Retail in India - statistics & facts

Retail categories

  Being a daily requirement, customers spend most at food and grocery retailers. Apparel and footwear as well as consumer and IT retailers are other significant players in India’s retail market. Major retail companies such as Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail or Avenue Supermarts Limited’s D’Mart do not specialize but engage in various retail categories from apparel and footwear to groceries, and consumer electronics.

Highly competitive space

  Small retailers and so-called kirana stores have shaped India’s retail landscape. Located in narrow neighborhoods, on busy streets, and within the walls of gated communities, kirana stores attract customers through easy accessibility. Personal interactions with the shop-owners make them a social meeting spot. In contrast, the organized retail sector attracts through an air-cooled atmosphere and malls similar to amusement parks, giving customers an all-around experience along with the shopping thrill. Although the number of malls increased and is expected to rise further, emerging ghost-malls reflect the high competition from unorganized retail forms. In new openings, local stores still outnumber mid-size retailers, but their shares in new openings are on a rise.

The emergence of online retail

  Without being reliant on physical stores, India’s growing e-commerce sector has emerged as a market with huge potential. The coronavirus pandemic further pushed this development. With the onset of the nationwide lockdown at the end of March 2020, customers tended to stay in their homes, avoiding physical stores. Accordingly, more customers made use of online retailers. Nevertheless, an inclination to return to local stores after the pandemic remained. Therefore, India’s retail sector seems to remain a highly competitive market with a high potential to continue growing in the future.

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