Recently Tata Croma had an offer on one of their products. They were bundling a set of Sennheiser headphones with an ipod nano. It seems this offer was quite popular with the people as the headphones were out of stock when my wife and I went in the evening to check it out.
What is more interesting is the series of events which took place there. We first went to the Croma store and inquired about the offer. They said the headphones were out of stock, but you could buy the ipod now and get the free headphones in a week or so. There was an Apple store just close to the Croma store. So we went there to check out the prices. The price was exactly the same in both places. My wife being the way she is, asked the Apple sales guy about the Croma offer. Surprisingly the sales guy was ready to add some value add for us. He offered us a USB based speaker to match the Croma offer. I examined the speaker and found it not too exciting. So we told him we’ll rather buy from the Croma store. Before leaving, we directly asked him if he could match the offer of Tata Croma store and give us a decent pair of headphones. He called up his boss but sadly his boss didn’t agree. So we went back to the Tata Croma and booked an ipod nano from there.
Why I find this interesting is that normally the high-end stores/brands like these do not offer any value-add on their products. It would be rare to see an Apple store in the US even trying to match such offers from let’s say Walmart or some such store. But here in India the equation seems completely different. The exclusive Apple store had to offer a significant value-add compared to the mass retailer which was definitely taking a significant chunk of their sales. Even though the products on both sides are the same, but the sales guy would be taking a hit just because the Apple store couldn’t match the offer. Note that this Apple store was the same one which once offered me to load new apps and games if I bought an ipod touch from their store.
So its Big Bazaar against Converse/Adidas/Reebok, or Tata Croma against Apple, or a local mobile phone dealer versus Nokia Exclusive stores. Unless the branded store can offer some kind of value-add, the mass market stores would kill their sales. Thankfully some of these branded stores are taking note of this fact. And that is good news for the Indian consumer. But the best way to get such offers – is to simply ask. As an Indian consumer, you are well within your rights to do so without feeling the least embarrassed. 
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