ChowkNews- Vidyavihar, mumbai

Vashi Smoking joes PIZZA

i was wondering why there is no site that gives e the phone number of my local pavbhaji stall so that i could call him up and get a hot pav bhaji delivered to my house.

to start with i will put in the menu and phone numbers of Smoking joes PIZZA at vashi

I love eating thier PIZZA

Thier phone number is 27893030 and 27893535 PS this is in VASHI sector 17

I remember the days when i used to run a small store called swad kutir in vidyavihar, this was in the early nineties. i always used to wonder why customers never found my shop to be exciting.

Today when i think back i realize that it was a wonder that people did come to my shop. the shop was run on a shoe string budget and we hardly had enough goods available, the interior was gloomy and did not inspire the customer enough to trust the products that we had (thats why people only purchased branded items from our shop) we had tried to sell sweets and other food items in the begining, and believe me we never kept any substandard stuff, since my father always believed that if you cant buy what you sell then its not worth selling. I know now that this was a very noble principle but we took it to an extreme, we just consumed whatever we bought

i mean we loved to enjoy and we did enjoy during those days, but the remuneration was pathetic and we had to close down soon..

My only regret during those days was that i never had financial clout to convert the business to a successful one, but now i know that it was not the lack of money that held us back but the lack of innovation and the daring to be different attitude.

A retail business is not about selling goods its about building relationships and to a large extent we did that, our customers became our good friends but ceased to be customers.. they would walk in converse and leave. because we were happy with that we never tried to convert them back to customers.

Another vital lacking was the lack of fresh perspective we never went out to buy the goods and instead all the goods came to us via the distribution channels, while this was a good way to ensure that the goods were genuine. the market had the same goods available for less and many other goods that were simply lacking the infrastructure to reach our little shop.

This is one of my many experiences that helped shape me and i realized the value of time and action.

If i were to run the shop today here is what i would do differently.

• Ensure that i had manpower to keep my shop clean and presentable at all times
• create a list of items that would be my core offerings
• ensure that my core list of items is never out of stock
• Keep visiting the market for trends on new items
• Keep a healthy stock of things to do so that i can spend the free time (and believe me there is a lot of it in retail)
• Ensure that i know my customers tastes and keep my offerings in synch. eg never sell low cost items in a high quality store.or vice versa
• ensure that i have a healthy cash flow always (do not overstock or eat up your cash surplus)

I probably will never return to being in a retail store, however if i do then i hope i remember what i have just said above..