Though they were expected to be marauders, supermarkets could not make a major dent in the economics of the friendly neighborhood stores. Proximity, personalised services, friendly faces, and credit facilities kept the neighborhood stores preferred vendors despite the discount offering and high budget advertising supermarket chains.
The entry of organized retail was protested by one and sundry as it was expected to lead to an end of the Mom-n-Pop shop small economy. But contrary to predictions of economic pundits, some retail chains like Subhiksha (yea, remember that one?) collapsed entirely, while the neighborhood stores happily survived.
We are now entering the next phase of retail, which is e-tail. Swipe your mobile a few times, and get entire orders of groceries, meds, eggs, sweets and other daily need items delivered directly to home. No parking hassle, no traffic driving, no finding time from office schedules or missing important TV shows, no cash payments, no standing in queues for checkout, no rush. Just simple, easy, 'branded' shopping. With such value additions without the supermarket compromises, this one seemingly has the power to sweep mom n pop shops away. Interestingly, there isn't 1% of the protest which preceded the organized retail revolution; which we now know, wouldn't have had too much of an effect on small shop economy anyways. But then like it or not, internet shopping and easy home delivery is the shopping model of the future.
How will the small neighborhood shops survive in the future, then? These small shops have to realise that they need to quickly tie up with delivery service providers and also do local branding in their own area to remain relevant and popular. They also need to find alternate business models. Otherwise, they are going to find themselves on economic shaky ground in the near future.
The entry of organized retail was protested by one and sundry as it was expected to lead to an end of the Mom-n-Pop shop small economy. But contrary to predictions of economic pundits, some retail chains like Subhiksha (yea, remember that one?) collapsed entirely, while the neighborhood stores happily survived.
We are now entering the next phase of retail, which is e-tail. Swipe your mobile a few times, and get entire orders of groceries, meds, eggs, sweets and other daily need items delivered directly to home. No parking hassle, no traffic driving, no finding time from office schedules or missing important TV shows, no cash payments, no standing in queues for checkout, no rush. Just simple, easy, 'branded' shopping. With such value additions without the supermarket compromises, this one seemingly has the power to sweep mom n pop shops away. Interestingly, there isn't 1% of the protest which preceded the organized retail revolution; which we now know, wouldn't have had too much of an effect on small shop economy anyways. But then like it or not, internet shopping and easy home delivery is the shopping model of the future.
How will the small neighborhood shops survive in the future, then? These small shops have to realise that they need to quickly tie up with delivery service providers and also do local branding in their own area to remain relevant and popular. They also need to find alternate business models. Otherwise, they are going to find themselves on economic shaky ground in the near future.
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