Retail

Retail has been integral part of the market for years. The existence of traditional mom and pop stores speak the story of the long existence of unorganized sector in India. The emergence of organized sector and gradual growth since 1980’s is quite visualized as the Indian retail market is now flooded with numerous industries trying to capture their piece of cake in the market, covering all market segments and simultaneously paving a-way for many others to make the today’s world more competitive. Multi brand retailers came into the picture in the 1990s. Shopping Centres began to be established from 1995 onwards. The millennium year saw the emergence of super markets and hypermarkets. The big international retail bigwigs are waiting in the wings, as the present FDI guidelines do not allow them to own retail outlets in the country.

Organised retail, which presently accounts for 4 per cent of the total market, is likely to increase its share to 22 per cent by 2010. This growth in organized retail is being driven by a number of structural, social, and demographic and macroeconomic factors as well.

The paper would be focusing on the challenges that are faced by organised retail. The challenges become opportunities when they move from one sector to another. The discussion of the paper would be on why the organised sector is growing at an unexpected rate vis-Ð" -vis the unorganized sector. The paper would have case studies discussing the problems, advent with the situational facts, which the organized as well as unorganized sectors face.