Word: retailing
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...amidst the gift-giving and all-round revelry tied to Hindu holidays like Dussehra and Diwali. Last week however, some 7,000 small shopkeepers, street vendors and traders shuttered their businesses to gather in the district of Azad Maidan in south Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Carrying placards saying SAVE SMALL RETAILERS, they forewent the day's earnings in order to march in protest against big national and international chain stores like Reliance Retail and Wal-Mart, who the shopowners say are threatening their livelihoods...
...With the economy galloping and the ranks of the middle class swelling, India's $350 billion retail sector - which a McKinsey study says will be worth $1.52 trillion by 2025 - has local and overseas corporations salivating. India is a nation of shopkeepers: over 95% of the country's estimated 12 million retail outlets are small, mom-and-pop operations, striving alongside countless hawkers, vendors and street-stall owners. The network of small local markets that supply much of India's groceries has been honed over decades, but the notoriously inefficient system of middlemen it relies upon has been dogged...
...opening across the country, revolutionizing the sector with refrigerated transportation and modern management practices. The largest chain, Subhiksha, has some 760 outlets across India, while Big Apple aims to have 100 of its 7-Eleven-style convenience stores in Delhi alone by the end of this year. Reliance Retail, a division of India's biggest conglomerate and arguably the most formidable player in the retail market, plans to invest $5.5 billion to open outlets in 784 cities across the country. At the same time, foreign companies such as Tesco and Carrefour are trying to gain a toehold via joint ventures...
...industry, opposition to their presence is growing louder. In the past few months there have been protests in Uttar Pradesh in central India and the communist-ruled Kerala and West Bengal, including violent demonstrations last September that forced Reliance Fresh, the food stores arm of Reliance Retail, to shut their shops and lay off staff. "We want the government to stop large corporations from entering the retail segment until it puts in place a national policy that is agreeable to all the stakeholders including small traders, shopkeepers, wholesalers and vendors," says Dharmendra Kumar of India FDI Watch, a coalition...
...Those in favor of the shift to larger, modern stores argue that India's market is large enough to accommodate both small and big retailers, and the benefits of outweigh the costs. "Organized retail will benefit both consumers and farmers," says Gibson Vedamani from the Retailers' Association of India, pointing out that both will gain from more efficient supply chains and the economies of scale organized retail will offer...