A writer friend who is so not into shopping was recently spotted at an upmarket Delhi mall. He was, well, shopping. His wife was pleasantly shocked when he picked eight T-shirts, a couple of trousers and a pair of shoes. “I just couldn’t believe it when he quietly asked if he could visit the BOSSINI store,” she says.

The wife—who claims a bout of depression four years ago turned her into a big time visitor to the malls—is clearly surprised by her reticent husband’s new-found comfort in India’s modern retail format, the mall. “It’s not easy to drag him out of the house but once he is there I’ve noticed that he’s happy,” she says.

Another friend, a serious career woman and a firm believer in multitasking, admits that she goes “malling” every week. Although the online dictionary for slang, describes “malling” as a “walk around the mall aimlessly (without the intention of buying something)”, but in the case of this generally purposeful lady, the visits are not completely devoid of targets. The intention is to have fun, eat out and check out the latest discount sales. “I am not spending big money, but yes, I am buying more,” says the jet setter.

What’s common to the two people mentioned above is the fact that they hated shopping. “It was so painful,” is their shared response.

A quick dipstick in a reasonably large group of friends and acquaintances shows that reluctant shoppers who used to drag themselves to the market even for that rare need-based shopping, don’t mind walking the clean corridors of some of the plush malls in town. More important, they are frequent visitors and they are spending—even if it’s on a low-value trinket, beverage or burger.

So what’s pulling the indifferent shoppers to the malls? Ideally, we need the expertise of someone like Paco Underhill, the New York-based retail anthropologist, to unravel the changing behaviour of the reluctant shopper in India, just the way he wrote the treatise on America’s shopping disposition in bestsellers such as Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, Call of the Mall: The Geography of Shopping and, more recently, What Women Want.

Experts say that Underhill, who founded the global consumer research and consulting firm Envirosell, knows malls better than almost anyone. In India, shoppers themselves offer insights into why those indisposed towards buying earlier are now frequenting the malls.

For the female consumer mentioned earlier, hygiene and safety are critical pulls. You can shop puddle-free, immune to the vagaries of the weather outside or the threat of being groped in a crowded market. For her, it’s safe to shop, roam and eat out with her teenaged daughter. Browsing does not invite the ire of the salesman, and finally, clean toilets are accessible.

Devangshu Dutta, founder of retail consultancy Third Eyesight agrees: Paying customers are being increasingly attracted to malls because they offer a comfortable and safer environment. Some of the better malls also offer a more cohesive brand and product mix (for instance, DLF Emporio in Delhi is for designer and luxury stuff and Select City Walk for premium brands) that draw a homogenous profile of customers. This, in turn, increases the comfort and confidence levels of the customers shopping in the mall.

The taciturn writer’s pull factors are slightly at variance. He confesses enjoying the wide open spaces and the greenery outside some of the malls. (Note, he lives in a flat on the second floor and does not have a garden). For him, the sit-out area of eateries holding a liquor licence is a matter of joy.

For the rest, malls seem to have replaced the ubiquitous picnic spots. So families check out destination malls on a weekend for entertainment (read cinema), food and shopping.

Malls are set to grow both in number and size. At least 30 new malls are expected to launch in the near future with 250 already in operation across the country, according to retail industry estimates. Besides, significantly larger, 300,000-600,000 sq. ft malls are becoming common, with some touching 1 million-plus sq. ft.

Interestingly, the perceived, feel-good increase in number of footfalls is hard to substantiate, despite the parking full signboards at the malls. At least two retail experts, Dutta of Third Eyesight and Arvind Singhal, founder of Technopak Advisors, say that the seemingly bigger crowds do not prove that either the footfalls or the spending at malls have grown.

Dutta says footfall counts were impacted by the economic downturn in the last two years, as well as the opening of competing malls, and other issues that disrupt traffic patterns, such as a location being dug up for construction.

But Arjun Sharma, promoter of Select City Walk in New Delhi, insists that footfalls can now be measured with 95% accuracy thanks to the security gates that malls have had to install. He claims the shoppers are returning and his mall has seen between 10% and 15% footfall growth over last year.

Despite the sceptics in the business, there’s something about the malls. At 4 in the afternoon, on a weekday, when views of a Bangalore-based marketer were sought on whether malls are converting the shopping-averse, he texted back: “Wll cll in an hr. Am at a mall.”

Shuchi Bansal is marketing and media editor with Mint.

(This article originally appeared in Mint on August 26, 2010: click here to read on livemint.com)

Daily News & Analysis (DNA)

Mumbai, 23 August 2010

Shailaja Sharma

Back then, the sales were a much-awaited annual affair. Today, discount sales run all year round. Modern retail appears to be learning its lesson on right-pricing the hard way – the Indian consumer will go where the value is.

In other words, those who decide against taking a direct correction by bringing down prices to realistic levels, have to take an indirect cut through frequent discount sales.

