Team-BHP - Do you shop at DMart? Reviews, pros & cons?

Am highly impressed & equally curious about DMart's stupendous success :thumbs up. Have read enough about them in business magazines, but would like to hear the customer's point-of-view. Any reviews?

Quote:

Avenue Supermarts – the firm that controls supermarket chain DMart – crossed Rs 1.50 lakh crore in market capitalisation on Monday, surpassing NestleNSE 1.80 % and Bajaj FinservNSE 0.54 % to become India’s 18th most valuable company. The company listed on March 21, 2017 at a market capitalisation of Rs 39,988 crore. Since then, the stock has risen 290 per cent.

Source

There's one that is a km away from my house but I've never been there. It is always extremely crowded and there's barely any parking space and I see a constant stream of people entering and exiting with huge bags full of stuff.

I have a phobia of going into places that are super crowded - it has never been a pleasant experience. If they want folks like me as a customer, they really need to do something about this.

Their stock seems to be in a crazy bubble though - it is rising like crazy making me want to put some money in.

I have been there few times and always end up over-shopping! Their business model is such that you end up buying a lot!

Bigger sized SKUs are available
Higher discounts on big purchases
Related small SKUs are kept nearby which you will tempted to shove into your cart
Every product has an MRP and a special discount price. Makes the consumer happy!lol:
Unbranded and inexpensive options are available to cater to all kinds of buyers
One-stop shopping. Think of anything you use at home and you will mostly likely find it sold there.

That said, the DMart is always over-crowded, with long queues at billing counters and parking areas. I realized I bought a lot of unnecessary stuff during my visits and stopped going there since the past ~2 years.:D

Regarding the stock, I feel it is a bubble as I don't find anything extraordinary except for the last two points. I have seen similar business models for other smaller supermarkets - More, Reliance, Nilgiri and the likes.

DMart is one of the better superstores in India, far far better in terms of offers, discounts, service than Big Bazaar. Reliance Fresh is good but they tend to stock in-house brands for some items and hence lacks variety & choice.

DMart is ideal for large families who buy in bulk. The only downside it is crowded in the evenings and weekends. In case something is needed, I usually visit in the early mornings or in the afternoons, where you can walk-in & walk-out.

This is a review based on my wife's experience who regularly shops at DMart.

Advantages of DMart

Discounts and offers are almost always the best which means the lowest prices (compared to Reliance Mart & Star Bazaar since they are the other two nearby competitive players). Some of the offers at Reliance Mart is also equal or close to the offers by DMart. But on grocery items, DMart is almost always the winner

We have never had a billing issue at DMart. You can be quite certain that the prices are updated as per the offer in their system

On the rare occasion where we had to return something, it was easy

When you have a "Buy One, Get One Free" kind of offer, you can always pick-up only one item and pay only half the price. At other stores, you will have to buy two items to get this offer

They open at 8 a.m. which in my opinion is very convenient to beat the crowd (Not sure if that is the case at all their outlets)

Quality of DMart branded items are above average

We never found an item that was beyond the expiry date on their shelves

Disdvantages of DMart

They no longer stock vegetables which they used to do in their initial days

They do not accept Ticket Restaurant card (and I think Sodexo coupons) for food items

Car parking is woefully inadequate at most of their stores

These stores are not that spacious and is always very crowded, particularly on weekends and at the beginning of the month. My wife always chooses a weekday and generally avoids the first week of the month to get around the issues of parking and the crowd

We have not bought much regular wear clothes from them since we found the quality to be not that good or not to our liking

We also shop at Reliance Mart/Fresh for vegetables and regular wear clothes. We shop at Godrej's Nature's Basket for other exotic stuff. Luckily all these stores are very close to each other at Aundh, Pune.

Btw, I had bought 5 shares of DMart (did not they were coming with an IPO) at Rs. 811 and now they are above Rs. 2000 per share. Wish I had bought more :)

We have been going to D mart for more than 5 years, and it is our de facto choice for monthly grocery purchases.

Pros:

Mouthwatering discounts. ALL items are on discount and the minimum discount is 7%.
All items under one roof - From salt to household items, you will get almost everything to run a household under a single roof.
Wide verity of brands. Almost all brands are available, so you can compare and choose.
Good quality pulses, cereals, and grains. You get to choose from organic, packaged and loose, and the quality of the loose items are good.
Neatly arranged shelves and easy to navigate layout.
Billing - LOT of billing counters, so if you look around, chances are that you will find a less crowded one.

Cons:

Crowd - during peak time, it is difficult to just walk through the store. Have faced shortage of trollies and had to wait till someone finishes billing and unloading stuff from their trolly so that we can start our shopping.
Billing - Even with a huge number of cash tills, the billing can really take time. The people manning the cash tills are usually not in a hurry and long wait times are a norm than an exception.

