed on a lanyard worn around the neck could be seen tucked inside the pocket. “Why were they hiding their ID”? I noticed one of the employees in a civil dress. He was formally dressed up with a tie. He had a very strange dressing sense. Imagine wearing a blue shirt and brown trousers. I realised he was an employee as he too had an ID.
“Sir, are you in charge over here”?
“Well, yes I am the department manager, how can I help you?”
“Well, my name is Chinmayaprasad and I have joined today itself, so can you help me with the layout of the store and introduce me to all the staffs around”.
Those days there was no formal induction or orientation programs conducted for newly joined employees.
“Oh, I see, we had heard about you joining over here. Hi, my name is Nilesh; can we start with the men’s department sir?”
“Yup, it’s ok with me.”
We entered the men’s casual section. All the casual shirts were displayed in one end of the section and all the casual trousers were displayed in the other end. I noticed three staffs trying to arrange the merchandise that were left randomly by the customers who had just left the place. I approached one of the lady staffs. She had a wheatish complexion, thin in stature, and had a nose ring pierced. Her hair was loosely tied with a black ribbon, resembling a pony tail. Her eyes were lovely, with plain black pupils through whom I could notice my face and the back drop of the floor. She had applied ‘kajal’ (a type of eye-liner) in her eye-lids, and she had a well formed eye brows.
“Hi, are you assigned to this section?” I asked her.
She just nodded her head.
“Do you take care of the entire section?”
“Oh! No. She is from the men’s formal section” immediately replied Nilesh, the department manager.
“Then why is she in this section?” was my immediate next question.
“She is covering this section also, as in the morning shift all the staffs do not come, and of course she is well versed with this section also.” replied Nilesh proudly.
As I was asking these questions I noticed that the other staffs were feeling very uncomfortable.
In one corner of the section one staff was seen busy removing the plastic package from the merchandise lying in the carton besides him. He noticed me and stood up.
“Good morning Sir”.
“Very good morning to you”
“What are you doing?”
“New stocks have arrived, and so I have to display them quickly. We are told to remove the plastics before displaying the new stocks.”
When I looked around at all the plastics lying around on the floor he quickly replied, “the housekeeping staffs will clear them.” He then looked towards the entrance to the wash room and yelled, “Hey, housekeeping”.
At once I could feel the goose bumps all over my body. I had never experienced such a thing before in my entire career. I somehow felt that something was wrong somewhere.
We then entered the kids department at the other end of the men’s department. This department was in a complete mess. The stocks were displayed in such a manner that it would obviously be difficult for customers to pick the required merchandise from the racks. All the merchandise was over stacked. The look of the department itself showed that the merchandise were just displayed without proper themes in place and most of the stocks were either damaged or soiled due to this. I could notice signage not in place, some dropped from where it was placed, and some were just lying on the floor. There were also many empty hangers lying either on the racks or on the floor. The space between fixtures was also not as per the retail standards, due to space constraint or due to excess stocks which have made way to more fixtures within the department. Overall the department was also looking very congested.
“Sir, I am short of staffs in my department, hence finding it difficult to manage the department. In the morning shift I only have two staffs” said Ashfaque pointing out to two of his lady staffs.
Ashfaque was a tall, thin guy in his early twenties and was the assistant department manager in the kids department. During the next few weeks I noticed that he was very good in analysing the sales reports, and had a good rapport with the buyers in the head office. His people management skill was also good among his team.
The ladies department was to the other side of the floor. I thanked Nilesh for taking me around on the floor.

The store was divided at two levels. The FMCG section at Food Bazaar and general merchandise section of Big Bazaar were at the ground floor while the apparels section was at the first floor. To the right side of the main entrance of the store the customer service desk was situated. The house hold and home appliances department was situated just opposite the stretch of cash counters lined up in front of the store entrance. I had a strong doubt whether the air conditioning system was working or not. It was very stuffy and humid inside the store. Some of the spot lights were also not working.

“Am I gonna work at this place? It is such an unorganized store. Why is it so dirty?” The entire store for me just resembled a huge warehouse. The fixtures were very old, not aligned and placed properly, the merchandise were looking very old or soiled and all just dumped as and wherever place was available. I just could not understand anything, even if I tried to work out, as far as the lay out of the store is concerned. Those days Big Bazaar used to have lots of external suppliers’ surplus assorted stocks and hence due to this the merchandising of stocks within the store was a mess. Gradually the merchandise mix, the quality of stocks and buying of stocks by the buyers in the category team improved and also gave way to introduction of private labels. As I was responsible for the apparels section in this store I knew I will have to put in lot of effort. I had decided I shall take each assignment one by one, starting from setting up the departments and sections.

What I noticed is that most of the staffs were fresher or were not at all trained in basics in retailing. I immediately decided that I need to meet up with all the management team of the store and discuss with them my experience inside the store.

Big Bazaar was a value format store where the focus was on volume sales. “Is Se Sasta Aur Acha Kahin Nahin” was the tag line of the store, in Hindi, the national language of India, which meant you won’t find anything cheaper and better elsewhere.