Comments on: The Indian Marketplace – always the bazaar

By: Trust in India

Trust in India — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:14:47 +0000

It is true that Indian market place will always stand for “Value for Money”, no matter how sophisticated they are. This is also the basic mentality of Indian shoppers as well…

By: reena

reena — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 08:57:37 +0000

i think its mall is the exilent mall i think i go again & again when ienter in mall not gess i am where i am not hopes that my city will be such as

By: Dina

Dina — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:01:20 +0000

Hi Niti .. thanks for dropping in and leaving that thoughtful comment .. I’ve been a long admirer of your observations and insights! I tend to agree with your feeling that while the malls are great for window-shopping, actual purchases really happen elsewhere. That’s the point I hoped to make in my post too .. when I said that Indian marketplace will remain a ‘bazaar’ for a long while to come! I just wonder how many malls will fall by-the-side if they don’t adapt to our ‘bazaar-psyche’ and believe that they can simply import Western models here – your eg of Ikea makes that point well.

By: niti bhan

niti bhan — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:39:03 +0000

Yes, exactly, thank you for the insightful addition to “value for money”. Otoh, touching upon your observations on “window shopping” vs actual purchase, I wonder if the malls unintentionally serve the function of a ‘flagship store’ kind of concept, where we go to see, touch, feel in comfort and spaciousness, but mentally assume [just guessing here] that we’ll get a better rate back at the ‘usual’ store, which is usually overcrowded and narrow and one must ask for the product to be handed to us and so not conducive to browsing. I’m not articulating this well, but there’s a sense after reading your post that it could turn out to be that while the ‘organized sector’ is *only* 3% thus the assumption of huge potential in growth, the concept may never translate across the ‘indian psyche re: bazaar’ into actual sales? It reminds me of IKEA’s first foray into Japan where they came head on against the japanese culture simply not supporting the DIY concept at all, thus their return twenty years later with pre assembled products delivered and also scaled down in size. Even here in Singapore, after browsing the mall, doesn’t one go back to Mustafa’s to make the actual purchase?