"Retailers whose prices did not match with the requirements of consumers have experienced that their highly-priced products may not sell too much," Lalit Agarwal, chairman and managing director of Delhi-based hypermarket company, V Mart Retail said.

So, while the last year saw retailers prepone festival sales or run them for extended periods to be able to clear the inventory, this year is witnessing an increasing number of discount sales.

This year too, most brands went on sale before the usual July 15 timeline. Most stores are still stocking more discounted items than fresh merchandise.

The trend of extending sale period is prominent mostly with retailers who are in the business of apparel and footwear, said Govind Shrikhande, customer care associate and managing director, Shoppers Stop.

"If we have a 17-day sale, we stick to it and have tried to avoid over-discounting for sure, but some stores, instead of doing the usual two week sale, are keeping it on to almost five-six weeks of sale," Shrikhande said.

The last two years have been unusual from the point of view of the expectation versus the achieved space. Where in 2005 most brands started on an expansion spree, the beginning of 2008 effects of slowdown started creeping in.

"So while the companies were opening stores, the sales they were expecting were not achieved. And as the consumer spending became conservative, a lot of companies either scaled back their expansion plans or they shut down stores. So there was a lot of inventory in the pipeline, which was there for the planned growth that never happened. And that to a certain extent created a further dependence on discount sales," said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive officer of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight.

This has led to a seemingly irreversible trend of unending discount sales by major retailers across categories, which is spoiling the consumer, say analysts.

"Last year the discounts were much higher and for longer. Retailers rushed to cut each other’s throat in competition to see who goes on sale first," said a sector analyst who did not wish to be named.

Apart from the usual Spring-Summer and Autumn-Winter discount periods, retailers are increasingly bundling occasions like Mother’s Day, Rakshabandhan, Valentine’s Day and Independence Day, Kumar Rajagopalan, chief executive officer of the Retailers Association of India pointed out.

"Each retailer wants more market share than the other, and to grab the market share, they discount more," Shrikhande said.

Retailers are trying their best to woo customers to walk in to the stores and buy.

"Retailers are seeing lot more competition and also, propensity to spend for consumer is increasing and that is why retailers are trying to get deeper share in consumer wallets," Rajagopalan said.

And customers wait for the time when brands offer the highest discounts, Agarwal said. "Consumers are getting smarter and are willing to delay their purchases to discount periods," he said.

Dutta said that retail in India was still over-priced as western counterparts pay half for the same products.

"The fundamental issue of right-pricing has to be addressed and till that happens discounts will be present in the market. We have an issue with pricing, and modern retail here becomes just more apparent. Unfortunately, over the last few years because of ongoing discounts there is an expectation that has crept into consumers’ minds," Dutta said.

Retailers order goods or inventory basis the sales targets they have and the current scenario in retail is that of surplus inventory that retailers are sitting on.

Last year, British skin care company, The Body Shop slashed its prices in India by 10-30% in order to become a ‘right-priced’ brand for Indians. There are other apparel brands that are perennially on sale.

(This article originally appeared in the Mumbai edition of DNA on August 23, 2010: click here to read on DNA)

Most of the people reading this would be familiar with fast food, and think of it as a cheap, tasteless, “throw-away” excuse for food. You may think of it as a deeply penetrated product category, close to being ubiquitous.

Here’s a picture that tells the other story.

For these kids, who are clearly not able to afford the products, the fries, burgers etc. are aspirational and exciting. For them, McDonald’s is clearly not open early enough (in their lives).

It’s a different perspective when you look through the other side of the glass, I guess.

Retailwire hosted an interesting discussion on ethical consumerism, based on Andrew Benett’s description of the decline of hyper-consumerism, and the emergence of a more conscious, frugal consumer in his new book, “Consumed: Rethinking Business in an Era of Mindful Spending”.

In a recent article Benett identified 10 public figures who also act as beacons for mindful consumption. The list includes people as diverse as US first lady Michelle Obama, talk show host & actress Ellen Degeneres, investor Warren Buffet, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi  and rapper Ludacris.

Of course, Ellen, Ludacris or Oprah have a communication reach that most marketers would kill for. Walmart pushing sustainable technologies in its supply chain could possibly achieve more than many governments around the world would hope to, because its powerful carrot of buying budgets is far stronger for many vendors in Asia, than the sticks of legislation. Many of these are genuine, praiseworthy attempts.

However, much as I would like to believe that all celebrities and high profile businesses are evolving into mindful, careful consumers, that would be a gullible step too far. In the current economic climate, consuming too conspicuously is just “not done.” But that may change as markets improve, jobs expand and incomes rise again.

Having said that, if the current fashionable rash of mindfulness raises the profile of concerns around over-consumption and waste, if it actually drives us towards more sustainable behavior and be more gentle to the planet and our future generations then, well, the end justifies the means.

Andrew Benett’s list is here: Top 10 Public Figures Who Are Also Mindful Consumers.

And this is the discussion on Retailwire on this subject.