Retailing in Asian Pacific Region

Question: Discuss about the Retailing in Asian Pacific Region. Answer: Introduction: This Report outlays the retail management between two countries that are India and Australia. It has been discussed about the retail trade similarities between India and Australia, and in what ways they are similar. After that it has been discussed that in what ways these countries differ in retail trade, and in what ways they differ. In retail trade there are markets like, supermarket/ hypermarket, convenience market, department store and various more, which are discussed in detail below. Australia has GDP of $1.34 trillion, and has 12th rank in the world, whereas India has GDP of $2.1trillion, and has rank 7th in the world (Nation master. Com,2016). Retail Trade in India: According to Global Retail Development Index (GRDI) it is expected in 2020 Indian retail market would be approximately US$1trillion from US$600 billion. With the increase in internet users in India it is expected to be India as the worlds largest e-commerce market (ibef). There have been seen unorganized trend in India retail outlets. There are approximately 5 million outlets but most of them are unorganized. It has also been seen that most of the retail outlets are smaller in the area as compare to the standards set by the retail trade organization. Organized sector usually consists of activities which are undertaken through license like who are sales tax payers, income tax payers. While the unorganized sector consists of shops, handicrafts, etc. This has laid down the benefit to consumers for getting better prices, and producers will have lesser wastages, and more export would be done, which would benefit the economy as a whole. The big bazaar, Spencer, have also started their subs idiary in India as an unorganized industry. The government authority has also started making liberated policies for the development of economy as a whole (IBEF,2016, India Brand Equity Foundation). Retail Trade in Australia: Whereas in Australia there has been rising trend in consumer demand in ready to eat food, organic products and foods, consumer awareness about packaging and country of manufacture, ingredients. It is expected that Australian e commerce market would be grow at 6.3% and 6.6% growth rate in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Trends shows that there males in Australia are less concerned about shopping at supermarket store as compare to females. Here customers age, occupation, education, influences perception regarding price, cleanliness and promotion rather than the individuals income (IBIS World, knowledge power, 2016). Similarities in retail management between India and Australia: The Indian economy growth has tremendously increased in last two decades by improvement in service sector; in India service sector contributes 50% of the GDP. Similarly Australian economy like as other advanced countries is dominated by service sector. In Australia service sector contributes 70% of the GDP. In India and Australia, supermarkets contains majority of health and well being product and services, health food stores. In both the countries the trend is rising of ready to cook food, home cooked meals (Pma, 2014). Differences in retail management between India and Australia: In case of factory outlets or discount stores, in case of India discount is offered on maximum retail price, so that bulk selling can be done, and economies of scale can be achieved. In Australia it is rare that a customer have not gone to a supermarket for his/her basic needs. Whereas it is rare in India that a customer has gone to supermarket for his/ her basic needs. There is no concept of convenience stores like India (Mortimer,G Clarke,P,.2016). In Australia quality is an important attribute to the product, whereas in India price plays an important role in determining the Products demand (Morgan,R , 2015). In case of department stores, Indias large stores range from 20000-50000 sq. ft. which provides a large variety of consumer needs, like clothing, groceries, home, toys, Whereas in case of supermarkets, Indias supermarkets are located at near residential areas, and they stores approximately 30% of grocery and food items. They can be further divided into two markets. First is mini supermarket which is usually 1000 to 2000 sq ft, and second Is large supermarket having 3500 to 5000 sq ft. in India there is a common trend of convenience stores which is comparatively small to supermarket that is it is usually 400-2000 sq ft., it is usually opened near residential area, it does not have any fixed schedule like it can be opened for 7 days a week, or time can be extended, depends upon the consumers demand. In India agriculture promoted companies are reliance fresh and Field fresh, whereas in Australia it is Woolworths ltd and Wesfarmers ltd. Many international companies like Tommy Hilfiger, Wal Mart, Pizza Hut, subway, have opened their franchisee in India looking at the economic development of the country. The major retailers in India are Future group, RPG Spencer, Westside, and Subhiksha. Apart from that who are upcoming retailers like Wal-Mart, Aditya Birla trinethra, reliance retail are trying their level best to set up their retail business. Indian consumers purchase goods and services on the criteria like income, socio- economic status, age demographics, and geographical dispersion. Challenges and recommendation: The challenges which supermarkets in India have are like low price strategy because Indian consumers are very price sensitive. Therefore to attract consumers marketers have to offer discount and credit facilities. In Australia, it has been found that carcinogenic insecticides, heavy metals, arsenic chemicals, are founded in food and in shelves of the supermarket, and grocery stores (news.com, 2016). Products like Kohinoor brand basmati rice, it contains Buprofezin, which is an insecticide and banned in Australia. Another is Indian spice brand MDH contains pesticides above the accepted Australian limits. Another is betel nut which is banned. But all this products have high demand in India and are kept at a high stock at the stores. In case of Australia consumers apart from quality conscious they are also analytical consumers. There approximately 65% of consumers use technologically updated devices for evaluating and comparing the product and service with its substituted products before shopping and approximately 31% consumers do this while shopping(delliotte,2016). Hence the recommendation is to make high price strategy for the producers, and for consumers is to be quality sensitive for India. Although Indian consumers have started focusing on quality, but it is in very less percentage, hence it does not affect the whole economy. References: Nation master. Com,2016, country vs country: Australia and India compared: economy stats, accessed on 30th December,2016, viewed on https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Australia/India/Economy IBIS World, knowledge power, 2016, Supermarkets and grocery stores in Australia: market research report, accessed on 30th December,2016, viewed on https://www.ibisworld.com.au/industry/default.aspx?indid=1834 IBEF, India Brand Equity Foundation, 2016, Retail industry in India, accessed on 30th December, 2016, viewed at https://www.ibef.org/industry/retail-india.aspx Mortimer,G Clarke,P,.2016, accessed on 30th December,2016, viewed at https://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/10072/41583/73446_1.pdf?sequence=1 Morgan,R,.2016, what makes a supermarket super, accessed on 30th December,2016, viewed at https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6168-what-makes-a-supermarket-super-201504122309 News.com.au,2016, food warnings,accessed on 30th December, 2016, viewed on https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/food-warnings/investigation-shows-australian-supermarkets-are-selling-dangerous-or-banned-foods/news-story/642cf26b0120eea4dc1e7fdd457a84bb Deliotte, 2016, global powers of retailing 2016 navigating the new digital divide, accessed on 30th December,2016, viewed at https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/consumer-business/articles/global-powers-of-retailing-2016.html Pma, 2014, Australia consumer and retail trends,accessed on 30th December,2016, viewed at https://www.pma.com/~/media/pma-files/research-and-development/consumer-trends-in-australia.pdf