The Hindu Business Line : Laundry services to fuel HLL-BPCL retail strategy

THE neighbourhood dhobiwalla may soon face some serious competition from unexpected quarters. He may have to compete with India's oil major Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and FMCG major Hindustan Lever Ltd, with the two corporate giants planning to offer laundry services through the oil company's petrol retail outlets.

As oil companies are stepping on the gas to enhance their brand equity by offering a bouquet of services at the retail points in an effort to capture a larger part of the consumers mind share, BPCL has identified laundry as one of the services that could become part of its retail offering. "We had launched this service at a few outlets in Mumbai some time ago and the response has been good. We will now be re-working the scheme and launching it on a larger scale in the near future," says Mr Rakesh Mehra, BPCL's General Manager (Retail), Western Region.

Taking a cue from the retailing strategies of oil MNCs in the developed countries, BPCL had tied up with HLL to offer customers to its select outlets the facility of laundry service, with the oil major managing the "front-end" of the operation and HLL handling the "back-end". Customers could drop their laundry at the select petrol outlets when they come to fill up their vehicles and collect them within 24 or 48 hours.

While for BPCL this service was part of its new customer-friendly retailing strategy, HLL looked at the scheme as an instrument to push up sales of its Surf brand of detergent— in fact the service was called `Surf laundry service'. HLL had planned to launch its own laundry service some time ago, but the scheme did not take off. Now, as petrol stations are widely recognised to be one of the highest traffic aggregators, HLL will be eyeing this project as a new avenue to push up sales of its detergents.

Laundry is not the only service that BPCL has on its retail radar. "Very soon we will be launching vehicle care and Internet kiosks at select outlets. Our plan is to introduce the vehicle care service, including sale of vehicle accessories, at about 100 outlets across the country soon," according to Mr Mehra.

The oil major has dramatically altered the lexicon of oil retailing by introducing of a string of innovative services by tying up with other retail majors. After introducing the `Pure for Sure', Petro Card, Smart Fleet and OSTS (One Stop Truckers Shop), BPCL had launched its convenience retailing initiative under the `In&Out' brand.

The In&Out chain of convenience stores have been set up in 234 out of its total 6,000 petrol retail outlets, with plans underway to increase the number to 400 by the end of the current fiscal and 600 by next financial year. These stores offer a wide range of services, including ATMs of leading banks, music stores from Planet M and Music World, beverages from Pepsi, coffee and snacks from Café Coffee Day and a variety of impulse buys like confectionery, snacks, convenience foods, toiletries and select range of branded groceries and other FMCG products.

BPCL has exclusive tie-ups with FMCG majors such as ITC, Cadbury and Frito-Lay for providing these services.

The latest addition of the oil company is the launch of its E-charge electronic pre-paid service through its In&Out stores through a tie-up with E-Charge (Tech) Pvt ltd, a subsidiary of Mercantile Pacific Group that offers electronic delivery systems for pre-paid mobile cards.