A market, afloat

Five hours. That’s what it used to take Joseph Thomas Muttath, 56, and his wife Valsamma, 49, to visit the nearest town, Changanachery, shop and return with a small pile of household provisions. And the 16-km round trip from their village, Velliyanad, on the infrequent motorised boat service, cost them Rs 20.

Today, the couple—and thousands like them who live in numerous villages in Kerala’s Alappuzah district —stroll down to a point near their village jetty to board what is India’s first floating supermarket and pick up much more, with discounts not available even at cooperative stores on land.

Boats are an inescapable mode of transport in Alappuzah, also known as Venice of the East because of the myriad waterways crisscrossing the low-lying terrain. So, when the brass of Consumerfed, or the Kerala State Cooperative Consumers Federation, sat down in June last year to figure out ways of lifting its profit curve more steeply, home delivery took on a new meaning.

Thus was born the Triveni Superstore, a 1,000-sqft. retail outlet mounted on a boat that now traverses a 200-km route covering 51 landings under 30 panchayats, apart from three wards of Alappuzah municipality, serving thousands in the Kuttanad region with an inventory of 2,000 items. “We hope to reach out to more than 15,000 families and meet all their requirements,” says Rigi G. Nair, Managing Director, Consumerfed. He expects to recover the Superstore’s cost (Rs 50 lakh, including the boat) in five to seven years.

Kuttanad—originally Chutta-Nad or a vast forest area destroyed by fire— is one of the most picturesque regions in the state, covering parts of Alappuzah, Kottayam and Pattanamthitta districts. Much of Kuttanad’s 500 sq. km—famous for its paddy and politics of Leftcontrolled farm labourers—lies below sea level. Kuttanad’s most famous association for tourists is the annual snake boat race during Onam.

The Triveni Superstore is special not only because it touches places difficult to reach by road (powered by a 40 hp Yamaha engine, it can negotiate stretches as shallow as four feet), but because most of its customers are in the low-income category.

“As it is, our products are cheaper by at least 10 per cent than the market price. But at our floating Triveni, we are giving a discount of 2 per cent to all customers and an additional one per cent discount to members of SC/ST families,’’ says Nair.

Rigi G. Nair, Managing Director, Consumerfed

"As it is, our products are at least 10 per cent cheaper than the market price. But at our floating Triveni, we are also giving a discount."

Muttath, who is a retired boatman, couldn’t agree more. “This is the first time we bought the items here and I found it to be cheaper than at our usual place.’’ Store Manager Anup A.K. says not all his customers are from villages where the boat anchors: many come from nearby villages, sure in the knowledge that it will have what they want. (The floating Superstore has a computerised inventorymanagement system linked with corporate and regional offices via the Internet, and it stocks up at designated points close to the road network.)

“We will see the response…and then we will think of launching similar outlets in the backwaters of Kollam and Kottayam, other waterlogged areas of Trichur and Ernakulam, and the Malabar,’’ says G. Sudhakaran, Minister for Cooperation, Kerala. The government will also consider floating a shop exclusively for tourists.

Within two weeks of its launch on June 7, the boat, open for business between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., was ringing up daily sales of Rs 40,000, with a peak of Rs 60,000 on a Sunday, June 21.

The promoters are confident that the business will pick up further once publicity spreads. “Not all are now aware of the schedule…It will draw more customers once we start notifying the scheduled stops and the timings,’’ says D.C.M. Unnithan, Regional Manager, Consumerfed.

The organisation, which runs eight retail divisions, including one for liquor, uses its 87 retail format stores under the Triveni brand to meet the government’s social obligations.

“We put consumer interest ahead of profits. The way we have priced our products checks any extreme movement in prices and protects consumers from exploitation by avaricious traders and hoarders. Sometimes, we even divert profits from our liquor division to help people from lowerincome groups,’’ says Nair.

The organisation has grown steadily—from a turnover of Rs 356 crore in 2005-06 to Rs 689 crore in 2008-09, even as it turned a loss of Rs 13 crore into a profit of Rs 15 crore. This year, it expects a profit of Rs 18 crore on a turnover of Rs 988 crore. But it will take another year to clear its accumulated loss of Rs 30 crore.

Who knows? The new income stream opened by the floating store could help it do so faster.