Meena Bazar Brand, and Meena Bazar’s eCommerce Strategy With Ahmed Shoyeb Iqbal, GM, Brand, Communication, and Business Development, Meena Bazar:
Ahmed Shoyeb Iqbal, General Manager of Brand, Communication, and Business Development, Meena Bazar, on Meena Bazar’s brand and communication strategy, Meena Click and Meena Bazar’s eCommerce ambition, digital payment, the business of retail, and the art of marketing and communication.
Future Startup
Thank you for agreeing to do this interview. What is your background and what are you working on?
Ahmed Shoyeb Iqbal
I have been working at Meena Bazar for almost nine years now. Previously, I worked at Grameenphone. After leaving GP and before joining Meena Bazar, I went to the UK to do my MBA from the University of London where I studied Marketing Management. I returned in 2009 and joined Meena Bazar.
Meena Bazar, a relatively smaller retail chain at that time, was at the beginning of a new phase. The company had already conceived an expansion plan.
Although I studied Marketing Management, initially, I joined in a different role in the training and development department as Manager, Training, and Development.
We had about seven outlets at that time. Overall supermarket business was a nascent concept in Bangladesh. In fact, the age of supermarket business in Bangladesh is about 18 years. The people with domain expertise in supermarket business was in short supply. Hence, training and development was an important department for Meena Bazar in order to scale the business.
The department was responsible for preparing and improving the skills of salespeople and store managers, which was particularly critical during that formative phase.
Since I had foreign exposure and a degree in Marketing Management, I used to train staff and store managers on customer service, developing customer service framework, working on different modules and other relevant aspects.
After working for a year in that department, I moved to my core function which is brand and communication. I started as Manager, Brand, and Communication for Meena Bazar. Currently, I look after the Brand, Communication and Business Development as General Manager.
I work with different vendors such as Pran, Unilever, GSK, Shajeeb, and others to launch joint promotional campaigns.
Most of the promotions that you see from us, such as 10% discounts on a particular product or 5% on another, these are not our promotions per se, these discounts come from our vendor partners. We ensure that it reaches to our customers so that they purchase these products.
One of my responsibilities is to bring these sorts of communications by working with our partners.
Generally speaking, we have two priorities at brand and communication department at any given time. One is to increase footfalls in our stores which means growing the number of customers visiting our outlets daily; and secondly, increasing the basket size of our existing customers through offers and promotional campaigns.
Apart from regular communication works, we also look at how we can build the lasting relationship with our customers. Over the past years, we have successfully introduced Meena Bazar Club Card, a membership platform for Meena Bazar customers where we currently have over a hundred thousand members. We launched it in 2012. It has been growing consistently since then.
We also launched Meena Bazar website, www.meenabazar.com.bd, in 2012. We were the first grocery chain in the country to launch a fully dynamic e-commerce website in Bangladesh. Our ecommerce endeavor has evolved over the years. Recently, we’ve rebranded our ecommerce platform to www.meenaclick.com.
Besides Meena Bazar, our parent company, Gemcon Group, operates another retail chain called Gourmet Bazar. I and my team also look after the branding and marketing of it.
We have two Gourmet Bazar outlets: one at Banani and another at Gulshan. Both of the outlets are very well received. Our Banani Gourmet Bazar has a community-centric positioning. We have been able to establish it as an event-based, community-centric outlet. It has a nice coffee section, a grocery section and it attracts different types of people. On the other hand, our Gulshan branch has made its mark as a premium grocery shop.
These are some of the things that we do. Apart from these, there are regular campaigns and promotional activities. There are a lot of events these days that warrant for our attention. We also run event-specific promotional campaigns.
As a supermarket, we sell products of other brands. We do have some home brand or private label brands such as tissue, water, and a few others, but mostly we aggregate brands. Bring them under one roof and in the process offer convenience to our customers. Consequently, when it comes to communication, we often require to walk a tightrope and find a balance that serves my purpose as well as delivers the result.