Shopping Malls to Close?
The Indian retail industry is here to stay and grow. A dynamic and fast paced industry which alone holds a stake of 10% in country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) with no less than 8% of workforce is directly or indirectly associated with it. Most importantly, it has gained the global rank of five in international retail survey.
Sourced from: InvestIndia.Gov.in
The retail sector in india has been through a number of evolutions. When pre 90s era has seen a boom of local kirana stores and manufacturer owned brand outlets, post 1991 Liberalisation and Globalisation policies has allowed a number of forign brands in Indian retail diaspora. While the era between 1990-2005 saw a major boost in fashion apparel industry pioneer being Shoppers Stop, the scenarios changed for other sectors like food an general merchandise post 2005 where, now closed, Big Bazar provd to be the major game changer. 2010 era saw the entry of foreign brands in huge numbers, either through single brand outlets or getting launched through single brand outlets or shopping malls.
Indian market is estimated to have had an expenditure worth US$ 305 billion, with a major chunk being contributed b FMCG industry with whopping US$ 110 billion alone (Source Retail Association of India)
In 1995,India started o have its brush with internet, which led to the opening gates for e-commerce.. Initial level B2B directories were maintained in online portfolio, but retail level entry in e-commerce can be largely attributed to low cost airlines/carriers(LCC), who, with the help of internet brought their ticketing service to every door-step. A revolutionary step by IRCTC in booking train tickets through internet too brought a large number of consumers to internet’s usefulness. Consumers during this phase largely searched about travel related services. 2007 onwards this arena got major consumer buying websites like Flipkart, Amazon etc.
E-commerce too, like retail industry has evolved with time and advancement of technology. Moreover it has opened up so many new avenues to help customers and businesses alike, which used to be unimaginable erstwhile. Apart from e-tailing (e-commerce+ retailing) and travel, e-commerce has been creating its own niche and segments through its own means. E-Commerce players have made a prominent mark in other classified market like matrimony (shaadi.com) travel and transport (Ola & Uber), food-aggregator (Swiggy and Zomato) and even optical shades lenskart.com. Aggregator in other categories like travel (makemytrp.com and goibibo.com) and entertainment (bookmyshow,com) too gained a mileage. Financial services too became quite an easy affair as payment bank options like Paytm and other players were introduced into the market. In a nutshell, as mentioned earlier, E-commerce opened up such unique avenues of business and customer service, which would have been unimaginable prior to advent of internet.
The future of e-commerce too has started to look promising with day to day figures. It was seen, e-commerce in India, during the lockdown due to pandemic, had a business worth equivalent to total business it had in last 10 years. This sudden upsurge, which had the brick and mortar stores closed, and virtual stores to function, not only gave a fresh lease to the organization for survival, but changed the consumer buying pattern overall. It is estimated, India will observe a steep growth in business, with estimated growth rate of 21% CAGR. Fashion/Apparel and Grocery are leading this hugely. Food & Grocery sector especially, has been disrupted with new concepts, all within a span of few years. As due to lockdown, and gradual business wrapped up by Big Bazaar end consumers resorted to buying food and groceries delivered to their doorsteps, a number of businesses propped up with time bound delivery mechanism (Zepto or Blinkit). The era of pandemics & lockdowns disrupted the Entertainment industry too, with cine-halls and multiplexexs closed, Over the Top (OTT) Platforms gained an added advantage (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hoichoi etc), but as the times became normal, subscriber base of all these OTT platforms have dwindled a lot, so it would be quite early to project and understand the future of this market. E-Commerce also led to a number of methods of e-education, as all school and colleges had to resort to online classrooms. Websites like Udemy and Unacademy too are opening new ways of online education.
Sourced from: IBEF.org
A major boost for small and medium enterprises, as well as start-ups has been trending with advent of social media platforms. The social media platform like Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn has become a big market place for start-ups, and small and medium enterprises. Many new start-ups are able to showcase their brand or product, and garner orders, moreover user generated reviews too are being featured to help customers take decisions out of it. Common public have become the brand ambassadors for endorsements.
As the scope of market place has expanded, it has become more challenging to keep customers engaged and make spend time in one’s website or app. A number of brands have resorted to unique means to engage customers.
With advent of e-commerce and development in Digital Marketing, are the Shopping Mall Days are counted?
Fashion Retailers, across the globe, are resorting to various means to attract customers to their virtual pages rather than to their brick and mortar stores . Shopping Trends across globe shown the trends, attracting customers with only Offers is not enough.
Wal-Mart has started Livestream.
The superstore giant, Wal-Mart, inorder to connect more efficiently with its customers. Using Livestream it has been demonstrating its ready-to-cook recipes. The superstore giant has also been using Tiktok Live and Twitter spaces to create customer awareness programs for new launches.
Fitting Rooms to VR.
Major fashion brands are too resorting to Virtual Reality induced fitting rooms. Brands like Gap and Snap are pioneers in this regard. One of the reasons VR could be best possible option to fitting rooms is for lingerie brands. As most lingerie brands do not allow fitting trials for hygiene purposes, VR induced size and shape suggestion will help the customers to select the best fitting for them.
Game to Fashion
One of the unique ideas has been implemented by Fashion power house brand Louis Vitton. They have taken the customer engagement procedure to the next level by developing a game to interact with the customers. This app based adventure based game is filled with historical trivia as well as company’s runaway shows and new offerings.
It’s now time to see how brick-n-mortar stores are approaching this scenarios of e-commerce.
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