What format do you prefer?

According to a survey conducted by Retail Forward, shoppers "in nearly all developing retail markets" prefer shopping in large format food stores such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Metro and Tesco. While shoppers wanted to support small mom-and-pop stores, the convenience of shopping in a one-stop format, where they could purchase all their needs was the main reason for their prefering large format food stores.

The Retail Forward research indicates that “the big hypermarket and supercenter formats at the forefront of global expansion by Wal-Mart and other leading food retailers continue to gain shoppers in most markets.” This is true in most countries, although Wal-Mart has encountered difficulty in Germany, “where the hard-discount format is well-established,” the report says.

Considering that I am from a retail background myself and have worked for a large format retailer such as K-Mart, I now do most of my shopping at my local kirana store due to the convenience of quick home delivery. I go to modern retail stores such as HyperCITY, Spencers and to a lesser extent Food Bazaar, only for more expensive and bulk items such as 5 kig rice, 5 ltr oil, washing powder and personal toiletry items. Retailers in India have a tough job on their hands to compete with small mom-and-pop stores, who excell in offering superb quality in terms of quick delivery, short term credit, personalized service and longer working hours.