Retail industry is one of the fastest growing industries in India and has the potential to absorb more than two million people in the next four or five years. Almost 48 % Indians are below 25 years of age and looking for places to shop. World wide, retailing is the biggest industry with sales touching $7.2 trillion. In fact, every tenth billionaire in the world is a retailer. Behind every retailer is the story of how he or she came to be and more importantly how she or she came to help a competitor be just that much better. In India, over one thousand shopping malls will be needed just to keep up with the expansion of the retail segment in the next five years. Only one third is under construction.

The retail business has become very attractive because of strong economic growth during the last few years and the Indian retail market has attracted both foreign as well as domestic players. Earlier, the foreign investor did not get the desired return from their investment and most of the time they were disappointed with their property investments in India. Now, the site has altered. The world’s leading retailing companies are designing, manufacturing and marketing goods for Indian market. With increase in life expectancy, it would make retail buying important for every Indian family from the same place. Large shopping malls, retail chain and departmental stores such as Shopper’s Stop, Big Bazaar and Cross rods are now familiar name. In view of that Indian customers appreciable a superior propensity to buy overseas while the same product is available in the country, these malls have identified higher retail experience as the differentiator that builds value around their product. The most attractive benefit for consumer is the facility to purchase small quantities of a variety of items of every day use at prices that are considered reasonably affordable.

Moat big retailers /suppliers, are limited to big cities. But in recent times, prominent retailers have established a significant presence in Tier I cities and are now expanding to Tier II cities to cash in on the emerging opportunity. They are introducing several new concepts and acquiring space to increase their visibility and brand loyalty. Low real estate price in Tier II cities is big advantage. Small cities such as Chandigarh, Pune, Ahmadabad, Noida, Baroda, Bhopal, Indore, Nagpur, Patna, Jamshedpur, Bhubaneswar, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Simla are going to see a phenomenal growth in the number of malls and supermarkets will largely depend upon their ability to fulfill the needs of the catchments’ zones and needs of planning, accurate identification of demands, quality products at reasonable price, right product mix and timing.

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