Journal of Emerging Technologies and Business Management
Article Title
Mr Bhatias Dilemma - What Next?
Abstract
Indian retail is dominated by a large number of small retailers consisting of the local kirana shops, owner-manned general stores, chemists, footwear shops, apparel shops, paan and beedi shops, hand-cart hawkers, pavement vendors, etc. which together make up the so-called “unorganized retail” or traditional retail. The last 3-4 years have witnessed the entry of a number of organized retailers opening stores in various modern formats in metros and other important cities. Still, the overall share of organized retailing in total retail business has remained low. While total retail sales have grown from Rs. 10,591 billion (US$ 230 billion) in 2003-04 to Rs. 14,574 billion (US$ 322 billion) in 2006-07 and subsequently to US$ 411.28 billion in 2011 and expected to reach, US$ 804.06 billion by 2015 which is at an annual compound growth rate of about 11 per cent , the organized retail sales grew much more at about 20 per cent per annum from Rs. 350 billion (US$ 7.6 billion) in 2003-04 to Rs. 598 billion (US$ 13.2 billion) in 2006-07. As a result, the share of organized retail in total retail grew, although slowly, from 3.3 per cent in 2003-04 to 4.1 per cent in 2006-07 and currently is fairing at almost 6%.
