Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION OUR VISIT TO IMTIAZ SUPER MARKET LOCATION CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS OVERCROWDING RESPONSIBILITY OF REPLACING DAMAGED STOCK KEY SUPPLIERS - GRN (GOODS RETURN NOTES) -ITN (INTER TRANSFER NOTES) -TRANSPORTATION CONCLUSION 2 3 5 5 7 7 7 8 8 8 8

IMTIAZ SUPER MARKET

Introduction
According to Haji Imtiaz Khan, his objective or vision is to change their supermarket into a hypermarket and serve as Pakistans highest selling hypermarket. He has been so far successful in his objective as he has already converted a general store into a good supermarket. Currently, it is Karachi's top supermarket as Imtiaz Store has the highest sales per day in Karachi. Since 1955, Imtiaz Super Market is providing its customers the unique shopping experience in Karachi, one of the biggest metropolitan cities of Pakistan. Imtiaz is one of its kind modern retail departmental store offering products for everyday use. Imtiaz is currently operating with 4 outlets located in all major areas in Karachi namely Nazimabad, DHA, Bahadurabad and Shahra-e-Faisal. Imtiaz Supermarket is the first ever retail-store located in the southern region of Pakistans financial capital. Imtiaz supermarket employees call themselves best and the leading retailer in Karachi. It is recognized as quality goods sellers concerning to all categories of daily life which are placed at same place together which result in convenience of the costumers. According to Imtiaz administration they are dealing with over 60,000 to 70,000 buyers per day.

Imtiaz Supermarket at DHA on a sunday afternoon.

Our Visit to Imtiaz Super Market

We met Stock Manager of Imtiaz store, Mr. Imran. Stock manager Imran told us that if some company wants to sell their product through Imtiaz super store then they need to put up their own shelves to market their product and pay Imtiaz particular fees, this also serves as an incentive companies to sell their products through Imtiaz. Any such agreement will take with top management to top management approach and not through point of sale (the super market). The point of sale only receives stocks in terms of inventory transactions all the agreements are done through top management. Buffer stock is maintained in case of shortage of stock or late deliveries. Further, he told us that items which are near to expire are immediately put up on sales promotion such as a packet of Real fruit juice which itself sells for Rs. 80, when near to expiry date will be sold as a pair of two different flavors for just Rs. 70 so that they can sell of the stock which is close to getting expired as soon as possible. In case stock of any product gets expired it is disposed without any second thoughts.

Imtiaz offers low prices as incentives to encourage sales. Putting them in comparison to the newly opened Hyderi Super market nearby Imtiaz which is selling products at a higher price and hence losing their customers to Imtiaz.

Salespersons in Imtiaz Supermarkets are given lists of products that they may use in order to assist a customer.

Location
The location of Imtiaz super market Nazimabad branch exists in an area where there are mixed type of customers both financially and morally. Every day the staff of Imtiaz is faced with customers trying to sales exchange or sales return the goods. Most of these customers are arrogant and persistent hence making the job of sales people and inventory managers at Imtiaz very difficult. Mostly its a 50/50 fault of both management and the customers. There are floor in charges on each floor of the super market for monitoring the customers and filtering out any distortions. Still a lot of thefts and shop lifting takes places and people try to shop lift goods worth Rs. 5000-6000 and even more at times. There are also certain mafias of pickpockets functioning which resist any sort of judgments or punishments. Mr. Imran told us a recent incident where a group of pickpocket women were caught and even the police could not serve definite justice to them as the management of Imtiaz started getting threats from the mafia that backed them. Majority of the people shop lifting are women.

Customer complaints
Complaints are considered if they are in majority mostly 2 or 3 complaints lead to reporting the company to check their stocks or replace them. Deliveries of stocks are done on daily basis as there are a lot of products and their dealings need to be done daily. Companies deliver products to warehouses and from warehouses it is further distributed to the branches of Imtiaz across the entire city. Imtiaz store has a warehouse within their store, which makes it easy for them to deliver goods whenever their customers want. Normally customers demand goods in bulk. As compared to other department stores like Agha's, Imtiaz Store has a large warehouse.

Customers being assisted by salespersons in the cosmetics section.

1 Experienced sales persons stand behind the counter of a pharmaceutical section in Imtiaz.

Third party retailers often buy in bulk from Imitiaz and benefit from the discounts hence the management prefers not selling much to retailers in bulk as they exploit the discounts. Mostly it is preferred to sell to family customers through discounts.

Overcrowding
Overcrowding results in a horde of useless customers occupying the space of premises without a purpose and hence leads to the turn away of loyal customers who do not like to shop in such a crowded environment. Imtiaz caters to the need of a versatile customer base ranging from family to corporate workers such as banking and different industries. Often Imtiaz reach out beyond its normal territory to cater the need of profitable customers. Sales theft through warehouses do not normally occur

Responsibility of replacing damaged stock

If certain products have spoiled stock the company takes responsibility to replace it. An incident was quoted by Mr. Imran where the entire stock of Soft Drink Sprite was replaced since some trash was found in a couple of bottles and Imtiaz cannot take the risk to endanger customers through defected products hence any such stock was returned and the same quantity was replaced without any costs. No particular sales quotas are maintained Imtiaz Store's location targets customers from all areas of the city. Imtiaz imports a lot of items and even makes their own products such as Sita olive oil, Ponum honey etc. D Olive is a brand which is only in possession of Imtiaz. Its a Turkish product and Imtiaz is in agreement with its suppliers that in Pakistan only Imtiaz will sell this product and no one else. For pharmaceutical products Mr. Imran told us that Trait price at which the company sells its medicines is given to us at 15% discount out of that 15%, 12% is given to the customers and the remaining 3% is availed by Imtiaz. Imtiaz mostly purchases pharmacy goods themselves rather than receiving supplies directly from the companies in order to avail discounts through wholesalers 80 out of 100 customers follow the silent guide that we provide them; if we don't provide the right way to walk, our sales can go down drastically.

Key suppliers
It is linked with large number of suppliers not only in Pakistan but also covers few foreign countries. Its suppliers within Pakistan are: Unilever Procter & Gamble National Foods Ashrafi Flourmills

Colgate Palmolive Jodiya Bazaar Merchants and so on and so forth.

Their employees perform all the calculations and prepare all the receipts manually and then they use a computer system for calculations and storing records.

- GRN (Goods Return Notes)

Imtiaz Store signs the GRN as it receives goods at their warehouse.

-ITN (Inter Transfer Notes)

Once the goods are ready to move from warehouse to retailers, warehouse ITN is signed. If, there are any defective or expired items, the ITN is reversed.

-Transportation
Due to increased use of distribution centers by Imtiaz Store, the management of outbound transportation from distribution center to store becomes complex. That's why Imtiaz Store does weekly planning to overcome the complexity of transport system. In addition to weekly planning, they have a sophisticated routing and scheduling computer system. This system considers customer service levels, road conditions and transportation operating constraints to develop the most efficient routes possible. As Imtiaz also imports goods, they receive direct shipments from Dubai. They have contracts with reliable transportation companies. The goods are also transported in Imtiaz Store through trucks, depending upon the amount of goods.

Conclusion
Imtiaz Store is no doubt a leading retail outlet in the food industry. It is one of the best supermarkets in Karachi. They have everything well planned and always scheduled before hand. They today stand on this position because of their quality and hard work.