The Great Indian Retail Saga

While retailing is all set to boom to more than a $1 trillion industry by 2020 backed by e-tail and omnichannel formats, there will be many winners and some losers.

- Clifford Alvares

To click or not to click, that’s the question For in that vastness of online choice When we have shunned this brick-and-mortar hassle For we enjoy the touchy-feely shopping. Oh! That someone would put the two together And blend them into a seamless experience (With unqualified apologies to a chappie named Bill Shakespeare)

The question now really isn’t whether to click or not to. That has been settled — on both sides, that of the customer and that of the retailer. Both online and offline (brick-and-mortar) retailers have realised the worthwhileness of the other’s position, in other words, their competitors’ strengths.

And both, to the extent possible and resources available, are harvesting the benefits of either. In the case of online retailing, the experience of shopping, the touch and feel of things, the visual and tactile pleasure of a customer, and the satisfaction of having settled something oneself. In the case of brick-and-mortar retailing, it is the wider reach and better market positioning and branding.

Retailing is changing

E-tailing was once considered a threat to the glass-and-window shopping. But the lines between high street and cyber stores is getting fuzzier. Traditional retailers have expanded into online. And slowly but surely, online retailers are setting up brick-and mortar offline stores. Native online-only companies, which roiled traditional brick-and-mortar ones a few years ago, are finding that there are more opportunities in brick-and mortar formats. And now, the online-only entities want to offer a multi-channel experience.