Organised Retail in India-Mba Economics Paper

Retailing-An Introduction

The word "Retail" originates from a French-Italian word “retailler” meaning someone who cuts off or shreds a small piece from something . Retailing includes activities of marketing and selling products or services to end consumers for their own household or personal use. Retailer is a Person or Agent or Company or Organization who is instrumental in reaching the Goods or Merchandise or Services to the End User or Ultimate Consumer.

Kinds of Retailing

Unorganised

Traditional or Unorganized retail outlets are normally street markets, counter stores, kiosks and vendors, where the ownership and management rest with one person only. This sector accounts for two thirds of the market and requires low skilled labor. These are highly competitive outlets, with negligible rental costs (unregistered kiosks or traditional property), cheap workers (work is shared by members of family) and low taxes and overheads.

Organised Retailing

Organized retailing comprises mainly of modern retailing with busy shopping malls, multi storied malls and huge complexes that offer a large variety of products in terms of quality, value for money and makes shopping a memorable experience.

Retailing Scenario in India

Most of the retail sector in India is unorganised, which were known as mom-pop stores. The biggest advantage in this sector is the consumer familiarity that passes on from one generation to the next. The transformation stage of the retail sector started in late 1990’s. The emergence of pure retailer has started at this stage as it is been perceived as a beginner and the organised retailing is getting more attractive. In India, the retail business contributes around 11 percent of GDP in 2005 . Of this, the organized retail sector accounts only for about 3 percent share, and the remaining share is contributed by the unorganized sector. The main challenge facing the organized sector is the competition from unorganized sector.

Transformation of the Retail Scenario in India

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As Indian retailing is witnessing rapid transformation in different areas of business by using ascendable and gainful retail models across different categories, consumers started accepting the modern retail irresistibly. The unorganised market is making its way for modern retail formats such as malls, provision stores, hypermarkets, discount stores etc. Most of the malls started expanding from metros to tier 2 cities as part of the expansion plans. Consumers are more attracted to these because of the shopping experience