 Hi everyone, this is Sonali. Thank you all for carving out some time for attending today's webinar on the impact of COVID-19 on retail industry. To all the attendees out there, please type in any questions you might have in the Q&A section and we'll try to answer as many as possible at the end of the session. I would now like to introduce our speaker. She is an entrepreneur and a retail experience enhancer. She has worked with several international and national firms on various projects for them in the retail industry. Her company, Thinkall Training and Consultancy has recently been awarded as one of the top five startups for diversity second year in a row. She also runs a foundation firm called Woman Entrepreneurs Foundation, which is helping bridge the diversity in landscape of startup ecosystem. Her company promotes small permit to take up entrepreneurship and help those who are already running a business. She has been a mentor to many startup organizations and has also seen an exit in a well funded startup called Makeup Renewer India. She has been a keynote speaker in many international conferences, a writer for expert opinion and consultations for relevant industries. Please welcome Ms. Eti Ravid. Welcome ma'am. Hi, Sonali. Yes ma'am, can you please turn your video on? Yeah, perfect. Hello everyone. And thanks a lot Sonali for a wonderful introduction. Am I audible to everyone? Great. So it's a wonderful morning and thank you everyone for joining in. And as we start our webinar today and the topic of the webinar is going to be impact of COVID-19 on retail industry. We have quite a number of participants who have logged in. We would like to wish you all a very good morning. I can see some people who have joined in from different parts of the country also. So good morning, good afternoon and good evening to everyone. I have been with retail industry for past more than 15 years now and have worked with companies like Avin Brand, Nike, Apple and then started a thing called which was a training and consulting firm and have consulted many national and international retail firms. Also we have recently ventured into an online academy now, which is called thing called Academy, which provides retail certification courses. Also there's a job portal which is called jobs.thinkallacademy.com. So this was about me and now we will be shortly moving ahead with what the world is witnessing is nothing short of something directly out of a Hollywood thriller movie. And we have been talking about it for quite some time now. Many of you working directly on or indirectly with retail have been directly impacted with what we have called as a novel coronavirus COVID-19. And we want to understand that how these insecurities are gripping and what are the best measures that we can take to come out of it. What I would be covering in this webinar today is what will change once the lockdown is over, how the lives could be impacted, sales impact and I would also try to give out immediate remedies and solutions for you today. Understanding the customer sentiments and how to bring their trust back. Now firstly let's look at what exactly has changed in retail industry once the lockdown is over and how we will see a new phase absolutely. So China was the first country to go into lockdown and they are now open for the business. There is immense learning that we can get from there and I also have few lessons from Singapore a few from UAE etc. On what are they currently working on and what are the moves and what are the typical trends. So typically what we have seen post the lockdown opening immediately, there have been low walk ins and low sales. The fear of getting infected would still be there in the minds of the consumer and they would not be really coming out running to the stores to buy stuff. Supply chain are hit. We know that there are literally no transportation for moving goods in fact from factories and as well. Across the globe we have seen more than two billion dollars orders being getting cancelled and this report was generated some 15 days back. So there might be an increase in number now of the finished goods cancellation. Some of the key retailers have done this to show to get their cogs little lower which has actually got a domino effect now leading to layoffs that leading to low inventory then leading to the lower sales and so on so forth. But the estimate is that a revenue hit of 30 to 45 percent across retail once the COVID lockdown also opens up. But it is not also going to be one size fits all. We need to understand the essential category that we say it is the other way round as the logistics were hit and the demands were not being fulfilled. Online grocery stores were taken aback by the search of the demand that came out which was ultimately fulfilled by the local grocery stores. Once the lockdown opens up low walk-ins revenue loss are almost for more than a quarter. Ma'am I'm sorry to interrupt you but I think there's some disturbance with the mic in between. So your voice is breaking in between in the past one or two minutes. Okay do you want me to repeat what I said I don't know it's no everything was clear but there was just a little disturbance with the mic. So I just thought I'll inform you about that. Sure am I audible now? Yeah yeah yeah it's good now. Okay continue with where I left which was basically that once the long term would be opening up although there will be low walk-ins that is what we are going to see. The revenues also will be at a loss and revenues loss we are estimating for almost nearly a quarter. The tendency would be typically for a retailer to discount and that would attract the customer backs and get the walk-ins up. But some expert and brand leaders have also predicted that end of season sale which is USS may start as early as May. But it won't be an extremely wise decision to start deep discounting because at this point of time we need to hold on to our cash that is very important. Now it is not the time to challenge and get in competitive mode but to empathize and collaborate more. There are