Shampoo

INDEX

Page No.

1. The Product 3

2. Our visits 3

3. Customers 5

4. Competition 6

5. Trends 6

6. Interview with VP, Cavinkare 7

7. Brands 8

8. Learnings 10

9. References 10

THE PRODUCT

Shampoo is a hair care product used for the removal of oils, dirt, skin particles, environmental pollutants and/or other contaminant particles that gradually build up in hair. Shampoo, when lathered with water, is a surfactant, which, while cleaning the hair and scalp, can remove the natural oils (sebum) which lubricate the hair shaft

Because of the function it serves, shampoo seems to be a favorite product for all class of customers. The following visits were arranged in such a manner as to cover all types of customers.

OUR VISITS

1. Spencer mall - Health 'n' Glow ( High - End Customers )

Health 'n' Glow even though termed as a high-end shop serves all types of customers.

 Generic sales across all brands. But sachets are not present.

 Gets the stock from the dealer for 5 weeks.

 Have 10 outlets all together in Chennai.

 Promotional offers are decided by the main office.

 Promotional offers changes weekly.

 No positioning strategy as such. Depends on the dimension of the shop.

 Target is overall revenue. No target as such for the shampoo segment.

 Each product category has a code and revenue from shampoo sales seems to be less than 20 %.

 One interesting feature was that, for Himalaya products, the sales girls were deployed by the company directly.

2. Manikandan Stores - A wholesale/retail dealer ( Average middle class/ Local shops )

This store supplies stock to retail shops as well as serves the average middle class customers.

 Target audience was men below 30 years.

 Sachets were more popular

 Head n Shoulders & Pantene were the favorite among customers.

 These stores receive the stock from agents

3. Himalaya outlets ( Ayurvedic herbal products )

Being a herbal product category, this shop has its niche customers.

 They sell their products through their own shops as well as other retail outlets.

 They sell only bottle shampoos, no sachets.

 In all Outlets, Hair care products occupied the first position, then came skin care products.

 Products vary from protein shampoos for normal, dry & oily Hair to other Anti-Dandruff shampoos.

 Baby shampoos were another category.

 Lot of promotional offers were being offered like a Lip Guard with 100 ml Shampoo bottles and Face moisturizing cream with 200 ml bottles.

4. Gurunath Stores, IIT Madras Campus ( Students)

Since the taste among students vary this stores have a gamut of shampoo collections ranging from HLL Sunsilk sachets to Garnier and L'oreal products. The points of interest were

 Boys preferred Pantene & Head &Shoulders. L'Oreal & Garnier seems to Girls' favorites.

 The shop-keeper usually gets a margin of (4-8)% and feels the companies are heavily investing in Ad campaigns rather than going for shop based promotions so that the customer is already sure of which product to buy.

 Another difficulty that we found with respect retail shops was regarding the replenishing of their stocks which happens weekly. If one brand sells off quickly, they have to wait for one week to get it replenished.

5. Saloons & Beauty Parlors ( Hair Stylists )

 Unisex parlors like Naturals & Skin 'n' Hair saloon

As a part of their hair treatment, they have L'Oreal and Schwarzkopf brands, which we found was the pick of the high-end customers.

6. Medical shop ( Prescribed Hair shampoos)

Majority of the medical shops provided the customers with

 Nizarol, which is a Johnson & Johnson product which got the best feedback from the customers so there was not that much competition for this product.

 Another product in the anti-dandruff category was Scalpe, which was manufactured by GLENMARK Co.

CUSTOMERS

 Children ( 6-12 years)

Generally gets attracted to a shampoo by its packaging. They preferred shampoos with bright colours like Garnier, Fructics, Sunsilk. Mediker , anti-lice shampoo also found majority of their customers in this category.

 Teenagers (both girls and boys)

Were brand conscious. The people in this category had different choices ranging from brands like Heads n Shoulders to