Indian retail head honchos see dramatic change in country’s retail segment in next few years

Indian retail sector will go through more changes in the next five years compared to the last 50 years as the definition of shops, shopping, experience of service is set to change dramatically, said Chairman and CEO, Pepsico India Holdings, D. Shivakumar at India Retail Forum 2016.
Addressing retailers, Shivakumar said, “I don’t think retail outlets will grow as 33 per cent of Indians shop online once a week while 37 per cent are shopping online once a month. Technology will impact the new retail outlets that will open.”
India has 9.6 million FMCG multi-layer retail outlets of which rural India has 6 million outlets, but the top 8 metro constitute only 0.73 million outlets, he said.
Contrary to popular perception, 63 per cent and 59 per cent of urban and rural India are nuclear families respectively and paradigm of marketers has to change significantly as India has moved on but has marketers and retailers have lagged, Shivakumar said.
Concurring the view, earlier speaking at the India Retail Forum, CEO & MD, P&G India, Al Rajwani called for the need of time saving innovations as the rise of individual has commensurate with the fall of the household.
“In the past, one shampoo was used by the entire house. Now everyone has his or her own shampoo. Consumer economy has transformed into networked personal economies as consumers are Partners, Influencers, Data Brokers, Investors, Suppliers, Inventors and Backers,” Rajwani said.
Meanwhile, the new age Indian consumer prefers to happily share than own an asset be it Uber, Ola and his definition of healthy does not mean not sick. Hence apart from the changing preferences of the Indian consumer, the key challenge for the Indian retailer over the next five years is to make the consumer comfortable with digital payments, Shivakumar said.
Stating the significance of time saving innovations, Rajwani said, “High innovation category in retail has grown at four times than low innovation categories and eight times with zero innovation categories.”
Putting forth his view, Founder and Group CEO, Future Group and the doyen of modern retail in India, Kishore Biyani pointed out that India has a consumption economy growing at US$100 billion dollar every year and we need several entrepreneurs across categories to cater to this growing pie.
Sharing an instance, Biyani said, “Women consumption is coming off age with increased presence of women brands commensurate with their respective rise in their individual income. As a modern day retailer, we all are only addressing 10 per cent of the Indian market while the next 20 per cent is getting ready for consumption.”