Pankaj Goswami, Atul Maheshwari and Mandeep Singh

Incorporated in the year 2014 by a group of like-minded industry professionals to address the needs of brands operating through small format retail stores, Lastmile Solutions has a mission to deliver world-class services and customer experience in every area of business they engage. Entire gamut of their activities involve in site selection, format approval, scheduling production and ensuring timely implementation. “We put together a complete eco-system along with our in-house design & execution services supported by a technology-enabled production management system to provide pan India service from concept to implementation across small-format retail stores,” says Atul Maheshwari, Chief Executive Officer, Lastmile Solutions India Pvt Ltd (LMS).

“We very specifically focus on providing retail visibility or store roll out solutions to brands operating through small-format stores,” explains Pankaj Goswami, Chief Growth Officer, Lastmile Solutions India Pvt Ltd (LMS). He adds that most of their projects are meant for brands which have stores of around 5,000 sq ft. In retail roll out there are certain challenges for the companies which are not yet present in India or Asia or those having very limited staff in the region. The challenges include channel identification in untapped geographies or market segments as well as channel selection, on boarding and managing them especially in the initial phase. In this respect, LMS provides an extended range of services to address these requirements through their consultant and partner networks.

What many agencies do is to provide their customers just concepts and designs. But this is not how it works at LMS. They involve into whole project management. “Once you start involving in a retail project, we realize retail brands need a lot of works for promotion which include brand activation, consumer promotion, taking feedbacks from consumers and so on. We involve in managing the entire lifecycle of a retail outlet,” informs Pankaj.

In-store advertising

To bring customers to a retail store, advertising is a must. Conventional advertising happens outside the store on various mediums. Nowadays, the concept of in-store marketing is fast catching up as retailers have begun realising that in-store advertising can help improve sales. In this, LMS is the preferred choice for store marketing service among a host of corporate biggies. “We are expertise in providing custom solutions to match in-store marketing needs. Our customers trust us for delivering best plans that help them achieve their in-store sales objectives and goals,” says Mandeep Singh, Executive Creative Director, Lastmile Solutions India Pvt Ltd (LMS). He adds that in-store advertising costs significantly less than other forms of advertising but retailers can get faster and better results that are instantly visible.

Retail branding

LMS engages in retail branding as well. “Retail branding essentially means taking care of various components associated with a particular product such as design, packaging, logo, name and tagline. When done right and in a creative manner, all these elements can come together in one, smooth synergy and create a beautiful impact that can help the brand establish an emotional connection with the audience,” narrates Mandeep.

In today’s highly competitive market where there is extreme competition in almost every retail niche, branding plays a critical role in the success and survival of a product. “We know that good branding does not happen just like that. There is a lot of planning and strategising involved in getting the right branding,” comments Mandeep.

Graphic prints

“When it comes to graphic prints, we start with asking our clients what types of materials they would like use and what printing technologies they would like to choose, whether it would be UV or solvent. Moreover, we discuss with them what kind of materials they prefer—vinyl, metal, acrylic, wood or anything else. After all, it all depends upon their budget or investment plan,” explains Pankaj, adding that they have tied up with a number of print service providers for graphic print production.

LMS has been in partnership with Promos, a sister concern large-format graphic printing company, located in the same building of their New Delhi office. “We closely tie up with around 80 print service providers around the country. Many of them are very regular while some are not so as we join hands with them depending on the projects we handle. We also have a set of partners who do fabrication and installation jobs for us,” mentions Pankaj. He adds that any two retail projects never turn out to be the same, so they keep changing their partners on board, depending on their expertise, past experience and nature of projects.

LMS boasts of a team of 27 professionals who sit in their two main offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, while operation teams are present in Bengaluru and Hyderabad branch offices. Some of the valued customers of the company include Motorola, Patanjali, Lenovo, Volvo, Walmart, VIVO, Asian Paint, Muthoot Finance, among others.