Why Indian retail is different
Retail is the oldest form of business. In the context of this article, what I refer to as retail is `Offline, Direct to consumer’ businesses. My experience in retail has been in the Grocery and Food service businesses, but the points I make will be applicable across formats. The broad principles of running a retail business are well known, because retail has been around for so long. In India, startups have looked to reinvent retail and have largely done so by copying western models – for e.g. traditional mom and pop grocery stores were replaced by Supermarkets, which moved to more niche categories. A few years after supermarkets came online retail, one or whose new avatars is 10 minute delivery. Each of these models has now been around for several years. None made a profit in the first 10 years of operations. Those that have now turned profitable, have wafer thin margins. The most profitable supermarket chain – Avenue Supermarkets (D Mart) has a net profit of 5% The reason for...