various bodies which combine organizations like us together the retail bodies etc and on top of that sits the government of India. So reach out and find the right amiable way to sustain and wait through the hard times together that is the one thing that I would like to highlight. I need not remind you that it's a collective strength that we put together and we are amounting to almost 10% of the GDP of India itself. So there's lots that we can do once we have combined our forces together. Then the question comes then how do we manage the sales and that's the key thing that we are going to highlight over here. The customer would be finding it difficult to put their step back into the store. Once the store opens up also there is going to be very very strict guidelines around following the few steps that will be highlighted to us which will be wearing of mask might be made compulsory. Sanitization and maintaining social distancing would become a norm. In fact recently I was studying a study by Harvard which mentioned that social distancing needs to be maintained till 2022 or till when the vaccinations are discovered. There will be temperature checks at all the mall entrances for the customer not just that many retailers have also planned not to allow the trial or even the exchange of the products. Now this is not very retail friendly this is very anti experience for a shopper of for looking forward towards a health hazard etc. They might not just immediately snap out of it immediately on 4th of May and or just walk down to the store but don't fret this is not the doomsday of a physical store. There are not many things that can be done. Only those companies will survive which are going to stay agile which are going to stay flexible for change. Talks about if we put on the x-axis the impact on the business and we can put for quadrants to this. The first being a significant impact on business for the COVID-19 and on the lower end you will see a low impact on the business and on the y-axis if we just put all the companies which have got exposure likelihood means if you are at a business where the exposure is going to be really hazardous versus no contact kind of a thing. And I have also put in some of the companies sorry some of the industry specifics that you write at the this quadrant itself where the impact on the business is going to be very very high. And it's it's the exposure likelihood says that we are in the hazardous area versus BFSI would be somewhere at a significant impact but although there is not much contact that you see coming up on the health care side the impact on the business is going to be a little low. In fact they are actually making a lot of money at this point of time but it's a very hazardous business they are putting their lives at the risk right now. And the trades which we can say are completely gung-ho about what has happened would be people like online grocery stores etc. So what are the solutions that we provide for such a such an industry such a place is that if you are somewhere in the red quadrant what we need to do is reserve cash, protect your human resource and innovate for new channel of sales or product. If you are some somebody in the orange quadrant you need to connect with people somebody in the low or the blue quadrant is somebody like health care you need to self protect that's very important to all the monies that is currently going in the innovation is to make sure that you are self protected as well and that's where the energy should be around and in the four quadrant the energies needs to be on increasing the supplies and increasing the inventory for yourself. Very clearly even if you are in edtech currently this is the place, this is the time when you have to come out and sell more and you know give out more to people similarly for online grocery stores also people who do not have enough inventory are the ones who are actually facing a problem. I want to take more questions in case if you have queries around this particular model. A little later at the end of the webinar will move forward to what exactly we can do at different levels I'm. I was just looking at who all have joined and we can see there are people from different aspects of retail who have joined this webinar. So let me start with the different levels of the company. Let's start with the front end retail line sales stuff first. The key area for them is to train and keep themselves prepared train now that's very important and before the lockdown you have to make sure that you keep educating and keep learning yourself for the new things that are going to come up and understand that how a customer needs to be dealt with. Second, if you look at marketing, they have got a very, very key role to play right now they have to be more prepared with the communication that they have ever been. You need to bring the customer back to the store and you need to make sure that you tell them that how safe secure and hygienic conditions we are maintaining that how exactly we are. I was recently watching one of the webinars that Dubai's Middle East retailer association had shown and they showed a video right in the beginning which showed that every nook and corner of their retail spaces have been sanitized properly and how nicely they have been done. And this was sent out to different customers to make sure that they understand that how deeply they are involved in it and how nicely they have taken care of it. The task is going to be absolutely tough, but it is almost like asking somebody to take a leap of faith by saying that please fall down and I'm going to give a catch to you that is how you should be meticulously planning your marketing strategies right now. As far as operations are concerned, if you look at the operations side of it, you need to constantly maintain that hygiene factor, the factor of making sure that things are in place. There is no turnaround that is being done. You need to also keep in touch regularly with the local healthcare authorities. That's very important because you are not a sanitization expert. Don't