The concept of retailing just coming in India and the old players like Big Bazaar are already feeling the heat. And obviously they should worry with Reliance foraying in the market and cellular man Mittal entering MOU with the largest retailer in the world - Wal Mart. The scene of Indian retailing industry is set to change and the customer is all set to be king once again
However this post is not about the big player and how they will play. The biggest advantage of supermarkets is it is a collection of markets at one place (building). This has significant advantage and the ease of shopping it provides. However is this really an advantage? In my view as the stores are getting bigger and bigger, shopping times are increasing and so is the pain of shopping.
Just think how much time it takes to locate, decide and pick and item, say X, then we spend close to 2X time to pay the bill and get out of the fish market. Wow what a convenience!!!!
Other interesting point worthwhile to mention is that we always end up buying all items other than what we came to buy. This is the basis of retail industry and it’s really good (for them of course!). No matter how hard we try to buy an item we came for and get out as fast as possible. Alas! We will always have n+1 items in your shopping bag :)
However it is the time taken to look for one item that we came specifically to buy, that pisses me off. And the sheer size of the store makes it almost impossible for the staff to tell the specific location of the item. And better sometimes they do not know whether they are selling that product anymore or not. This has happened so many times that now I do most of the shopping at the local store, in doing so am able to save lots of time.
I know some things cost more but as they say time is more costly and invested in sleeping gives the best returns. :D
