Big Bazaar: India's retail revolution. Kishore Biyani's vision transformed shopping habits nationwide, turning a modest venture into a market leader.
This documentary charts Big Bazaar's innovative strategies, rapid expansion, and cultural impact. We dissect the challenges that toppled the retail giant, including e-commerce disruption and shifting consumer behaviors. The film traces the company's attempts to adapt and its ultimate downfall.
A cautionary tale of ambition, success, and retail's fickle nature, this story provides key insights into India's evolving marketplace. Understand the rise and fall of a retail empire and glimpse the future of brick-and-mortar stores in the digital age.
This documentary charts Big Bazaar's innovative strategies, rapid expansion, and cultural impact. We dissect the challenges that toppled the retail giant, including e-commerce disruption and shifting consumer behaviors. The film traces the company's attempts to adapt and its ultimate downfall.
A cautionary tale of ambition, success, and retail's fickle nature, this story provides key insights into India's evolving marketplace. Understand the rise and fall of a retail empire and glimpse the future of brick-and-mortar stores in the digital age.
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MusicTranscript
00:00On January 26, 2001, thousands of people were on the streets at 5 am in Mumbai.
00:05Despite all the police efforts, these people wanted to break the barricades and break the walls to enter a special building.
00:13This special building was India's favorite shopping destination, Big Bazaar.
00:18That day, a mega sale called the cheapest day was going on in Big Bazaar.
00:22And Kishore Biyani's Big Bazaar had earned 30 crore rupees in just one day.
00:28But what happened in the next 20 years that every store in this Big Bazaar was locked?
00:35Let's find out in this video.
00:37The story begins in 1981.
00:39Kishore Biyani was in the final year of college and his father wanted him to join the family business.
00:45But he did not want to limit himself by joining his family business.
00:49He wanted to build something big in his life.
00:52During this time, Kishore Biyani saw that one of his college friends was wearing fashionable trousers made of a very unique fiber.
00:59It was stonewashed fabric and he saw a lot of potential in it.
01:02He immediately bought a 200 meter cloth of stonewashed fabric from Jupiter Mills.
01:08And started selling it to garment manufacturers in the city.
01:10In the next 6 months, he had done business worth lakhs.
01:14And from here, his entrepreneurship journey had begun.
01:18By 1985, Kishore Biyani was not only selling fabrics of his own brand,
01:22but he also opened his own store to sell ready-made trousers.
01:27And his name was Patloon.
01:29After 2 years, he invested 7 lakh rupees and started Men's Wear Company.
01:33In which he himself started trouser manufacturing.
01:36And named his new trouser brand as Pantaloon.
01:39His idea behind the name Pantaloon was to make the word Patloon trendy and modern.
01:44That's why Patloon became Pantaloon.
01:46And later on, the name of the company was changed to Pantaloon Retail.
01:50The design of the trousers of Pantaloon was very futuristic.
01:53Like in one of his trousers, there were 3 buttons on the zipper.
01:56And the trousers had a very high waist.
01:59Because of such modern designs, the trousers of Pantaloon became very popular.
02:03By 1994, 72 franchise stores of Pantaloons had opened in India.
02:08And along with trousers, they had also launched products like shirts, jeans, tie, and socks.
02:14At the same time, Kishore Biyani saw that the trend of large-format retailing was increasing in India.
02:19Basically, big retail stores like Shopper's Top were opening.
02:23Which are many times bigger than a normal showroom in size, variety, and quantity.
02:28That's why he also opened the first large-format retail store of Pantaloons in Kolkata.
02:33This store was of 10,000 square feet.
02:35And at that time, it was the largest store in Kolkata.
02:38He also brought the concept of visual merchandising in the store.
02:42In which the colors, signs, lighting, and look and feel of the store are communicated to the customer.
02:48And ultimately, a pleasant shopping experience is given.
02:51Also, along with men's wear, women's and child's wear were also launched in this store.
02:57Everyone thought that opening such a big store for garments is a big mistake.
03:01But on the very first day, there was so much crowd that everyone's opinions were proved wrong.
03:06Looking at this early success, 13 mega stores of Pantaloons had opened by 1999.
03:11And now, Kishore Biyani had become India's fashion retail tycoon.
03:16But he was not going to stop now.
03:17He saw that the customer spends only 8% of his total expenditure, i.e. his total wallet in clothing.
03:24And if he wants to capture 50% of the customer's wallet share,
03:28then he will have to diversify in other items as well.
03:32Meanwhile, Kishore Biyani visited Saravana Store in Chennai.
03:36This store was 25 years old.
03:38There were 5 floors and every item like clothes, toys, jewelry, appliances, and groceries were available here.