take things in your hand and think that you can sanitize the whole place up yourself. You need to make sure that their guidelines that they have laid out are properly met and that also has been communicated out to the people. This is also the time to talk to different mall owners, talk to your landlords, and I'm not just talking about revision on your rentals. This is the time when you have to discuss some meaningful steps to make sure that the customers come back to you. This is the time when you can sit down and think of some women's situation where you can plan and tackle this problem in advance. Make sure that your opening procedures of your stores and malls are in place. Singapore, Dubai, China Hall have got well-prepared step-by-step guidelines on what are the things that needs to be done and what needs to be adapted for making sure that the customers come back. Making sure that what you need to do to get the customers back with a lot of safety and hygiene in place. You also need to look forward to the insight on what should be the complete guidelines. I'm happy to help you in case any of you are looking forward for my help in that. We do have a standard procedure and all and we'll be happy to connect with you in case if you need a plan for that. Looking at the supply chain side now, these guys are the ones who should be helping a lot with the company to come out with feasible options of cutting costs. At the same time, they need to plan something around their warehouses. How do we maintain social distancing in the warehouses? What are the norms that needs to be brought into the warehouses while taking an inventory from one place to the other? Designers right now need to think on lines of sustainability. Merchandisers will have to look at buying locally. Cost will be highly reduced if you are buying locally and of course not to mention that make in India is in progress. A lot of people are benefiting from it. Let's help our economy as well as your company to buy locally and you have to save your cost. When it comes to human resource department, this department becomes very important. First and foremost thing that you need to think about is your people. There should not be a constant discussion around how we can just cut out jobs etc. Or cut out salaries etc. But sit down with your leadership team and come out with plan to save each and every individual. Save each and every person's salary as well as their jobs. That's what the human resource should be doing and thinking there and putting their heads on. Train, train and train every single person that you have in the company that should be put into training. And you have seen how I have laid out for each and every department what are the different things that they will be facing. So you think about that the company has been put on the reset button. This is like a change management, complete change management needs to be done. And that's what you need to look at in terms of learning and development. So do not undermine the training at this point of time. It is the most important thing to keep the minds also going for people who are probably sitting down and relaxing at home and thinking work is fun. So human resource have to really be in action. When we talk about the leadership team. Now these guys would be focusing more on the PNL the strategies etc. Very importantly how to save cash and how to manage the change that is currently happening. Needless to say that you should be thinking about also the collaborations partnerships to keep everyone afloat. There would be a key role also of very important team which will be crisis management team. So if you have not thought about a crisis management team in your companies to date you have to think about it immediately. There might be unfavorable circumstances and situations that will be happening. Think about the matrixes that you will have to adapt to think about the hierarchy that you have to respond to and create that crisis management team who will be taking care of this. For companies who have been doing this pre-planning of covid they are currently in a much better and more confident phase and they are looking forward to do some phenomenal work once the lockdown gets over. Moving on to the sales part which is my favorite topic too and a subject which is very very dear to me. You guys definitely have got an enormous task in front of you. Your targets have taken a setback almost two months and you are going to begin only with ugly that is what are the simple terms that I'm going to say. So innovate, strategize that is what we can say right now. You will fail leading to company shutdowns and job losses if you do not pay attention to your sales figures right now. You don't plan ahead at least till December right now. So think about those innovative methods that is going to keep your sales going on and one very important lesson that I learned during the sale days in Apple when I was working there was if the customers don't come to you, you go and reach out to the customers. That's the best method that people can adopt at this point of time. First is that why don't we think about turning our additional frontline staff to delivery persons and we start home delivery, teach them contactless deliveries. Have a process in place how you would be taking orders on the phone on WhatsApp etc. Personalization would be very very important to get your touch over there specifically for brands who are premium and luxury and above. In case such a retail is there then please support your software etc. with a heat wave map to make sure that there is a social proofing that is happening. If you say that join 20,000 customers doing this, this is again that's what is called a social proofing. So make sure that you have your communication around it, you have your words around it and and heat wave your software that that's what I would call it for stores who have got a little substantial database and can create their own micro websites. This would be with the updated inventory of course and you can reach out to the customer with