Retail consulting

Abstract

The retail market has been affected by changing consumer preferences, lifestyle, shifting demographics and shopping behaviour. This has led to new opportunities and threats for the exisitng style of retail stores. In India, tradiotionally Kirana stores (equivalent to momand-pop stores) have been serving the Indian consumers. Nearly 12 million kiranas cater to approximately 1.32 billions of Indian consumers . These types of stores are unorganised and operated by small entrepreneurs. Now, with several changing factors seamless shopping and convenience have emerged as the key drivers for growth in retail sector1 . This has led to the introduction of big supermarket chains such as Big Bazaar, Reliance Mart, etc. These have changed the shopping scenario completely in the Indian context as compared to the traditional kirana store shopping. But, opportunities have led to the rise of a unique type of retail store as well termed as “Mini-marts”. These are an innovative type of retail store which reflects characteristics from both supermarkets and kirana stores. This report attempts to understand their features, their uniqueness, how are they different from other retail store types and understand consumer behaviour which drives traffic in such stores. A financial aspect has also been added to get a better picture of how such stores are performing. Towards the end, certain challenges have been presented which inhibit their growth, current problems they are dealing with and any opportunities to exploit in the Indian context.