XAVIER INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SERVICE

DR. CAMIL BULCKE PATH, RANCHI

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A PROJECT REPORT ON
The study of retail chain of woodland In Jharkhand

Submitted by

Akash Bara (04) Deepak Toppo (05) Soumik Dutta (34)

Soumyajit Das (37) Subhash Chandra Manna (52) Pankaj Gupta (55)

Department of Marketing

Contents
Particulars
Introduction Objectives Research Design Representation of Information Recommendation Conclusion Limitation

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Acknowledgement
We wish to express our sincere gratitude to Prof.A R Bodra, Head of the Department of Marketing for providing us an opportunity and guidance to do our project work on ........................ We are highly indebted to the individuals of Woodland, Ranchi for their guidance as well as for providing necessary information regarding the project & also for their support, co-operation and encouragement which help us in completing the project. Finally, an honourable mention goes to our group members for their understanding and support in completing this project. Without a collaborative effort made by our group members this project would not have been completed on time.

Introduction to the company

The brand Woodland is owned by Aero Group, the Flagship Company which began its operations in 1960s and now has an asset base of over US$100 Million. Woodland was started in Quebec, Canada for making winter boots and entered India in 1992. . It quickly gained popularity due to its unwavering commitment to quality and the introduction of the latest designs. Aero Group is a highly integrated firm with its own leather tanning units and production facilities in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Macau and Canada. The brand Woodland was introduced to the Indian market in 1992 through two exclusive outlets in New Delhi, to resounding success. Today, Woodland is a household brand with over 300 plus exclusive stores across the Indian Sub-continent in addition to a distribution network covering over a thousand stores across the country. Moreover, the brand also has a presence in more than 3000 plus multibrand outlets in a number of countries. The Company has achieved this feat in a short span due to Aeros inherent focus on the quality of its products backed by a strong R&D and Fashion team, as well as the Groups vision to make world-class products footwear and apparels available to Indian consumers. Aero Group launched Woodland and it immediately caught the attention of outdoor enthusiasts. It brought with it, an innovative collection designed to provide rock climbers, backpackers, hikers, trail runners, and outdoor lovers with the perfect tools to meet natures challenges. Soon enough the Woodland tree logo became synonymous with adventure. And as the calendar turned towards the new millennium, Woodland kept expanding its line of outdoor shoes, performance apparels, and equipments to cater to the needs of those always reaching for the horizon. It is this conviction that has taken Woodland to the forefront of the global outdoor products industry

Objectives To understand the Retail market of Woodland in India and more specifically in Ranchi. To understand the logistics system of woodland. To understand sales and profit of woodland( Ranchi) To understand the strategies adopted towards the branding, promotion and marketing and its impact in business sustainability. To understand how Woodland handles its competitors and formulates survival strategies when the market is trapped.

Retail Model: Retail model of Woodland is not very alike value added retail chain. As they are very much focused on high end lifestyle product they established 350 plus exclusive store in various cities in India. Woodland targets the upmarket segment and is positioning itself as a rugged high quality premium casual shoe. Apart from they have tied up with lifestyle retail chains like Lifestyle, Central, Shoppers stop, Reliance footprint who sell their products. Franchisees are very few in number who sell Woodland at different part of country.

Logistic model: Woodland has got its manufacturing unit in Noida and Himachal Pradesh. These two are the only manufacturing units of woodland in India. With respect to Jharkhand state Woodland has got only 4 company owned retail outlets of which 3 are in Ranchi, 1 in Dhanbad and 1 franchisee owned in Jamshedpur. Mainly, Woodland is into manufacturing of casual and formal outdoor designed pure leather shoes. Woodland has got 3 classifications namely mens and womens shoes, apparels and accessories. The logistics is wholly handled by GATI Limited in India. The products are manufactured and thereafter the goods are carried by GATI to the company owned retail outlets across India. The manufacturing Unit is owned by Woodland itself in India. The company has got mainly 3 types of retail formats namely Company Owned Retail Outlets Online retailing Dealers and distributorship There are no C&F agents of Woodland. The ordered products directly reach the retail doorsteps without the involvement of any middlemen. The ordering of products is done through telephonic conversation or through e mails. No ERP software is been used as such for ordering of products. Tax Structure Sales /VAT tax is 14% for leather products i.e. shoes Sales /VAT tax is 5% for apparels and other accessories As GATI is the whole and sole logistics partner of woodland so the whole intransit movement of products from one place to another is insured by GATI. If any lose or damage happens during movement of products then GATI is liable to rectify or pay for the loss. Woodland has nothing to do with the logistics of its products. After it reaches the final destination, Woodland becomes responsible of any lose or damage occurred. Each of the Company owned retail outlets are insured across India.
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Supply chain management Raw Materials are supplied from tanneries of Agra and Kanpur for trekking and formal shoes to the manufacturing unit. The designer shoes and apparels are directly procured from China. The manufacturing units are located in Dehradun and Noida. All manufactured products then shifted to the Central Warehouse located in Delhi (Including the products procured from China). From Delhi the products are despatched to all the different states across India.