a link of your website, micro website through WhatsApp messages, e-mailers etc. So that the customers near you can see that what exactly is the inventory currently lying and then the personalization and the home delivery and other things can happen immediately. This is a very important factor at this point of time to make sure that you are reaching out to the customers on a regular basis while you are keeping your sales going on at the retail as well. Understand the current the customers that you are dealing with would have learned to live their lives with less and so there has to be a reason why they will come back and buy from you again. So to get those reason out. I was thinking about two strategies that immediately comes to our mind is one is that if you can think about the businesses that have not been affected much the people who are related to these businesses might be having cash. Once you are out of the locked house, the people who would open up to buying to splurge to again get back to their romantic dates or going out and shopping and splurging would be those who are not really affected by COVID-19. And those are your customers right now. The second thing that I can think about would be to stand for something. Stand for something to get attention of your customers immediately. And when I say stand for something that means try to have a great social impact attached to your sales. When you say that when you buy product from us, X amount goes to a charity for feeding so many poor people. That is where customers would actually get your buy in. Think about it at this point of time. There are miseries around people. There have been a lot of people making a social impact. There have been people who have been trying and dying to come out and help people and they have not got venues to do that. When you come out like an ethical brand and say that here is my proposition that for a sale of say XYZ rupees I am going to put it in the charity and feed so many people then the sale automatically goes up. So stand for something for your sale to happen and the customer would definitely identify that with you and that they will definitely put their trust back in you. Remember that it is important to reduce that friction. You will have a very type of customer that needs to reduce it up and reciprocation is yet another way that you have to start showing. So even the thinnest of generosity that they are showing by making sure that the sales are happening show it back to them. Imagine if you go to a store and you buy something which you are currently planning to buy for say 1000 rupees and you get 20% discount back for your next purchase. And this comes in even better when this reciprocity is through a surprise. You don't expect people to do something good to you and suddenly you get something which is very generous and something which is very nice. That is when the customer gets your buy-in and customer builds that trust in you. So these are the ways where you have to of course attach yourself. So do not just jump into a May end of sale and say it's flat 50% off on the window. That will definitely not get the customer back. But what is going to get the customer back are these courteous and very helpful ways. Lastly what we also need to remember is that speed will only be secondary to quality. Quality is something that the customer will foresee. In essentials there might be speed also that currently people are looking for and it does change from industry to industry wise. But quality will make you stick for a long term and you will get long term customers. Those online brochures I'm talking about brochures right now because those are the guys who have been selling so far or the medicine stores who have been selling the pharmacist etc. The guys who have got good inventory people who have been able to service their customers on a regular basis they have the ones who the customers are going back to nowadays. Similarly once the lockdown is over there would be shortage of inventory probably because of the logistic issues for some of the retailers some of the retailers it might not be there. But don't always think about speed what you need to focus upon would be the quality. Customers will always be sticking to the businesses which will be courteous willing and helpful. So you need to understand that retailers economics and make sure that you do not undermine the power of customer relationship. The relationship that we will be building would be through services experience customer relationship etc. And those are the meaningful things that will take you a long way. So what all you can do right now apart from this is apart from your home deliveries probably invest into automation of orders because that is the way forward. In case God forbids but in case if a COVID problem is exaggerated till 21 or 22 as the experts believe then we are thinking the long term and not just the short term goals that we are talking about right now. We have to have that plan strategy which are very clearly differentiated into the short term goals as well as those long term goals as the strategists feel. And those short term goals would be immediately tackling the problems that are currently at hand and long term would be something that we will be thinking about what happens if if the exit happens at a long term. Not just that currently it's also the time for you to think about your exit strategies from this COVID. It is going to be a phase one. It is not going to be as simple as just one day it's open at it's bright and sunny. But think about the ways how you will again get back to the branding side how again you will start getting back the higher sales import how again our economies are going to get back to what we have been doing. And retail has been phenomenal retail has been giving amazing economies to the government and we are booming very well. Our CAGR was very bright and together all of us should be in it to make sure that this is ongoing and we continue with the same pace that that's that's very important. For people who have got bigger bigger