Recent Trends in Retailing
Recent Trends in Retailing
RETAILING
1. USE OF PLASTIC MONEY
Use of credit and debit cards for buying merchandise is
relatively a new phenomenon but is gaining popularity immensely.
Credit and debit cards are commonly known as plastic money. Today
especially in metros, retail spending is mainly done by plastic cards,
accounting for over 45 percentage and is likely to touch 65 percentage
over the next five years.
2. DISTANCE – NO BAR
Due to increased public transportation, better roads, highways and
an overall improvement in the transportation infrastructure that has
enabled the customers to visit from one place to another smoothly than
ever before. Now for want of quality goods a customer can travel
several kilometers to reach a particular store.
3. SPECIALITY STORES
Stores like Reliance Digital, Music World, Metal junctions, Nokia
World, Pantaloons have their presence in most of the malls in the
country. Departmental stores have given way to malls, having a mixture
of large and small retailers offering varied brands for each and every
section of the society.
4. SOPHISTICATED CUSTOMERS
Due to Internet revolution, customers are becoming conversant
about the product they are interested in buying. For eg: over 30% of
Indian customers collect information from the internet about prices,
features, guarantee/warranty options before visiting any store for the
actual purchase. This is particularly true in case of automobiles, cell
phones, hotel bookings, travel packages etc.
5. INCREASES GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
The government infrastructure support, relaxation on foreign direct
investments further has accelerated the growth of Indian organized retail
sector. Consequently, the shopping malls are coming up throughout the
country in a big way.
6. FASTER SHIPPING