Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO of the Apex industry body RAI said In a statement, "The growth in India’s organised retailing will be hit due to weak consumer sentiments and the slowdown in fresh investment. Retailers are quite cautious in opening new stores since property prices are falling and are waiting for more viable deals".
RAI also said it expects organized retailers to cut their recruitment in the next fiscal year to half of this year. Indian department stores typically recruit one person for every 200 sq ft, whereas the speciality retailers employ four people for 100 sq ft with a hypermarket employing only one person per 300 sq ft.
RAI represents around 405 Indian retailers, including Future Group, Trent, Reliance Retail, Aditya Birla Retail, Globus, Shopper’s Stop and Spencer’s. Organised retail constitutes around 5% of the country’s total retail sector.
Not everyone is as pessimistic. "Our estimates suggest modern retailing will grow by around 25% this fiscal (Apr-Mar)," says Arvind Singhal, Chairman of the leading retail consultancy firm, Technopak Advisors according to a report in ET.
Growth of the organised retail is important for the increase in wine consumption in India as with the ongoing and expected growth in this sector which is expected to add wines in the portfolio too. Wine retail is expected to add a significant percentage to the growth. In most countries where wine retail sales are a given, the sales have not come down significantly due to the ongoing recession, though consumers are trading down and shifting gradually to cheaper wines. |