retail outlets or bigger retailers or chain of stores. Those people would be currently thinking about how we can get into more cashless more self checkouts and all one of the sales strategy also suggests that try to convince your customer to buy things with credit or with card. What it does automatically is increase the sales little bit this is all neuroscience but when you do research around it we will find that typically a customer who has been or who's habitual of buying through credit cards would have more spending power than a person who buys out of cash. So, find out ways of how you can entice a customer to buy through credit cards. It can be self checkout systems, or it can be something that you can collaborate with a bank and say a 10% additional of this is a typical retail system that many retailers have been adapting for a very long time. But now is the time to probably remind them if you have not think about it thought about it and small retailers specifically needs to keep this in mind that automation is now the word and it is the need of the R so you cannot go away from technology. If you have not thought about implementing the technology, think about it now think about how you can make sure that technology is now part of your game and it is a strategy you have implemented it at different points, wherever required. If you think about some of the luxury retailers know they already have got very limited walk ins but they might not be losing so many customers is what I believe from the trend that we have been seeing. But needless to say that you have the biggest impact in that segment itself in as far as India is concerned we have we were trying to understand that which section is hugely impacted as of now. So people who are into premium and retail premium retail and luxury segment, they might be looking at deploying technologies like AR VR, for example, VR goggles are things which have been talked about but not really implemented so far. But maybe this is the time now that we should start thinking about how we can build our own experience centers and then service people at home and deliver at home. Needless to say that IoT only channel are going to play a huge role in managing your inventory managing your sales and making sure there is a thorough throughput that has been happening on a regular basis. We need to keep that focus on in terms of sale and we need to keep on working around it as much as possible. The last bit of my webinar today which was understanding of the customer sentiments. So in simply word simple words if I put it is think about yourself that you are logged into a prison, a cage, it's like a big boss house where you are logged in and then suddenly you are let go. Once you go out, you might not really end up splurging and I have mentioned this across my webinar a lot of times that people have now lived a life where they understand what is lessons more and they have realized that they have been splurging, they have been buying more than what is required. So what are the right ways now to, you know, manage their spending the spending powers, etc. Also, it is not going to be one size fits all. There would be different customers, some people would come out and start splurging immediately there would be some people who would continue their sentiments. The worst sentiments that is going to be the major factor of people not getting back to the stores would be the threat or the fear of getting infected. So as mentioned earlier that through marketing activities through various ways where we can convince the customer to make sure that your store is safe. Put various methods and means to talk out to them tell them on a continuous basis that these are the ways that we have sanitized our store. We are making sure that the precautions are in place. We are making sure that things are not haywire. You need to keep that focus on a regular basis and understanding the customer would be the best thing the customers would only stick to the brands who understand them. So if you are not able to understand those customer sentiments right now and work around it. It is going to be difficult. So stay agile stay flexible and try to make sure that you understand what needs to be done to bring that leap of faith back and you should be able to catch them. You should be so well prepared that if a customer puts their trust back in you, you should be able to catch them and have your strategies plan plan and plan. Get your each and every person trained like we have again and again said that think about it that the whole industry is on a reset button and now we have to replan the whole strategy and the things around it. That's how we should be working right now. And this was the end of whatever we have planned and gathered. So in the last I would like to sum up this particular webinar stating that think of it like you were in a war like situation and lead it like a war like situation. And in the famous words of Winston Churchill, I would like to say that we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. And that's the spirit of retail and that's the spirit of people who are attached to retail. And I would like to open this webinar to questions. Somali I know I've completed it a little before time but let's see if we have questions and we can take it up now. Thank you so much for such a wonderful session ma'am. It was very insightful and thank you so much for sharing all those wonderful points. We have quite a few questions lined up so should I say the questions and you can give the answer accordingly. If that's okay? Sure. Okay so Mr. Pradeep Pandey says looking at the condition we really don't know how to retain our team. Also for how long we will have to pay their salary without the business to retain them. Alright so I completely understand Pradeep where you're coming from and we have seen overall how some of the retailers have either been cutting their salaries or there are job losses all across the retail. But think about it from the more footing and think what are the innovative ways that you can manage the