SUPER MARKETS BEING SUCH GAME CHANGERS

Kirana stores have been our grocery store until recently. These stores are located within our reach; they are trust worthy both the shopkeeper and their products and most importantly related to travel convenience. However they fail to offer a wide variety of products. They do keep the most important or the most used or purchased products but today consumers are also looking for other brands and alternatives. It was an urgent need for Kirana stores to upgrade their facilities to be able to compete with organised retailers, who are expected to improve their location rapidly in the near future to come.

Additionally, the food items need to be fresh before selling, which takes up considerable amount of infrastructural expenses. And another fact is that super markets offer relatively low prices to customers. The modern day Kirana stores are actively modifying themselves so as to suits the needs of their consumers their tastes, their preferences and their location, thereby increasing the competition for organised food retailers. And now there is ecommerce marketing which are adding up to the completion as well.

Small retailers and other Kirana stores will be in a great loss thus leading to job losses. Giant retailers and supermarkets like Walmart, Relaince Fresh, etc will displace such retailers in the near future. Supermarkerts will establish their monopoly in the Indian market. One of the major reason being that supermarkets have a lot more to offer than a local Kirana store. Today due to hectic schedules and time constraints we often notice visit Supermarkets once a week and shop for the entire week. Debit cards, credit cards services have also offered people relief to consumers in terms of convenience. Earlier one could possibly shop like this only in malls ie Big Bazaar which had a lot of products to offer from fmcg products to clothes, bags, shoes and books. One could shop for everything under the same roof. Today we have Wallmart in the suburbs majorly offering this kind of facility to consumers and Reliance Fresh in town, we still have a few established supermarkets that have also taken over Kirana stores because of its price and convenience. Super markets have discounts, cash back, coupons, buy 1 get 1 free offer on a daily basis as compared to a kirana store which may not particularly have this.

Also economy wise supermarkets are doing better than Kirana stores as they employ a large number of people. These big stores are caves of temptation. The strategy of supermarkets is to make you buy a product that you probably wouldn’t buy. Supermarkets put their most profitable wares at eye level. You just can’t miss them while you shop, you would probably be blind to miss them and that’s the point. They put chocolates, biscuits and sweets on prominent places. There are dozens of marketing tricks that are designed to make the consumers spend more time and money in the supermarkets. Therefore they indirectly encourage impulsive buying.

But today Kirana stores are also important as they are located in our neighbourhood and one can go anytime especially in times of an emergency or an urgent requirement. Super markets in malls have also been a place of entertainment. We see so many people window shopping in malls, as malls have a lot to offer from food to clothes to cinema houses to game stores attracting kids, teenagers and others to unwind their week. Phoenix Mall regularly hosts concerts and small shows right where everyone can gather, sit together and enjoy their day. This not only attracts more customers but also gives advertisers and artists to display their products or brands and talents accordingly.