How can Small Retailers compete with Biggies? Launch a Chain?
Small retailers are losing out to the larger retail outlets (Reliance, More, Subhiksha etc) and TN govt. is 
working on an interesting project in the city of Madurai.
The Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TCCI) is working with 500 small retailers to build a loosely coupled chain that will:
- Display common interiors and colors.
- Have a common logo to 500 outlets
- Have suggested these retailers to have products in neat shelves with names and price tags and computer billing,
- In future, common procurement of products to keep prices down – source
Unorganized retail outlets/Mom-and-pop stores can be a real threat to the biggies, if they unite!, i.e. if at all this model succeeds.
The pie is increasing and as biggies spread their wings in tier-2 cities, small outlets will need to think ‘beyond the obvious’.
What’s your take? Can the same model be applied to other industries?
Interesting developments Ashish! What I would love to see is that the unorganized, fragmented retailers unite and then watch the move of Organized players.
In all of this, I can see the consumers being the biggest beneficiary.
–Sampad
I’m so happy to learn about this initiative. Was wondering for a long time about having such aggregators for small Businesses.
Amount of innovation that can go in this space could be amazing.
There will emerge newer revenue models as well for them. Especially when all the Telco(s) are wondering about tapping into rural market and they don’t have a choice more than the Postal department as the distribution channel today.
Very interesting moves.
If this works out well – meaning integration of the fragmented unorganized retail stores, it could be India’s answer (bottom-up) to 7-11 kind of stores. In the end the consumer will benefit and the industry will mature. After speaking to a few small businesses, they seem to complain of loosing the differentiating factor, price reduction, shrinking margins and ever increasing competition.