Please Don't Touch My Wallet ; As Inflation Figures Rage, Marketers Have a Huge Challenge On Their Hands to Keep the Price-Value Equation Just Right for Consumers. Bt's Rachna Monga & A. Subramanian Report.

Summary

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For Yogendra Kumar Srivastava, a 37-year-old salaried individual who lives in Faridabad, his car is his lifeline. There's no other way of reaching his office, a telecom company in Okhla Industrial Estate in Delhi. Srivastava, who heads a family of six (including his parents), wishes there was some other way. His monthly petrol bill is steadily rising, moving from Rs 2,800 to Rs 3,000 in quick time. This is at a time when his equated monthly installment (EMI) on a housing loan is set to go up by Rs 2,000. Srivastava has no choice but to cut back. The number of dinner outings has come down from twice to once a week. Even if there is a sale in the malls, we think twice before stepping in. We constantly ask ourselves do we really need new clothes? Can we postpone any kind of big-ticket purchase like a flat-screen television, for instance for some time, shrugs Srivastava.

As you read this, engineers at the Indian manufacturing facilities of Korean consumer durables major Samsung are pulling out all stops to bring down costs. Just one of those initiatives involves reducing the number of screws in a colour TV mould by going in for locking-type moulds. This has resulted in some cost savings, says R. Zutshi, Deputy Managing Director, Samsung India.

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Please Don't Touch My Wallet ; As Inflation Figures Rage, Marketers Have a Huge Challenge On Their Hands to Keep the Price-Value Equation Just Right for Consumers. Bt's Rachna Monga & A. Subramanian Report.

Amit SahuResidence: 1 BHK apartment in Versova in Mumbai Profession: Senior manager with a private sector bank

Feeling the squeeze: Petrol prices of almost Rs 56 per litre are eating into his spending power

Action: Shares a cool cab to work, along with a few other colleagues who live in the vicinity

Amit Sahu, a 30-year old senior manager with a private sector bank in Mumbai, has stopped taking his car to work. Ever since petrol prices went up from Rs 50 to Rs 55.76 per litre in the city, Sahu has stopped filling the tank. To reach his office in central Mumbai, he rides a Cool Cab (an air-conditioned taxi) along with colleagues living in the vicinity. A bachelor who doles out advice to his bank's customers on investm...

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