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Enriching the Customer Journey

Founded in 1991, Shoppers Stop is home to a multitude of leading national and international luxury, prestige and premium brands for apparel, shoes, watches, bags, beauty, home décor and much more. In this interview, we catch up with Customer Care Associate, Managing Director & CEO Kavindra Mishra to discuss the brand’s growing portfolio in its home market and what its plans are for 2025 and beyond.

Launched by the K. Raheja Corp 34 years ago, Shoppers Stop’s existence began with a single store in Andheri, Mumbai, becoming one of the first retail chains in India to introduce the concept of a modern department store, offering a comprehensive shopping experience under one roof. The idea behind this was to provide customers with a blend of international and Indian brands, all curated to meet the diverse tastes and preferences of Indian consumers.

Over the intervening years, the business has evolved with the changing retail landscape, adopting new technologies, expanding its product offerings and enhancing customer engagement through loyalty programs like First Citizen. Shoppers Stop has also embraced e-commerce, integrating online and offline experiences to meet the needs of modern consumers.

Today the company operates a total of 284 stores, including 109 department stores, 17 SSBeauty sites, 68 ELCA and GSSB locations, 59 INTUNE units, 11 HomeStop stores and 20 locations inside airports. In the last 12 months, the business has opened three stores in the North-East in Shillong, Agartala and Dimapur. In addition, they have also ventured into the tier 2 cities of Kota, Kanpur, Meerut and Ajmer. By the end of March next year, the business has plans to reach to more than 450 locations.

Discussing the development of new initiatives, Customer Care Associate, Managing Director & CEO Kavindra Mishra highlights that there are multiple areas that Shoppers Stop leverage to stay ahead of the curve. “One of the major levers is our large customer base of over 10 million customers in our loyalty program. Based on customer buying behaviour, we have been able to create personas. These personas play a pivotal role in developing various marketing initiatives, strategic targeting and offers. Another important lever is the focus on customer experience.”

He goes onto say that the integration of technology into a lot of their processes is another key element to ensure they are able to capture, process and action a lot of data across different campaigns and initiatives, helping them to measure effectiveness and learnings, which they then carry on to the next cycle.

As our discussion moves onto brand experience and how they engage with their customer base, we learn that the company has introduced multiple new innovations to assist in building guest loyalty and repeat visits.

These include personal shoppers, which is a program that allows them to serve their premium customers in a more engaging way and assist them in their shopping. Another is store innovation, as the brand is the first and only departmental store in India which has introduced various in-store experiences for customers, such as play areas for children, arcade machines and in-store coffee just to name a few. The implementation of augmented reality is an innovation the company has begun for seasonal specials and Mishra highlights that AR helps customers visualise new styles and fashion in a different and engaging way when compared to traditional display-based solutions. In addition, they offer exclusive events for Black Card Members – such as Monsoon Off Roading, Celebrity Styling Workshop and Kids Playdates.

Like technology, social media plays a pivotal role in the modern retail world and the business has strategically embraced the concept as a pivotal component of its marketing efforts, recognising its immense power in shaping modern retail dynamics. The company integrates social media into its marketing strategy through engaging content creation, influencer collaborations, customer interaction and community building and AI-driven personalised marketing through its loyalty program.

“Along with these concepts, we also recognise the critical importance of sustainability in today’s marketplace. Being the bridge between manufacturers and end consumers, we understand that we might have limited control over production or disposal. But our commitment is reflected in responsible sourcing and effective systems for disposal. We actively engage with our brand partners, ensuring they not only provide us with products that excel in quality and style but are also actively contributing to environmental causes.”

As an experience-led company, all of its decisions are data driven, ensuring that customer needs are met. From any customer care associate in-store, all the way up to Mishra himself, they ensure that customers have the best experiences, range of brands and high-quality products to choose from in each of its stores.

“The key ethos of our company is customer centricity. For every initiative we partake in, whether it is in our stores or online, we try to enrich the customer journey and make it a delightful experience. Our customers are who make us what we are and they will always be our number one priority in everything we do,” the CEO explains.

As we have time for one final question, we ask Mishra what he sees as the overarching challenge for the business in the months and years that follow.

“The greatest challenge in any retail organisation is the customer. In today’s competitive retail environment, the customer has a lot of options and often times, with changing priorities there might be a shift in the customers buying behaviour. For example, a customer might be into smart casuals at a certain point and then might be shopping for wedding a couple of months or years later.

At a certain point they might be more inclined to come to the store while at another point, online might be the go to choice. As a house of brands and a departmental store, it is important to constantly refresh all of our offerings in the minds of the customer and make their experience so delightful that they would not feel the need to shop elsewhere. While we are doing a lot of work in this front with new initiatives and leveraging our extensive existing data, a lot remains to be done and this is what we are working to in the future,” Mishra concludes.

Source: Retail & Leisure International