Tips:

The best time to go and shop during the weekend is either as soon as they open or from 12.30 PM to 3.00 PM.
Don't carry bags when you go in - either shopping bags or handbags. Dmart allows bags to be taken inside, but insist on securing the bags using plastic zip ties. Depending on your luck and the rush at the counter, this may take anywhere from few seconds to 10 minutes or more. Since they allow us to take the shopping trolly till parking, it is better to keep the bags in car\bike and unload the items from trolly at parking.

--Anoop

There is a DMart around a KM from my home which opened recently and led to a traffic Jam. What make it such a special place beats me. I thought at time that anything new attracts people but even after 3-4 months , it is still able to keep up that crowd in comparison to other super markets which have fizzled out since opening to a grand reception. What i found was that it was a place that was able to match prices of a local kirana store with a moderate super market aura / feel. They don't bother themselves with more expensive stuff and mostly stock only items which are common buy for most households. However, its not all head and shoulders above competition. Big bazaar and More have equal crowd pulling power.

While Big bazaar and More are located in more upmarket areas, D Mart is more often found in sub urban areas. They are generally not found in malls and operate out of an independent (rather) bigger building. In a way its the no frills alternative to supermarket shopping.

I won't venture into market valuations which is a rant worthy topic by itself.

This is just my view.

There is a D-mart within 10-15 min drive from my place. I had earlier read an article on their business model and what enables them to provide good deals on many products.

I find the best time to shop at a D-mart is between morning and early afternoon on a working weekday! Effectively, that means, using part of the day from your work from home.

Few things I get exclusively from D-mart: Tissue paper/towel (face, kitchen, toilet); Liquid handsoap refills; dishwash liquid refills; toothbrushes (since we replace ours almost every month, we need frequent supplies); Tea powder; some scotch brite cleaning products such as scrubbers, wipes, etc.; Cheese and Paneer; Lip balms;...

Earlier I also used to get baby diapers from D-mart but have since found a more convenient alternate that is both hassle free and cheaper!

Pros: Pretty good pricing on many products. Better than almost every other offline store.

Cons: Way too crowded particularly on weekends and evening. Shopping at these times can become much more painful with people being too chaotic with their shopping-carts! One has to plan the trip and possibly use only the morning-afternoon window.

Have never tried their clothing section except for few clothes and socks we bought for infants. They seemed to last well even after multiple washes.

Overall, I would highly recommend others to surely give D-mart a try. However, just like any place else, before purchasing any expensive items, do make sure you understand their return policies as well.

I used to shop at D-mart regularly till 2017.

But I stopped since then because of the following reasons

1. Crowd- As soon as you enter you start with competing other cars to the entry gate, then fight for parking space, then fight for trolley, then stand in queue for dropping bag/luggage, then another queue for security check, then compete for picking essential items such as groceries, then another queue for weighing. After all that turmoil, there is this Billing queue that mimic legendary toll booths. The queue doesn't end there, you got stand again for exit punch, and tussle your vehicle out. I would rather pay extra 100 bucks at a kirana store and save my peace, fuel and time.

2. Spendthrift- You tend to buy what you don't need. There is so much stuff that we often forget the actual items we came to buy, billing was never below 4000.

3. Quality- Be it cloths, toys, blankets or footwear, every pile is mediocre (may even look used). How does it matter, when they happily flash 50% discount and we compete the dig as if it is a gold rush and pick the last pyjama as a world-cup trophy without realizing the pyjama has gone through a thousand hands before it landed on to his. I would rather shop happily at a medium size shop which has neatly maintained racks with hand picked items.

I have made a few visits, though not in the recent past.

At least the one i used to go to, was always super crowded and it was a pain to negotiate one's cart through the aisles. It seemed just like the unruly city traffic got extended into the supermarket.

Huge shopping carts packed to the rafters with stuff, perhaps many of them not needed, but irresistible with the discounts on offer. And yes, buy eight soaps at a time, etc.

I never bothered to check if I actually saved some money from shopping there, or just ended up spending more each time I visited there. I suspect the latter case is true.

If I look back , the combination of significant price reductions on MRP, availability of everything under one roof, the large shopping carts, and the overall feeling of being smart to have shopped at the place where other smart people are shopping too, has worked for them quite well so far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 4749756)

Am highly impressed & equally curious about DMart's stupendous success

A big part of DMart's mind-boggling valuation is the fact that they own the properties where the stores exist, the facility is not rented. This is a key differentiation w.r.t. competitors such as Reliance Fresh, Big Bazaar and so on.

This decision is why investors love Mr. Damani.

https://indianexpress.com/article/bu...ccess-4613627/