retail with if there is a pivot that you can plan. I'm not sure that what exactly your business is right now and what part of retail are you referring to but think about it from innovative ways. Most of the companies right now are not going to think this as a crisis situation but more as an opportunity. So in case if there is a way for you to pivot or diversify into various different ways where you can see a forthcoming revenue. Think and plan around those lines is what I would say. And I've already given you a lot of tips around which particular department to think about what kind of retailers should be thinking about what exactly if you can get some tips from there then nothing like it. Next question is from Mr. Shajal Balakrishnan. He says will smaller stores require an e-commerce platform to cater to the customer basically a simple order management and delivery system? Sure. Why not? The smaller stores what they would be facing is exactly e-commerce website might be little on the expensive side. Some people would say that I might not have a very good background of IT also to understand that how exactly e-commerce works and it needs a lot of operations and needs a lot of meticulous planning. So the immediate solution for a smaller store would be probably to tie up with the e-commerce solution providers. There are various platforms which are marketplace which you can go to and get involved with. So it would be great if you start thinking about those partnerships collaborations at this point of time which is going to really benefit your business and keep the sales lock ringing. The registers needs to be ringing at this point of time. So the best methods out would be these at this point of time. It should be a win-win situation for all. So the next question is from Mr. Rachna Singh. He says how will we be able to come back again in the market after COVID-19 like the challenges we are going to face after this lockdown? Okay. I'm not sure exactly which particular part of retail are you talking about but I've already mentioned across that post COVID lockdown. The challenges that you will have very clearly are which everyone is anticipating right now. Low sales, low walk-ins, etc. How we will fulfill those are one way. What I have mentioned is that if we can plan a way to reaching out to the customers rather than them coming back to us. And the other way is to bring them back to us if you are in such a retail that you cannot service till they are there at your store. Then you need to think about those innovative ways where they can connect back to you. And your marketing should be such that it is almost like them believing in you with your dead lives. So it has to be very, very substantial. It needs to be something like when you say that you're standing for something like I mentioned. If you are there for a social impact or a social cause and you say that X amount of my sales. When you spend 100 rupees at my store, 1 rupee will go for a poor to be fed. Or 1 rupee is going to go into PM cares COVID-19 foundation. There are various other things that you can connect yourself with. So those are the ways which can build that trust back of the customer. Those are the ways where you can actually tell the customers that we are there for help. And communicating out on a regular basis that you have well sanitized the place. There's complete check of sanitization. There's complete check of making sure that the people who are coming in are definitely under a very hardcore guidelines and they are not going to deviate from it. Convert these into videos. Show that your store is getting sanitized around. Make a video out of it. Put it out on the social media. Talk to your customers and talk more right now. More you communicate out at this point of time, more they will get back to you. That is what I think is the need of the art. And I think this also answers our next question, which is from Mr. Venkat. He says, what are the top two strategies to get customers back using technology beyond the need of the hygiene and sanitization? So would you like to add anything else or I think the previous answer was? Yeah, I think technology is going to be the key role going forward. You have seen suddenly how we have started using Zoom and all the various conference measures. Meetings have all come online. Everything people are talking about online schools are now online. And people who have been pushing the technology back for a very long time now are now thinking about how to get technology to be of use. Thankfully, some smart players were there who has already put in place various other measures of making sure that technologies are well utilized. But now is the time for you to start thinking about a long-term strategy whenever you are putting in technology. When you're thinking about e-commerce tie-ups, think about how I can go long-term with it and what would be my plan around it. Think about if you are putting in self-checkouts, then what is my long-term plan around the self-checkout system and why I'm implementing it and various other things. Needless to say that this is going to involve some investment and we need to plan for it. People who have some cash ready with them, those are the guys who are on a happier area and a happier side of the graph right now. But people who are struggling with the cash, those are the guys where people are saying that they are going to shut down and close etc. But there are always ways of not being disappointed and staying confident. What I would suggest for all of them would be to think about more innovative ways of pivoting and diversifying their roles. So Mr. Alok says, could you highlight the impact and possible actions for the service industry please? The service industry is exactly which one you're talking about. Service is in various ways. In retail services you are talking about specifically? Okay, I'm not sure but alright. What I'll do is probably we are around retail then let me just talk about the retail service industry right now. Depending upon what exactly you are servicing, if it is a consultancy