Abstract

The Retail industry is changing drastically and rapidly with leaps and bounds. To accommodate this change, there is a shift from consumer end and also from retailer’s end. This paper highlights the applicability of the change esp. for individual consumer and also brings the differentiation in a methodical manner .This paper also studies the problem at the customer level and illustrates the suggestions to retail outlets by setting up hypotheses. As the problem of this study is of very recent origin in the Indian context, not many studies seem to have been done with any sound research method and I have examined only one type of retail outlets, i.e. Kirana or general stores or mom and pop stores as they are commonly known. Many more reasons can be defined for the spurt in this retail activity, but the question arises where will all this lead the economy and the country to?  What are the repercussions and outcome of all this?  What will happen to the several million of small and medium retail outlets functioning throughout the country, who are seeking their livelihood in the country?

The theme of this paper is to study the above hypothesis and conclude that that the opening of supermarkets in India is not likely to affect the lives of several millions of small and independent retailers in a big way. This paper also projects the future research topic as a seamless extension to the current title with regards to the longevity of these Kirana stores and co-existence along with supermarkets.

Keywords: Retail, Supermarkets, Consumers, Kirana, Economy