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Booming Business Trends & Ideas Boosting Retail Industry of India

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According to Phillip Kotler, “Retailing includes all the activities involved in selling goods or services to the final consumers for personal and non-business use”. In addition to selling, retailing includes diverse activities such as buying, advertising, data processing, manpower management, and maintenance of inventory. The system of retailing is the combination of activities involved in selling or renting consumer goods and services directly to ultimate consumers for their personal or household use. In this vast business world, retail businesses sell individual units or small groupings of products to large numbers of customers.

Technology is playing a major role in uplifting the market of retail industry. The holy touch of internet retail sector has witnessed digital transformation. Few significant channels of retail like B2C, D2C have become so prevalent these days, replacing the society’s brick mortar store with remote E-store. The retail industry has taken a mammoth shape in just a couple of years. It accounts for almost 10 percent of the GDP of most developed nations. Retailing is impacting a huge market covering as large as $6.6 billion and majorly it is organized. This industry can be a game changer for a country’s economy, because it constitutes up to 16 percent of the GDP in the US, 5 percent in Brazil, 12 percent in Poland, and 7 percent in China and 10 percent in India.

Popular Retail Trends of the Year

1. Including Location Intelligence: With the widespread of internet and progress of Information Technology, retail Industry is soaring-up with a speed of light by using both physical and digital channels. It includes physical stores, online retailers, and other businesses that engage in direct-to-consumer sales. Location intelligence is highly important factor in the retail industry because it allows businesses to analyze and understand customer behavior, preferences, and trends based on location data, which is used to optimize store locations, manage inventory and personalize marketing campaigns to create a better and overall customer experience.

By using location intelligence, the retail industry is exhibiting new growth opportunities, optimize their operations and create better experiences for their customers. More businesses are coming-up with new retail technology and embracing emerging retail trends by using location intelligence to grab the pace of today’s fast-forward and ever-changing retail landscape.

2. AI & ML: The collaborative efforts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) on retail industry are being used to enhance the customer’s experience of shopping. Chatbots, personalization, and predictive analytics are just a few examples of how AI and ML can be used in this sector to gain lucrative profits.

3. Social Commerce & Mobile Commerce: Today’s decade is wholly driven by social media like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and more. So, shopping through the channels of social media is trending now. Brands are utilizing social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to directly sell their products, creating a chain of new retail channels for businesses to reach potential customers. The deep penetration of smartphones has already revolutionized the channels of D2C. By mobile commerce the future shopping experiences will reach to the next level as they can shop anything, anywhere, everything and everywhere by a single touch of their fingertip. From promotions to carting experience will be via phones by using location marketing technology.

4. AR & VR Retail: The use of AR and VR technology is not confined to gaming and entertainment industry now, but retail industry has also grabbed this technology efficiently. They both are providing innovative ways for customers to experience products and shop more efficiently. These two technologies are creating immersive shopping experiences and enabling customers to try on products virtually, AR and VR are transforming the retail industry. According to the market data, more numbers of retailers are using AR and VR into their operations to enhance customer experiences and driving up the sales.

5. Subscription-based Business: In today’s internet driven updated society, people want personalization and customization in every major to minor commodities. So, in this age, subscription-based business models are expected to see continued growth, particularly in industries like beauty & fashion, entertainment, D2C platforms and more. Entertainment platforms like Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, Zee5, Sony LIV and more are offering a wide range of movies, games, web-series sports, live telecast of shows and sports. These platforms are undeniably making our small leisure and weekend dazzling without the need for rushing to the multiplexes or stadiums. Here with subscriptions, you can watch the latest episodes or your favorite tv-shows even before they are telecasted.

On the other hand, if you have subscription or membership in Zomato or Swiggy, they will offer few discounts with free delivery. Subscription model provides the business organizations to properly navigate their business ideas to skyrocket their sales by attracting a large crowd of consumers. As, with each passing day, the craze of these platforms is growing at a rocket speed, retailers are looking for new ideas and methods or subscription-based business models to keep pace with the demand.

6. Omnichannel Models: As the demand of e-commerce is bulging day-by-day customers are more using D2C channels. Retailers must meet customers where they are to deliver seamless and personalized shopping experiences that are consistent across all channels. Retailers are using more updated technologies focusing towards a more customer-centric approach and data-driven insights to provide exceptional services to meet customer expectations, for creating a competitive advantage. Online shoppers in India are expected to touch a sale of $500 million in 2030, more than 2x increase from $220 million users in 2022.

