Retailing Strategies: A study of Indian Youth

Abstract

The retail boom in India brings tremendous opportunities for:foreign as well as domestic players. The changing lifestyle of the Indian consumer makes it imperative for the retailers to understand the patterns of consumption. The changing consumption patterns trigger changes in shopping styles of consumers and also the factors that drive people into stores. Indian retail market is the most fragmented in the world. with just 3% of the entire retailing business being carried out by the cngemized sector (projected to reach US$ 23 billion by 2010). Regis McKenna (1995) commented that consumers have more ways to shop: at giant malls. spec ialtystores& super stores through mail order catalogues. home shopping networks& virtual stores on the Internet. And they are bombarded with messages pitched through a growing number ofchannels: broad cast & narrow cast television, radio, on-line computer networks, the interne. telephone services such as fax and telemarketing; and niche magazines and other print media. The proliferation of advertising media and distribution channels is making it difficult to practice "one size flu all" marketing. This callsfar constant research in entail industry. It has been constantly trying to organize data to suggest was of effective segmentation. The present study is an effort to identify segments that can be use of retail industry The various factos used in the study largely revolve around the various motives that customers have while visiting shopping or pseudo shopping. This also influences the type ofoutlet preferred. This study makes an effort to clustersimilar motive people togetherand match them with the type of outlet preferred. The data collected from 200 respondents was analyzed using cluster analysis which deduced three distinct clusters. The results of the study will be &lairdfor all retail formats while segmenting the market, developing marketing program and designing promotional schemes. Keywords: cluster analysis, Indian youth, retail, segmentation.