CORPORATE RETAILING
If footfalls are any indication of patronage More stores of Aditya Birla group seem to be a sure winner. I have visited their stores quite often where you have the choice of goods from vegetables, grocery ,eatables,drinks, health food and drinks, consumer goods, luxuries etc. The stores are well organised and the visitors are treated nicely by the stores salesmen and girls. The room is air conditioned and you enjoy your time and freedom to pick any thing you like from a variety of goods made available. They also offer mega deals to entice customers. My mother who was a loyal customer of a neighbor hood stores has already fallen for More for they promise loyalty bonuses, free gifts for purchases exceeding a certain value etc. The billing system is efficient as most of the packages have Barcode and the salesmen can readily access the price through a scanner. Somehow my wife and mother in law prefer to buy our groceries from a whole sale dealer in a ramshackle shop in a busy town thoroughfare. They claim it is cheaper which I disagree.
MORE stores offer employment opportunities to young men and women and also offer part time jobs as well. It is fantastic idea if through Corporate retailing, more jobs are created and the wealth is shared in stead of owner driven shops. Even Owner driven shops could be offered franchise partnership models which will enable the corporate retailer access to markets not known to them but nurtured over a period of time by the small time grocer. The myth that corporate retailing will drive away such kirana stores in to oblivion should be dispelled. The unorganised retail chains should also form an umbrella chamber to protect their own interest and offer much better services to the customer lest he/she be weaned away by corporate retailers. There should be a dispute resolution mechanism in place to check unfair trade practices intended to ensure monopoly for in a free market monopoly should be abolished.
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