“You cannot run a successful retail business from memory.” —Josh Hartford

7. Data Privacy & Cyber Security: With the increasing level of data breaches and privacy concerns, consumers are very skeptic about sharing their information with the retailers. So, retailers need to have a robust data privacy and security. The absorption of broadband and internet is likely to reach 55 percent or more by 2025, and reach to 850 million users. The big and renowned channels of retailers are spending more money to have a sound robust security system which will safeguard the huge customers’ personal information from the cyber rogues. A vigilant surveillance model in retail industry is very much needed and in demand these days.

Market Demand of Retail Industry
Indian Scenario of Retail Industry: Indian retail market is expected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2027 and $2 trillion by 2032. 12% of the whole industry is organized, so government needs to take a good care of this industry to uplift the economy. Renowned retail company Reliance Group generates over $7 billion in revenue and employs more than 88,000 people in over 750 cities worldwide, having 10,415 stores covering 22 million square feet. It is India’s largest retailer in terms of reach, scale, revenue, and profitability. Future Group earns annual revenue of around $3.5 billion and employs over 35,000 professionals across the country, having more than 2000 stores that cover over 16 million square feet in more than 400 cities.

Global Scenario of Retail Industry: Wealthiest economy US, the retail industry employ about 22 million people and generate more than three trillion dollars in sales annually. The retail industry is a massive part of the overall US economy and in 2005 retail establishments accounted for 18 percent of all nonfarm private-sector jobs and had sales of $3.2 trillion. Retail establishments accounted for 18 percent of all nonfarm private-sector jobs and accounted a sale of $3.2 trillion. The Japanese retail industry is regarded as being a sophisticated market and is the 3rd largest market after China and US. 20 percent of the workforce is employed in retail as against 10 percent in the US.

A huge concentration of large retail firms in the US, in which 10 percent of food and general merchandise firm’s account for over 40 percent of all retail sales. In 2021, retail spending constituted a large proportion of private consumption in all European countries which was nearly 30-50 percent, where Germany showed the highest growth in retail industry nearly 640 billion euros. Indian retail market is expected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2027 and $2 trillion by 2032. 12 percent of the whole industry is organized, so government needs to take a good care of this industry to uplift the economy. Statistically, the top 250 global retailers have combined sales of approximately $4 trillion, in which the top 10 retailers account for $1.2 trillion, or about 30 percent of those sales. Few of the significant foreign retailers in India are Walmart Stores Inc, IKEA, Decathlon, Marks & Spencer, Adidas, and Innisfree.

Retail is a customer business. You’re trying to take care of the customer, solve something for the customer. And there’s no way to learn that in the classroom or in the corner office or away from the customer. You’ve got to be in front of the customer - Erik Nordstrom, President, Nordstrom Direct

Future Ahead
By 2030, India will add 140 million middle-income and 21 million high-income households – Leading to a huge emerging middle class. The Indian retail sector will contribute around 8 percent of the workforce which is nearly 35 million. It is expected to create 25 million new jobs by 2030. The global retail market attained a value of $23 trillion in 2022, due to the growing smartphone penetration and the ever-increasing usage of internet across the globe. India is the 4th largest preferred retail destination globally. The retail industry has undergone a true metamorphosis with adoption of cutting-edge technologies and tools. Recently, few of the retailers started shifting into more sustainable ways and channels. The Giant home furnishing company IKEA declared that they are planning to eliminate the plastic materials in packaging and will introduce new materials by 2025 and by 2028, 100 percent of the packaging materials will be replaced by sustainable packaging materials.

Automated pricing technology will become more prevalent in the market which will minimize the requirement of labor force in pricing system and will ensure more transparency in the system. By 2030, rural per capita consumption will grow 4.3 times and in urban India, it will grow 3.5 times by 2030, middle-income and high-income households will drive nearly $4 trillion of incremental consumption spend. The growing digital influence will affect around 30-35 percent of all retail sales in coming couple of years. Over the next 3-5 years, share of modern retail including D2C and B2C market will increase to 30-35 percent with share of traditional retail coming down to 65-70 percent.

So, from the above testimonies, it is evident that Retail industry is refurbishing all the limbs targeting the gigantic record sales in the days to come.