Conceptualization of idea:

Management books and corporate world says that the “customer is the king”. However, this theory is far from reality. Bonsaii was created because parents and kids as customers were not treated the way they should have been catered. The root cause of all businesses, the customer in us has created the concept of Bonsaii. Our store was not born or conceptualized out of fancy market research reports or copying any existing concept of retail.

We, as customers were dissatisfied about the products we got for our kids. As parents, we had to roam around a different stores to buy toys, garments, footwear, stationery, etc. there were different stores for different categories but not a single one stop solution. Sometimes, some exclusive and good quality products were available only in metro cities.

Hence, the distressed customer in us came up with this idea – “If a one-stop departmental store for kids would solve our problem, then, it could be good for millions of parents in India.” Hence we came up with a store which would be a fun place to shop, comfortable for kids, inviting enough for expecting ladies and a complete solution for parents. Whether a child is born, a kids birthday, reopening of school, or kids going on vacation; solution to any occasion would be offered by us. “bonsaii” came into being with serving all these intentions of parents and their kids.  

Evolution of Bonsaii:

Just as unfulfilled customer expectation created bonsaii, it got evolved over the number of years with the help of only one weapon and principle – “forget everything else, give what the customer wants”. We wanted to be a one stop solution of all requirements of kids. When we started, 70% of our product mix was apparels. As we took feedback from the walk in customers, we altered the product mix as per their requirements. Parents wanted to gift their kids bicycles if they scored well in exams, so bicycles became a part of the product mix. Birthday decoration and return gifts got added to ease the confusion of parents hosting thier kids’ birthday party. We started gift vouchers so that gifting becomes convenient. Parents demanded educational and learning value to toys, which prompted us to sell such products. We could go on and on with more examples. A testimony to our fast response to customer demand is that today only 7% of our turnover comes from apparels.

Future Plans:

Since the business model has worked well in a handful of cities we are operating in, we are confident that the rest of India would not be different. Since day one, we are operating the store in an orgainsed manner powered by one of the best retail software in the world. This makes our operations expensive but we have now become a potential national player in this segment. Already, our sales figures have made us an important part of the industry.

Expansion is on the cards in Company Owned Company Operated (COCO) format as well as in the Franchisee format. The next 5 years target is to open 15 COCO stores of average 5000 sq. size each and 100 franchisee stores of average 1200 sq. ft. size each.