Distribution Process For Company Outlets The company outlets places its order as per its requirements to the corporate office , located at Delhi. Order is placed in a Order form given by the company WOODLAND after receiving the order looks for its stocks and orders for manufacturing if required After the materials for the order are ready the company sends the goods by contract agents (GATI) THE GATI LOGISTICS will carry the following documents o A copy of the order form o Waybills o An invoice for the order o Insurance paper The goods with these documents reach Company outlets. Then corporate office sends online copy of invoice.

For Online Retailing There are various online marketers who are linked with the Delhi office. They directly place their order as per requirement and procure the products directly from Centralised Warehouse. The prominent online marketers apart from woodlandonline.com are myntra.com, bestylish.com, naaptol.com, yebhi.com, jabong.com etc. For multi brand Retailing They directly place the order in Delhi Their representatives select the various models and accordingly place the order. Woodland sends the product through GATI to the retailers.

The Prominent retailers for Tier 1 cities are Shoppers Stop, Life style etc. and for Tier 2 and 3 cities Reliance Footprint caters woodland products.

Company outlet Policies: The VAT in every state is included in the price of the product and so Company outlets are spared from paying the VAT. The company outlets send blank Waybill. The warehouse sends back the Waybill with the details and total value of the products along with products. This Waybill acts as a state permit to enter into any state and do business. Then Company owned retail outlet sends the waybill to sales tax office. The sales tax office calculates the sales tax based on the amount present in the waybill. All the outlets in the particular region have same sales tax number. For the transfer of goods within the state, the company has to fill the 10D form provided the sales tax number of the two company outlet is different. The promotional activity is carried out by the company outlet.

Sales and revenue

SALES IN RANCHI
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 2011 2010 2009 *appox value (as per data) Single brand ( in Cr.) Multi brand ( in Cr.)

Sales of Woodland are favourable in Ranchi. Above graph is showing that sales of single brand or exclusive stores of Woodland are going down year by year. Retailers claim that online shopping is the booming trend in recent times and various benefits of the online shopping spilt the purchasing pattern and create declining trend in traditional purchasing system. There is also presence of multibrand store (Reliance footprint) in Ranchi which is growing and cutting the sales of Woodland. In Ranchi the annual sale in single brand is 1.80 crore (Appox) and in multi brand 0.36 crore (Appox) in 2010-11. Rest of the country it has also its niche market is adventurous shoe segment and operating as leader in the market. 70% of revenue comes from shoe segment and 30% from apparel. There are also favourable sales in online marketing. In Ranchi the literacy rate has been increasing (63.5% as per 2011) so, it can be said that the online purchasing is taking place of traditional purchase.

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Branding and promotion: Woodland is the market leader trekking shoe segment in India. So, the brand equity is high in the market. The centre administration block allocates budget for carrying out promotional activities for company outlets in each city and categorize these cities as tier 1 , 2, & 3 cities depending on total number of sales and the total population in these cities. The Outlets the select 3-4 Ad agencies according to the budget allocated to them and sends the price quotations of these Ad agencies back to the central administration block in New Delhi. Karishma Advertising are the major ad agency of woodland. The Central administration block then selects one of these agencies based on the price quotations, who overlook all the promotional activities in the city. Promotional point of view it has prominent presence in all leading print media and Tv commercials. They have tie up with MTv, channel V, UTV bindaas which majorly promote them in Tier-1 cities. For the BTL activities they periodically conduct road shows, game shows to attract young prospects in tier-1 cities. For the Tier- 2 & 3 cities only the brand name plays pivot role. Two times in a year they conduct sale and offer upto 40% discount not only maximise their sell but also increase the customer reach. Woodland provides summer as well as winter discounts on apparels for the purpose of stock clearance. Recently they are using social network websites to promote their brand.

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Competitors: Timberland Red chief In India they dont have big competition because of limited presence of Timberland (but have sound competition in international market) and Red chief is operating in small scale. In tier 2 & 3 cities they have monopoly for their own shoe segment.

Retail formatSpeciality store Most of the cases the outlets are owned by company itself. There are 350 outlets in all over the India. Store size is minimum 450 sq ft which goes up to 5000 sq ft in some cases. Woodland assumes that each sq ft will generate Rs 5000 revenue for them. Apart from that they have a sound distributor network (3000+) who keeps the woodland movement intact. There are very small franchisee network also exist. In multi- brand retail they occupy 5-20% area depending on location.

Sustainability: Woodland has changed the manufacturing process. Most of the shoes are made by eco-friendly materials Over the year they have come with new range of semi- formal shoes under the brand name of Woods.

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