AFFORDABLE LUXURIES. Chennai-based retailer Viveks pioneered the hire-purchase scheme to build loyalty | Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B

My divisional salesman in Hindustan Lever (as HUL was then called), T Srikrishnaiah, introduced me to Viveks. Srikishnaiah and his family had been shopping with the Chennai-headquartered consumer durables retail chain for more than 20 years and he was a great fan of it. I met BA Kodandarama Setty, the patriarch of Viveks. Even though I was in the FMCG sector, I wanted to meet him because I had heard so much about Viveks from everyone in Chennai retail. I was not disappointed.

I was impressed with Viveks in all my interactions with it. Knowing your customer is the cornerstone of all great retailers. Viveks was way ahead of its time in consumer innovations. It understood the middle class and the bottom of the pyramid better than most others, and introduced the hire-purchase scheme and the ‘chit 11 plus 1’ (which all jewellers use today) in 1965. Viveks had a passbook for each customer, and all its records were in paper form, which was phenomenal. Retailers like to lock in their consumers, and Viveks was the best at it.

All great retailers have friendly, helpful staff; Viveks had people who were with it for decades. On a Pongal day, at 7 am I went to the Viveks outlet in the city’s T Nagar area and found all the employees were in, gearing up for the big sale day. When the doors opened, many of the employees were greeting regular consumers like family. I have rarely seen that camaraderie in retail formats.

Retailers need trust, and Viveks had plenty of that. People rarely questioned the prices at Viveks, unlike in almost every other retail outlet. The value proposition at Viveks was built around this trust derived from years of hire-purchase schemes.

Most big retailers in India tend to treat brands as vendors. I dealt with Viveks during my Nokia days, and they were always respectful of brands and realised the importance of having good brands merchandised well in their outlets.

They would insist that we train their frontline salespeople in the features and benefits of our models. I tried my best to convince them to take a big bet on mobiles, but like all big box retailers they were a bit conservative.

I wish they had pivoted to mobiles quickly; they would have been a force to reckon with. Many saw Viveks as conservative and they may well be right. Viveks was frugal with inventory and never used price as a lever.

What lessons does Viveks’ closing have for other retailers?

Online is here to stay and is a faceless disruptive force. Retail brands need to differentiate on service and experience. Retailers need to take a unified view of ‘online’ and ‘offline’. E-commerce is the best price comparison channel and hence “why buy from me?” is an existential daily question for retailers.

Retail brands need to manage their consumer base in a proactive manner. In an era where televisions dominated electronics retail, sporting events and related activity drove footfall. Today, a new phone is launched almost every week and that drives more traffic to retailers than any television brand. A move away from managing once in a few years to managing on a quarterly basis is needed. For this, retailers need to tie up with brands proactively.

Family firms need clarity on how to move forward, how to pivot despite the pulls and pressures of different family factions. I see this drift happening across businesses in which more than two family members are involved. Every family member is aligned when things go well. When things slow down and investment is needed for growth, that’s when families need to look ahead and not protect their narrow base.

A great innings from Viveks ends. It was a pioneer and an innovator. Other retailers copied it blindly. Now who will set the innovation?

(Shiv Shivakumar is operating partner at Advent International and former chairman of PepsiCo India)

Published on September 14, 2026