Indian Retail Essay

How has retailing developed into this wide assortment of stores and merchandise, where the consumer can pick and choose the types of store in which they wishes to buy and the kind of merchandise which meets their approval? Retailing has been developing for thousands of years as is evidenced by the earliest written records o mankind. For almost every type of present day retail outlet, there is a counterpart or forerunner in ancient and medieval civilization. Such retail outlets have for centuries been serving people by procuring for them the necessities and luxuries which they desired to own. As population increased and methods of transportation and communication improved, retail stores expanded and grew proportionately. The development of retailing was not a matter of physical growth alone, for …show more content…
The real face of retail business has been visible in the form of the neighborhood grocery shops. India’s retailing scenario includes a lot of small retail outlets which comprise of Kirana stores, General Stores, Chemist shops, Corner paan beedi shops, bakeries and confectionary, electrical, furniture, stationery, hardware, vegetable and fruit shops etc.
The Indian retailing scenario cannot be said to have evolved as in the process of evolution one graduates and shifts gears from one stage to the next. It’s more of a revolution than evolution. It is unique scenario. There is a retail revolution happening with more and more formats being defined by the day, not only by the marketplace but by the method of retail mediation with customers, by physical store characteristics, by merchandise characteristics etc. At the same time, these newly defined formats co-exist with most primitive ones. In fact, it is the store format that creates a unique identity for retailers, enabling recall in the minds of