service or it is a manpower providing services or training services, every part is going to have a different impact overall. So as far as the manpower planning services are concerned, people are pivoting towards or reaching out to clients who are currently in need of more manpower. Like your online rosters, they are currently under stuff. They are in fact hiring more people. We recently learned that one of the online rosters, I think Big Basketball was planning to hire some 10,000 more personnel. They have in fact done a tie up with some of the companies right now which are having their retail staff, frontline staff sitting at the home. If they can provide an immediate assistant from them and they want to make some extra bucks then they are getting hired by those rosters right now. If you are looking at the consulting, so investments definitely would only happen from people who are not really affected. So you need to talk to people who are cash rich right now and get your clients there at this point of time. The sentiments are not exactly right now on expenditure. The sentiments are not exactly. So people who are providing training, most of the external trainers, businesses have been cut down and really come to a standstill. Some of the recruitment services have come to a standstill right now and consultancy as well. Consultancy where it is happening is probably at the change management side. So if you can create those services around your work, that is where it is going to make a direct impact. So the next question is from Mr. Ashish Aguja. He says any special comments on furniture retail stores? Okay, so furniture retail sales, I think it's directly connected to a long term planned sale. In India it's typically around with a buying of a house or renovation of a house etc. Customer sentiments are not exactly very strong in terms of splurging and spending. So this retail store might take a hit back and needless to say that there has to be some of the other innovative way to find the right way of selling. But this is one such area that people cannot live without also. So if you are in such a situation where a long term planning has been done and there are some cash reserves already with you, you will be in a very good situation. But places where a long term, if we see furniture sales retail retail is going to get back into work again and this should start working again. But at this point of time, it's very difficult situation and you have to work out ways on how to get the sales back. So the next question is from Mr. Sohail Qureshi and it's a difficult one given the situation. So he says can you please give some advice points to restart business of travel agency? Travel agency, it is a needless to say a very, very difficult one. But again, looking at India and the kind of profile that we are into, people will not live without traveling. In fact, recently there was an incident where people, there was a rumour that a bandra station has opened up and there was a huge surge of people coming onto the bandra station suddenly. So once the travel opens up, the business is going to get back definitely. Other ways that people are looking at is your safety guidelines side of it. So if there is a way which you can innovate into giving out consulting to people who are looking for the right safety guidelines, probably airlines etc. or giving out products which will be required by some of the airlines to get that safety standards up, providing masks, providing hand gloves, sanitizers etc. in a small pack to entice the customer back to your business. Those are the ways probably which is very solution driven and the right sentiments, it hits the right chord also, right pain points of the customer also when you are doing during that business. Probably that would help for you to get started. Great. So the next question is from Mr. Shivam Gujral. He says, I would like to know that we are retailers from New Delhi based in Karolbach market. That is one of the busiest markets in Delhi. So I would like to know how to explain the clients to come or if we go to their house, will that be possible that they would call us to their place? Wow, Delhi is a very, very interesting market and I love Karolbach I must say. It's one of the very, very interesting markets. But I imagine your store would be a standalone store where you would have probably one or couple of other stores as well. So there, as I said that the guidelines has to be maintained and you have to make sure that you reach out to the customer stating that the whole store has been cleansed, sanitized properly using the guidelines etc. And make a short video, it need not be a very fancy video, it can be shot from your mobile also very nicely done. There is a complete sanitization that has been done for the store and we are already in open opening up again. Once you do that, customers should come back and if you want to reach out to them, I think the best and the earliest ways of selling the products was from these small, one single standalone stores was to go and reach out to the customer with a gamut of products that you have and showcase it to them. This was very personalized and the most luxurious way of reaching out to your customer. This has been shut down at this time, at this time people are readily coming to the stores but this used to happen long, long time back. So think about those innovative ways and although this would be a great personalization for your customer but this would also enhance the experience that you can provide to the customers by reaching out to them at that level. So it would be great if you can do that or else the last option is of course have your own e-commerce website. If you are thinking about a customer base of more than 3 lakhs, very easily any retail with more than 3 lakh customer base can have their own micro website where you can showcase all your products. Very quickly click pictures of them, put it online and get things rolling and you can find multiple companies, freelancers, people who are creating websites like anything. Just use that