Future Of Retail

                                               

                                      RETAIL SECTOR

When we hear the word retail, the nearby kirana store or retail chains like Big Bazzar etc come to mind ,all part of physical retail channel the one which we have seen traditionally, but is the retail space the same like the one we used to see a few years back where we had to go out to shop? Maybe for some high end products but with advent of internet and e-commerce we have seen major shift in shopping patterns not just in urban areas now due corona induced lockdowns and internet penetration even rural population is shopping from the comfort of home at the click of a button. According to IBEF reports India is the fastest growing e-commerce market and is expected to grow at 1200 percent to 200 billion USD by 2026. The physical retail stores have not only seen a decline in footfall but also during lockdown the retail sector  faced losses of about 90,000 crores. But is this temporary?, is retail going to bounce back?

The pandemic has made people adjust to the new digital shopping routine and now what change was expected to come about in 5 years we are probably noticing now.There are various online platform delivering grocery to furniture and recently even automobile manufacturers have started selling online.

Competing with online retailers is not the only challenge but with Reliance retail, walmart and other retail aggregators coming into picture, the retailers will have to fight to keep their customers like never before.

Physical form of shopping may not become extinct in near future but with virtual reality and other technologies coming into picture the physical shopping may decline and online aggregators are able to provide low costs due to aggregation.

Looking at all of above conditions does not create a pretty picture for retail but there are a few things to consider-

1. There are some products like vehicles, clothes and some other high end items that people prefer to buy in store.
2. People in india still like to go out to shop.
3. Reliance, Walmart, etc are heavily investing in the retail market as they have realized there is still a lot of untapped potential in the indian retail market.
4. With advent of omnichannel distribution the almost everyone is benefited-

              Retailers - With increase in orders, recently when myntra started its omnichannel distribution the retail stores saw about 20-30 percent of increase in sales.

             Customers - Customers can get products on the same day of delivery and can easily track stores from where their order was delivered.

             Online platforms - They have seen reduction in transportation costs and increase in revenues due to improved service times and the returnability is also improved and becomes less expensive.

                    

We have seen how retail is affected by the technological and pandemic disruptions and it looks like omni channel is going to be the way forward and also the retailers will have to become more responsive and enhance the shopping experience in order to attract customers to the stores.

Shopping in future is going to be a experience and not a chore.