03:44Saravana's model was to do a lot of sales in a low profit margin.
03:48And according to Kishore Biyani's estimates, this one store used to do sales of 200 crores a year.
03:54He studied this store deeply and took inspiration from it and decided to start his own hypermarket.
04:00And this same hypermarket later became Big Bazaar.
04:04Before making a successful hypermarket, Kishore Biyani studied the local markets of India deeply.
04:10He saw that the psychology of an average Indian consumer was that the modern and hi-fi shops were expensive.
04:18Because of which an average customer felt comfortable shopping in local markets.
04:23Where the shop and shopkeeper were both very simple.
04:27That's why Kishore Biyani named his hypermarket as Big Bazaar.
04:30So that people instantly connect to it after hearing the word Bazaar.
04:34He designed Big Bazaar stores in such a way that they look like a combination of multiple shops in one building.
04:40Like it happens in a bazaar.
04:42Also, he believed that salesmen should never look smarter than customers.
04:46That's why he hired such salesmen who could be easily approached by a common man.
04:51And the uniform of these salesmen was also very simple.
04:54For example, the salesmen of Big Bazaar never wore a tie.
04:58Finally, the main idea of Big Bazaar was that the customer should get the cheapest and best product here.
05:03Keeping these strategies in mind, in 2001, the first three stores of Big Bazaar opened in Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
05:11Like Pandaloons, these stores also became very successful.
05:14So successful that in the next few years, 100 Big Bazaar stores had opened in India.
05:19But Kishore Biyani had plans to build something even bigger than this.
05:25He saw in a research that an average customer visits a maximum of 4-5 shops in a shopping mall.
05:32After which, due to fatigue, he doesn't want to go to any other shop.
05:35That's why Kishore Biyani thought of a mall where there are no walls between the shops.
05:41In this concept, the customer will get multiple products and brand exposure at once.
05:46And he won't have to go inside and outside the store again and again.
05:50Also, Kishore wanted to make this mall a destination mall.
05:54Meaning a mall that is not just a place for routine shopping.
05:57But is a major attraction of the city itself.
06:00And offer food, shopping, entertainment, and specialized attractions to the visitors.
06:06He named this concept of the new mall as Central.
06:10And in 2004, the first Central mall opened in Bengaluru in a space of 120,000 sq.ft.
06:16This mall had more than 300 brands of apparel, footwear, accessories, home furnishings, music, and books.
06:22Along with that, there were coffee shops, food courts, restaurants, and pubs.
06:26People could book tickets for movies, concerts, and even traveling.
06:30As time passed, Central mall became a major attraction of Bengaluru.
06:34And seeing this, Central was expanded rapidly in many cities like Hyderabad, Pune, and Kolkata.
06:41In 2006, to effectively manage all his companies, Kishore Biyani started an umbrella company.
06:47And he named it as Future Group.
06:49Due to Pantaloons Big Bazaar, businesses like Central, and revenue of thousands of crores,
06:54Future Group had become a giant of Indian corporate space.
06:58And Kishore Biyani was at the undisputed top position of Indian retail industry.
07:03But now, a big and long downfall was about to start in his story.
07:09Kishore Biyani said that he will enter every business where there is direct dealing between business and customer.
07:17And with this philosophy, he had a downfall.
07:20In 2005, he bought 3 apparel brands one by one.
07:24Along with that, he started diversifying in different areas.
07:27Like in 2005, he started All, a little larger.
07:31This brand used to sell plus size clothes.
07:34Then he started Gold Bazaar to sell gold in Big Bazaar.
07:38He started Home Town brand to renovate and build houses.
07:41In 2006, he started Depot to sell books.
07:44He even started a kiosk named Chamosa to sell tea and samosas.
07:49Basically, from tea business to building a house, Kishore Biyani was present everywhere.
07:54But this was just the beginning.
07:56In 2007, he started Future Capital Holdings.
07:59And took entry in financial services like Wealth Management and Real Estate Broking.
08:04Along with that, he opened Future General Insurance Company.
08:07And took entry in Life Insurance and General Insurance Industry.
08:11From the outside, it looked like Future Group's business empire was quite big and successful.
08:16But he didn't expand that much with his own money.
08:21For this expansion, he took a debt of thousands of crores.
08:26He expected to manage this debt with the help of strong sales.
08:30But then, in 2008, there was a global financial crisis.
08:33Consumer spending declined and Future Group's sales crashed.
08:37To sustain the business, Kishore Biyani had to take more debt.
08:42By 2012, he had a debt of around 12,000 crores.
08:46And it was difficult for him to pay interest.
08:49That's why Kishore Biyani had to sell his pantaloons for 1600 crores.
