Retail is a Business of providing goods and services to the end consumers. It has been present here in India for a long time with the prevalence of Barter system and with the introduction of money for exchange of goods of personal consumption. With the continuously changing face with changes in the economic, political situations. Earlier retailing was done by local kirana shopkeepers or some government houses by exploiting the customers. Even the food grain provided to the customers was adulterated and the consumer had to accept whatever was being offered. Sometimes the customer also had to wait for a long in the queue to get the commodities of his need. That was all because of the low awareness among the consumers about their rights and also because of the uneducated people who had low purchasing power and lower disposable income in their hands. Due to poor condition of the country after just being out of the hands of the British, the trade system was not organized. Technology intervention gave business a sophisticated shape. A stable Government took various steps to ensure that the Business is done taking care of the legal aspects. That’s the difference between organized and unorganized. Organized retailing talks about retail business done by people after having proper license with them and fulfilling all legal formalities whereas in unorganized retailing no particular legal system with rules and regulations is followed. Manipulation can be easily done with the sales figures and taxes can be easily avoided.

With the introduction of reforms, the government starte d now implementing tax reforms including the implementation of VAT People started looking at more and more techniques for improving business processes. The concept to shopping complexes came up which meant providing comfort to customers to shop under one roof. Entire focus started shifting from selling approach to marketing approach . Now the companies could not afford to sell whatever they produced. Due to increasing levels of awareness, more disposable income at hands people started becoming more demanding and therefore the need for customized products increased. Malls have now taken the place of shopping complexes and are giving the best to the customer with food entertainment and shopping all under one roof with a pleasant ambience. Now things started turning around and the entire approach was marketing focused now, anticipating what customer wants exactly and thereafter including the desired attributes into the product to be offered. As we moved further due to increasing competition providing the goods best suiting to customer’s demand has become the norm, which all Retailers are following, now need of the time is to differentiate oneself from others. Firms found different ways of doing that some thought offering entirely a different range of products, or some thought of Using tools of visuals and CRM to Stand apart the crowd. On the basic ground every retailer has to provide goods of the customer’s requirement at the lowest possible prices, which brought in another new concept that is price wars, To fight with this efficiently firms’ need to recognize the importance of Cutting costs. There are just two ways out to Increase the bottom line , one is increasing sale and other is by cutting costs. Addition in sales can be done by either enhancing the visuals of the product as well as the place of offering or by Providing the goods which best suits the needs of the customers at the price which they wants to pay . Again the point is cutting on costs which can be done if we optimally utilize our resources. Which brought in the requirement of the concepts like supply chain , inventory management and logistics. these are the few specialized areas working efficiently upon these can reduce the costs to a great extent and can help the retailers increase margins and be able to differentiate themselves from others. Developed retailers had been quite successful on these functional areas like supply chain etc. Many of them are interested in joining hands with Indian retailers because there is huge scope here as the resources are under utilized .They want to establish themselves here to take advantages out of the untapped resources and strengthen such weak links. Right now FDI is not completely allowed in India and it’s an ongoing debate whether it is to be allowed in retail or not. Still foreign companies have started taking backdoor entry and have joined hands with various Indian retailers, like Walmart has joined hands with Bharti, one of the biggest telecom players of India. Though the entry of international players will be advantageous to India but on the other hand it will kill the traditional retail formats like mom and pop stores. That’s the reason why the government is quite speculative about allowing complete FDI in retail in India. Many players have just stared recognizing the heat of the time and begun to invest in the retail ventures. They need time to grow up and stand to face the threats and strategies of the well established international players. Whatever be the decision with respect to FDI in the Indian retail industry the benefit will be the Indian consumers. Customers are the end beneficiaries as they have a wide choice of goods and services giving them value for their money. The standard of living of the people will increase and they will have a better lifestyle which will result in the development of the economy as a whole.

India is a diverse nation and because of this one single strategy would not do for entire India. Many national players like Reliance and ITC have started thinking about entering in to rural market, because most of India is rural, and the kind of strategies which have worked for the urban population will not work for the rural market. It has to decide its own strategies, by having a better understanding of the Indian Consumers. It has to be regionally devised and must be well defined according to the culture of the people of the country.

Thus the future of the retail industry is very promising because of various reasons. There is an arrival of the new middle class which has large amount of money at its disposal and is aware of the various options that are available. There is a new culture of spending more than saving which gives an impetus to the retail growth in the country. “Quality for life” being the mantra of the day Indians are shopping like never before and are embracing a lifestyle which is more westernized and exotic in nature.

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