The "Retail" dream

[sankarshan]

There is a short article about retail blunders which on the first reading reminds one of the great "Cola" dreams which Pepsi and Coca Cola talked about. Having made rounds of the Reliance Fresh or Spencers and Foodworld, I'd say that the last does really get it in terms of providing a good shopping experience. One of the aspects which I pondered about was why don't the new entrants into retail consider investing in a few of the existing local kirana shops so as to use the goodwill along with a captive customer base ? Given that none of them buy retail real estate on the scale of the Future Group, expenses on real estate acquisition would be hefty. A sweeter way might be to build a community with the local shops establishing trust and providing them some compelling reason to be carriers of the big brands in retail. The other thing is of course private labels. Even in the segment of apparel, private labels have had a tough time notching up bits of victory over the established brands. Without a large base of stores, private labels won't make sense.

Perhaps in the rush to get to the Retail nirvana, they missed building the community :) and here's a new report.