Retailer’s Perspective on Support Services Offered by Vembanad White Cement

Buying behavior of consumers in Cement industry is greatly influenced by retailers as they are the last point in the distribution channel and have a direct understanding of consumer’s requirements. The retailers experience firsthand reactions of customers on product, services and quality assessments. In practice, it is very easy for a retailer to impress on the customer with a change in brand even at the very last moment. Because cement retailing is not exclusive and variety of competitive brands is available in the same outlet, it is important that the manufacturing company take great efforts to satisfy the retailers and keep their “support service levels†very high. The research through a field survey explores retailer’s perspective on support services offered by Vembanad White Cement. Suggestions are given to the company on increasing support services to the retailers through efficient complaint handling, credits and processing speed to enable smooth transactions between the retailers and the customers. Retailer’s satisfaction would influence buying behavior of end customers in a positive way. Proactive and personal approach from the company will make the retailers take interest to pass positive feedbacks to the consumers on product and its quality. In the buying process, recommendations from the retailers are the final step in sealing sales with the customers. Hence it is important to understand the retailer’s suggestions for improvements in service levels. Implementing these improvements will not only promote positive attitude of the retailers, in turn, it will also pass on as positive word of mouth to the customers encouraging larger client base and profits to the company

In-Store Promotions and Its Effect on Apparel Purchase

Indian retail sector is poised for growth and in-store is going to be the place where customers will take decision to spend or not to spend their money. As for apparel purchase, multiple factors influence the final decision on buying. Through this study, an attempt is made to find out the effect of in-store promotions and its influence on purchase of apparel by customers. Hence, the objectives of the study are set: to find out the customer’s purchase intentions and actual purchase in the context of apparel buying; to find out the most effective in-store promotions that induces purchase of apparel. The study was conducted in two Reliance Trend outlets in Bangalore City, India. 750 customers were intercepted after their shopping with questionnaires. Analyses of data reveal that in-store promotions results in 87 percent of unplanned purchase in apparel buying. 80 per cent of the customers seek to visit the “Best buy†section within the store and instore display of large photographs induce trials of the same design to the tune of 72 per cent. When translated to money terms a customer spends Rs 400 to Rs 1200 on apparel, which was not in the planned list prepared before visiting the store. Hence, in-store promotions are effective means to induce on the spot buying decisions amongst customers especially in apparel purchase

Sea shell collection — an additional means of income for fishermen of Muthyalammapalem, south of Visakhapatnam

Along with fishing activities, the fishermen of Muthyalammapalem, a fishing village about 55 km south of Visakhapatnam have recently started the collection of sea shells from the intertidal zone in view of the great demand for shells from the poultry feed manufacturers

The longest excursion of stochastic processes in nonequilibrium systems

We consider the excursions, i.e. the intervals between consecutive zeros, of stochastic processes that arise in a variety of nonequilibrium systems and study the temporal growth of the longest one l_{\max}(t) up to time t. For smooth processes, we find a universal linear growth \simeq Q_{\infty} t with a model dependent amplitude Q_\infty. In contrast, for non-smooth processes with a persistence exponent \theta, we show that < l_{\max}(t) > has a linear growth if \theta \sim t^{1-\psi} if \theta > \theta_c. The amplitude Q_{\infty} and the exponent \psi are novel quantities associated to nonequilibrium dynamics. These behaviors are obtained by exact analytical calculations for renewal and multiplicative processes and numerical simulations for other systems such as the coarsening dynamics in Ising model as well as the diffusion equation with random initial conditions.Comment: 4 pages,2 figure

Criteria for Selection of Site for Co~lstruction of Structures on a Floating Ice Shelf in Antarctica-A Case Stucty

The coastal regions of Antarctica, where substantial deposits of oil and (other minerals are reported, consist of a number of ice shelves. Such areas encounter severe weather conditions and flow of the ice shelf which severely affect the life of the structure/installations. The Indian Antarctic station Dakshin Gangotri located in east Antarcticaat 70 degrees S 12 degrees 05' E lies on one of such ice shelves. The paper brings out the criteria which should be kept in niind while selecting the site of a structure on an ice shelf and a case study for selection of site of Indian research station Diikshin Gangotri 'in December 1983 of which the author was the leader of the first wintering party