technology and you would be back in business. Great, so the next question says if we sell our course online we have the fear that we lose classroom students. Our course is exclusive and there is no alternative in the market. Alright, so this is chicken and egg story, right? When we say that we are very exclusive and we can only do it in the classroom session, it cannot be taken online then find out ways probably where you have an additional inventory. By additional inventory I am saying that innovate a new product which is only for your online. Egg tech business right now are at their best. They are booming like anything we recently heard from an academy and they announced it online that they have already crossed more than 1 million hours of view. That's amazing and if you are into a business which is into selling courses please get into an online course and it would be an amazing sale. So the next question is from Mr. Gaurav Agarwal. He says what would be the impact on companies who are suppliers to big retailers for their products and also working as shop fitters for them for the new stores. And also working as shop fitters for them for the new stores shop fitters. So by supplies and if you are a shop fitter means that you are doing some interior work for the store is what I believe that you are talking about. What we have to look forward to is if there is any maintenance issue etc right now in the current existing store. The retail situation is such that some of the stores are in fact shutting down rather than opening up. So in case if you are into that business right now then renovations is something that you can look forward to and get started with wherever the landscape is developing right now. India is still developing and the retail landscape is also pretty much developing. So those underdeveloped malls which are under construction right now are not going to stop even though there is a COVID situation here. They will try their best to get back to the business. Some of them will flow through some of them will not especially those with big brand names and the big cash rich pockets. Those are the guys who are going to continue with that. So those are the areas probably you will have to think and impact for and get your clients from. So we are almost about to wrap up the session. So there are still a lot more questions that are left. So I guess I'll just go through them quickly. So one person says how to gain confidence among customers in restaurant business post COVID effect. All right restaurant is really going to be a tough one because this is where you come back and you have to eat and you are getting served by another person that's yet another problem. So you need to have to get that faith back in people that this is what the safety and hygiene and guidelines that we have been maintaining and you have to train your staff. Train like you have not trained them ever because at this point of time the sentiments of the customer is such that even the slightest of the mistake that you do is going to ruin your business completely. So make sure that every single part has been looked at. Although it's a it's a shut shop for most of the places but we are seeing that a Swiggy is still on the move and there are still some restaurants which are home delivery. Those are the places where you can probably think about your customer and reaching your base to and definitely it's a tough one but we are all going through it and we are all in it together. So just two last questions one is from Mr. Abhishek Jen. He has actually messaged multiple times for us to see his question. So I guess we'll take that. He says in renting retail business like renting Fast & Jerry or books how will customers see it after the lockdown. Will people prefer renting items as it saves cost but will he take it right from safety perspective. We are into kids toy renting business specifically will customers trust be gained back if yes how he suggests. So again in renting business it goes through a lot of touch. That is the problem that customers will see at this point of time. Definitely saving cost is a big big game right now that you are playing and that is the focus point for you to continue thinking about. And if you are able to convince the customer that any toy that is coming near you how it has been sanitized and made sure that it is. Completely infection free it is completely virus free put those guidelines in practice talk to your customer communicate out to them as much as possible. And make sure that you have those videos those marketing creatives it's there on the social media and everywhere. And your customers are sure about it that the products that they are buying from your absolutely safe and it will not harm their children. Perfect so the last question it's a generalized question from Mr. Terugu Venkat. He says which are your social channels to follow for insights and updates that you could share. Okay you can just Google me on Google. I would be there the list of I you can follow me on Facebook I'm there on Twitter I'm there on Instagram I'm there on LinkedIn. I prefer LinkedIn a lot because that's where I can immediately reply back to you and I'm there most of the time. In case if there is something is it okay if I give out my email ID right now. Yeah of course. So you can write to me directly as well. My email ID is eti at thinkall.in I will just write it in the comment section. So there's no chat section over here but we'll make sure that we send out your email IDs to everyone who has attended the session. Yes. Perfect okay thank you so much ma'am thank you for being so patient and sharing your wonderful insights with us and to all the attendees thank you so much for your time. We hope you were able to add some value to your lives through the session. Thanks again. Thanks a lot Sonali and thanks a lot to Business X for organizing this and a very very grateful thank you to all the attendees for this program. Please do connect and if there's any way that we can help you out in this times we are there to help you. Thank you so much.