Moving on in life

congrats guruji ... for going to be grand pa .. and thts y u have been so readily accepting it ...)

 

A nice and realistic blog....about big stores in India. The way you wrote is wonderful and every word of it is true.When they open these chains...initial euphoria would be there. After that we go to our vegetable cart seller or to street end shop for groceries who sends things at any time of day...just a phone call needed. If I have to buy a couple of bunches of spinach or coriander...who would go the big shop and stand in the que at the payment counter for half an hour.There would be 10 counters...but operating counters would one or two.
Better I buy it near my house. Yesterday I went to book my flight ticket...I have a regular travel agent who does these things for me..with a smile, asks warmly how everyone is doing, asks welfare, gets me a cup of tea etc. courtesies. One of my friends told me they go to some reputed travel agency (I don't want to mention the name). So, this time I wanted to try with them. Cold, artificial smile faces, speaking only as a matter of fact. I kept quiet, calmly walked out, went to my regular one...with a cheerful welcome he got my ticket done. That personal interaction...makes a lot of difference.

I am new to IL.....read all your blogs, some I agreed and some not, some controversial. So, kept quiet most of the time. But this one I could not help myself not admiring it. Thank you.

 

Rightly said, Kamalji...go with the flow, atleast let us not go upward and resist the flow, the loss is ours, isn't it!

The day before Shankaranthi, we do celebrate a festival called 'Bhogi' where old things are burnt, to give room for the new things (in fact, this is also related to 'throw away your old ideologies and accept the new one" which indirectly says, move along, and go with the flow.

Sriniketan

 

Nice point Kamalji.
Establishments like Metro(which works more like Walmart's 'buy in bulk' Sam's club) already exist in India, and they have challenged no local stores. There are people who go there for their specific bulk needs, to save money, buying 10 soaps in bulk for Rs 10, instead of buying one for Rs 1.50 at the mom and pop store and therefore save Rs 5 on soaps alone. But, who has the time and patience to go through aisles of products, pick them, compare prices, stand in the long line, get them billed and haul the entire load home? this can be done may once in a while, but local stores will be there for our everyday needs.

Another thing is that these retail stores, though they look flashy, clean etc, involves a lot of overhead costs(staff, electricity/a/c, building cost, general maintenance, operations), which will essentially make them inflate the prices. We love stores like Food World, Reliance, Spencer etc for the shopping experience, but will I run to one of these stores when I run out of something, no, I will first check at the nearest local store. Most of our local stores, already do what Walmart does, they buy in wholesale for cheaper prices, add a profit margin and still sell them for reasonable/cheap prices to stay ahead of the competition.

Have you seen the 'Price check' app that comes in the latest iphone gadget? I am not into the latest gadgets, but this one really captured my attention. There is an option to search for a particular product, by name or by barcode(if you would like to know the price of bread in all the stores around, just scan the barcode on the cover and it would list all the stores with prices). So, all one needs to do is type in the name of the product and it shows all the competitive prices. This app is amazing, for it saves a lot of money. We could see big differences in product pricing for the same product in different stores. Though mom and pop stores would not want to list all their inventory on a globally accessible app, especially reveal their prices to competition, it would be a great idea though! Know which store turns up first with the cheapest prices most of the times, for most of the products? It is none other than Walmart ;-)