08:54Along with that, Future Capital was also sold for 4,250 crores.
08:58The biggest problem of Kishore Biyani was that before expanding into other businesses.
09:03He didn't make any of his businesses massively profitable.
09:07And to deal with a crisis, he didn't maintain sufficient cash reserves.
09:12And that's why he had to sell his business which was closest to his heart.
09:17To avoid such a situation in my life, I maintain a minimum 6-month emergency fund in a fixed deposit.
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09:38This fact was an eye-opener for me.
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10:30Kishore Bihani thought that the money he earned by selling Pantaloons and Future Capital will solve his problems.
10:36But then, two big competitors enter the story.
10:40Amazon and Flipkart.
10:41In the past few years, these two have shifted crores of consumers from offline shopping to online shopping.
10:47To compete with them, Kishore Bihani also started his e-commerce website, Big Bazaar Direct.
10:53But by then, it was too late.
10:55Amazon and Flipkart had already captured a substantial market share.
10:59And now, it was impossible to compete with them.
11:02Along with that, Big Bazaar Direct had many technical issues, customer experience problems, and inventory issues.
11:08And because of these reasons, Big Bazaar Direct proved to be a huge failure.
11:12And Future Group lost crores of rupees.
11:15But perhaps, Kishore Bihani's biggest mistake was to compete with India's grocery stores.
11:20In 2015, he acquired a small-format grocery store chain called Easy Day.
11:27At that time, Easy Day had 190 stores.
11:29And Kishore wanted to open 10,000 stores by 2022.
11:33And replace Indian grocery stores.
11:36By 2018, 1000 stores had already opened.
11:39To beat grocery stores, Kishore Bihani launched a membership plan called Easy Day Club.
11:44In which, by giving 1000 rupees a year, a customer could get 10% discount on every purchase from Easy Day.
11:52But his model failed badly.
11:54First of all, Indian customers didn't want to give money for future discounts.
12:00Also, local grocery stores used to give 10-15% discount without any subscription fee.
12:06Secondly, grocery stores always have personalized relationships with the local population.
12:11They also provide free home delivery and loans.
12:15But Easy Day couldn't match all these things.
12:18Finally, where grocery stores' staff, rent, and technology expenses were not equal,
12:24Easy Day had to spend a lot on all these things.
12:27That's why, ultimately, Easy Day started facing heavy losses.
12:30And by 2020, many stores were shut down.
12:34But Future Group's mistakes don't end here.
12:37Kishore Bihani saw that through his Big Bazaar and other stores,
12:40other brands are selling their products and earning crores of profit.
12:44He thought that if he launches his own brand products for the most sold items,
12:50then he will get a lot of profit.
12:51That's why he launched his own brand products in every category like Snacks, Home Care, Personal Care, and Staples.
12:59His plan was to earn a revenue of 20,000 crores from these brands by 2022.
13:04But almost all of his brands flopped badly.
13:07He thought that by just keeping them on the shelf, his products will start selling.
13:11But customers still had to buy the products of the same brands that they trusted for years.
13:17Also, Future Group's brands didn't do anything different from the old established brands.
13:22They just wanted to increase sales through discounts.
13:25And because of discounts, the customer tried the product once,
13:28but didn't repeat purchase because of the poor quality.
13:32Because of all these mistakes, Future Group lost a lot of money.
13:35And by March 2019, their debt had increased to around 12,800 crores.
13:41But even after all this, Future Group was somehow surviving.
13:45That's when something happened that shook Future Group.
13:49COVID-19.
13:50Soon, the nationwide lockdown was announced.
13:53And Future Group's Big Bazaar, Central, and all other stores closed overnight.
13:58Their revenue crashed.
14:00Stores' rent, employees' salary, and debt repayment were delayed.
14:04Because of not paying rent, Big Bazaar and other stores' locations were snatched by Kishore Biyani.
14:10And these stores started closing.
14:12Today, Reliance has opened its stores at around 800 of these locations.
14:16In 2022, Bank of India demanded insolvency proceedings on Future Group.
14:21And these proceedings are still going on.
14:23That means, Future Group's assets are being sold one by one and their debt is being paid.
14:28There's no doubt that Kishore Biyani was a business genius.
14:32He created businesses like Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, and Central.
14:35Which revolutionized the Indian retail industry.
14:38And made him India's Retail King.
14:41But after this, he lost his focus.
14:43And quickly, to expand everywhere, he took a debt of thousands of crores.
14:48As soon as the market conditions worsened and the pandemic came,
14:51his business empire crumbled.
14:53Just like a sand castle.
14:55If you liked this video, I'll recommend you to watch the next video.
15:01Also, the link to Stable Money is in the description and pinned comment.