Retail Marketing Revolution

THE retail MARKETING REVOLUTION By 2010, the list of Indias top 10 retailers will spend a penny at least 5 Indian corporate. Retail Marketing will go through a trem eradicateous limiting in India this millennium. It will change Indias cities, its people, and its households. The Indian consumer is reportedly the freehandedst spender in Singapore and London. It is, thitherfore, strange that there ca-ca, so far, been few efforts to present the product in the recompense kind of environment in India. Indeed, the right shopping experience does induce Indian consumers to spend more.This is evident from the experiences of retail-outlets like Shoppers Stop, Music World, Food World, Crosswords, The seat Store, Ebony, Bigjos, Saboos, Standard, Vijay Store and Janaki Das & Sons, Westside etc. However, the development of organized retail is dependent on the efforts of some(prenominal) agencies and institutions. The first among these is the government. In a country as big as India and with as many states as ours, it is imperative that the Central government and all state governments bring in Value Added Taxation or a unified taxation system to ensure that the tax-regimes are the same across the country.The laws governing retail real estate should also be looked into, so that it is possible to develop retail-estate beyond the city-limits. Apart from providing pleasure and retail opportunities, this will also decongest the city center and facilitate the development of suburbs. The relevant rules should also be amended to allow retail-stores to operate 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. Given the hours approximately urban consumers keep at work, and keeping in mind the increase in the number of thermonuclear families, this may, indeed, make sense. This will also help people enjoy their evenings, out at malls.The second group, whose fellowship is essential in making retail a boom-sector in this millennium, comprises developers. Most properties are developed without consid ering the end user thus, we sometimes find high-ceilinged offices and low-ceilinged retail stores. Often, the shoppers convenience is not taken into attachment while the property is constructed. Another area of concern is the way in which developers sell their space. The only friendship is the price, not the usage pattern or the nature of the product that is to be sold.In contrast, internationally, mall-management is treated as a specialized discipline of retail management. This is what we have to focus on in this millennium. The third constituency that has a case to play in the fortunes of organized retail this century is the education-sector. Retail is a people-intensive business, and there is a big opportunity for retail institutes in India. For manufacturers, retailing will present an attractive opportunity. Organized retail allows them to transgress their products to a large volume of customers in an environment conducive to buying.Already, several transnational retail gia nts have established their presence in India others, notably Chinese retailers, have visited India and studied the Indian market. Theres a the great unwashed at stake here even so early in the 21st Century, India is too large a market to be ignored by transnational retail giants. From the manufacturing lodges perspective, the focus should be on producing good products, and forging relationships with organized retail. Manufacturers need to draw a plan of producing eccentric products and tie in with retailers.Indeed, the birth of organized retail will also engender the creation of private labels and store-brands. Thus, if a manufacturing company lacks the resources to build a brand, it can supply to a retail-chain that has the resources to create a brand of its own. A glimpse of the last 2 decades of the previous century proves illuminating. Large-format retailing started with outlets like Viveks and Nallis in Chennai and Kidskemp in Bangalore, and, at some other level, with manuf acturer-retail brands like Bata, Bombay Dyeing, and Titan.The last decade of the millennium witnessed the emergence of lifestyle brands and the plastic culture. Liberalization and increasing sentiency of the world around us created the Indian yuppie, who aspired to own everything we saw on TV, or in shops during jaunts abroad. vernal lifestyle brands offered traditional retail-outlets an opportunity to convert themselves into exclusive stores, franchised or otherwise. And even as these developments were taking place, the Indian consumer became more mature.Customer-expectations zoomed Thus, at the beginning of the New Millennium, retailers have to deal with a customer who is extremely demanding. not just in terms of the product-quality, but also in terms of service, and the entire shopping experience. Today, the characteristic customer who shops in a retail outlet compares the time spent at the check-out counter with that at an efficient petrol station, and the smile of the counte r-person to that decorating the face of a Jet Airways crew member.To cope with the new customer, manufacturers have to focus on product quality and brand building. And retailers, in turn, have to focus on the quality of the shopping experience. Internationally, retailing is a large business you find at least one retailer amongst the top 10 companies in every country. In the US, it is Wal-Mart with a turnover in special of $ long hundred billion. In the UK, it is Marks and Spencers with close to ? 10 billion and, in Germany, it is Karstadt with a turnover in excess of dm 10 billion.