Organised retail on trail of 'aspirational' consumers
Indian shopping habits are slowly becoming more westernised, writes Khozem Merchant Kishore Biyani, the man- aging director of India's biggest retail group, was "astonished" with the findings of an internal company survey on shopping trends in Hyderabad, a technology services city in south India.
"Despite the city's modern, IT image, the survey showed people there were deeply conservative in accepting western fashions. But that won't keep us out," he says.
Pantaloon, the quoted retailer that grew out of Mr Biyani's garments business, will open a 210,000 sq ft mall in Hyderabad this year.
Mr Biyani is "convinced of the opportunity" in Hyderabad and in the other 110 Indian cities and towns that he says contain "the aspirational class" of Indian consumers, representing a market of about 30m people, forecast to rise to 50m by 2009.
Pantaloon is planning a series of retail projects to take advantage of the rise in Indian disposable incomes and the increasing exposure to international consumer spending habits.
The group will invest Rs1.5bn ($33m) to raise its total retail space from 1.1m sq ft to 3m sq ft by the end of 2005.
And Pantaloon is not alone. India's biggest businesses are rolling out scores of department stores, supermarkets and malls in an effort to lift their share of the country's $180bn ret ail market.
Currently, "organised retailers" account for only 2 per cent of this market, compared with 15-20 per cent in China and 81 per cent in Taiwan, according to McKinsey, the consultancy.
"We are late starters but the potential is transparently vast," says Urvi Piramal, vice-chair of Piramal Enterprises, a leading retail group based in Mumbai.
Piramal, which recently celebrated the fifth birthday of its pioneering Crossroads mall in Mumbai, is planning to open a second in the city soon, and five outlets of its flagship stor e, Pyramid, within a year.
Meanwhile, Shoppers' Stop, a national chain of department stores, will launch India's first initial public offering by a retailer this year, raising funds to open one department store every three months for the next three years.
"Indians have always had access to shops but without the ambience. That's the revolution we are now seeing," says BS Nagesh, chief executive of Shoppers' Stop.
Stores are being built by family businesses with acres of spare or disused land and a background in construction, or interests in the retail supply-chain.
Crossroads was formerly a drugs factory employing 250 people before Piramal converted it into a mall that now employs 1,000. Phoenix Mills in Mumbai was a textiles hub before it becam e a shopping enclave.
Although the trend is largely urban-based, some retail groups are expanding in the countryside.
ITC, India's biggest cigarette maker, has opened a modest mall in a rural area, part of a drive to capture what management guru CK Prahalad says is the "fortune at the bottom of the p yramid".
This large retail roll-out has not happened without hiccups. Crossroads had to close down its fine-dining and wine stores after realising they were the wrong choices for an Indian mal l that still attracts the curious from out of town.
Shoppers' Stop's $1m foreign-sourced inventory management system showed India was not a homogeneous market, leaving the retailer with vast inventories of stock unsuitable for the vari ous regional markets.
For now, this overhaul of Indian shopping habits is a purely domestic affair.
Although India is a global sourcing base for retailers, as a retail market it remains out of bounds for foreign investors such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour.
But that could change, too. Kamal Nath, India's commerce minister, recently said he would not "rule out" reform permitting foreign direct investment in ret- ailing.
印度消费者开始西化
印度最大的零售集团对海得拉巴(Hyderabad)的消费趋势进行了一次公司内部调查，其结果令董事总经理基肖尔?比亚尼(Kishore Biyani)“大为惊讶”。海得拉巴是印度南部一座高科技服务城市。
“尽管这座城市有着信息技术(IT)发达的现代化形象，但调查显示，那里的人们在接受西方时尚方面非常保守。但这不会将我们阻挡在外，”他说道。
上市零售商Pantaloon今年将在海得拉巴新开一家占地21万平方英尺的购物中心。Pantaloon是由比亚尼先生的服装公司发展壮大而成。
比亚尼先生对海得拉巴及其它110座印度城镇的“机会充满信心”，他表示，这些地方包含着印度消费者中的“进取阶级”，代表着一个约3000万人的市场，预期到2009年这一市场的规模将升至5000万人。
Pantaloon正计划建设一系列零售工程，以利用印度可支配收入上升，以及日渐形成国际消费习惯的趋势。
该集团将投资15亿卢比(合3300万美元)，在2005年年底前将其总零售面积从110万平方英尺扩大到300万平方英尺。
Pantaloon并非唯一这么做的企业。印度最大的几家公司都在兴建大量百货商店、超级市场和购物中心，以提高自己在该国1800亿美元零售市场中的份额。
据咨询公司麦肯锡(McKinsey)统计，目前“有组织的零售商”仅占这个市场的2%，相比之下，中国大陆这一比例为15%至20%，台湾为81%。
“我们起步晚，但是潜力显然很大，”Piramal Enterprises副董事长乌尔维?皮拉马尔(Urvi Piramal)说。Piramal Enterprises是一家总部位于孟买的领先零售集团。
Piramal最近刚庆祝了它在孟买的首家购物中心Crossroads的五岁生日，并计划于近期在这个城市开设第二家购物中心，并在一年内开出五家金字塔(Pyramid)专卖店，金字塔是该集团的旗舰门店。
同时，全国性连锁百货商店Shoppers’ Stop今年将进行首次公开上市，这将是印度第一家公开上市的零售商。上市筹集的资金，将用来在未来3年内每3个月开一家百货商店。
“印度人一直能去商店购物，但缺少购物环境。这就是我们目前看到的一场革命，”Shoppers’ Stop的首席执行官BS?纳杰什(BS Nagesh)说。
一些家族企业正在兴建商店，这些企业拥有数英亩闲置或废弃不用的土地，在建筑业也有背景，或者在零售供应链领域拥有权益。
Crossroads从前是一家药厂，雇佣了250名员工，随后Piramal将其改造成一个购物中心，目前雇佣员工1000人。孟买的Phoenix Mills过去是个纺织中心，后来成了购物区。
尽管这一趋势基本上发生在城区，但一些零售集团正在向农村扩张。
印度最大的香烟制造商印度烟草公司(ITC)已在农村地区开了一家中等规模的购物中心。公司力争获取管理大师CK?普拉哈拉德(CK Prahalad)所称的“金字塔底部的财富”，而这是该举措的一部分。
推出这个大型零售项目并非没有曲折。Crossroads当时被迫关闭购物中心内的优雅餐馆和葡萄酒店，因为公司意识到，对一个仍在吸引城外好奇顾客的印度购物中心而言，这些选择不当。
Shoppers’ Stop从外国采购的存货管理系统价值达100万美元，表明了印度不是一个同质市场，而导致该零售商有着庞大的库存，不适合各种地区性市场。
眼下，这次印度购物习惯的大革新纯粹是场国内事件。
尽管印度是零售商的全球性采购基地，但作为一个零售市场，印度仍然没有纳入沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)和家乐福(Carrefour)等外国投资者的范围。
但这可能也会改变。印度商业部长卡迈勒?纳特(Kamal Nath)最近表示，他不会“排除”允许外国直接投资进入零售领域的改革。
