Without an online shopping cart, any expectation of reaping sales from an online website is pretty much nil. This handy feature performs a number of important functions, making it the one thing an online retailer cannot do without. After a customer chooses the products he or she wants it is the means for exacting payment in full.

A shopping cart feature allows the retailer to transact an acceptable form of payment safely and securely. The most common method of payment by Internet shoppers is credit card. When a credit card is not used, a bank account can be debited using an electronic check.

Though some websites still provide an address for checks to be sent in, purchasing products and services on the Internet is all about convenience. Both check and credit card can be processed in a matter of moments. This means consumers can expect the products they ordered within a week or less instead of waiting for a week just for a check to clear.

An online shopping cart is generally composed of software that is encrypted. This means any and all personal identification and financial information is kept safe and secure from hackers and Internet thieves. In fact, most features are designed to recognize suspicious activity and alert credit card companies of possible fraud.

Using a safe and secure shopping cart feature gives customers peace of mind. A shopper who is suspicious or displeased with a checkout process will likely take his or her business elsewhere. Once that customer is gone, so is the chance for gaining a repeat customer.

This website feature should be both easy to use and efficient. Smooth running software instills in customers a sense of dealing with a solid, professional online business. Aside from having good products, a checkout process that goes off without a hitch can be one of the most appealing aspects on a retail website.

Depending on what is being sold, a retailer can opt for a simple shopping cart software program or something a little more sophisticated. While some features simply move a consumer through the payment process, others allow individuals to save merchandise, record and log previous searches or even create a list of preferred items.

To keep a flowing customer base, online retailers have to exact a number of different strategies. Without an online shopping cart, a merchant would never be able to collect the valuable contact information of its shoppers. Using this information, a retailer can let previous customers know when sales and other promotions are on the horizon.

This feature works for the online retailer as well, providing information on average credit card sales, what products are selling well and which are not and average price per sale. These are all things that help a retailer better plan his or her business. It can show where an online business needs to add or cut away certain aspects to increase business.

A smart online retailer will put as much thought into his or her shopping cart feature as the products being sold on the site. If it is not something they would use themselves, then it is obviously inefficient and needs improvement. If an individual is new to the concept of online retailing, sometimes the help of an online retail specialist can be of great help.

An online shopping cart is one of the many inconspicuous aspects that can make or break a cyber shopping experience. Many take the feature for granted when it works; but when it doesn’t everybody notices. This is why having reliable software should rank high on the retailer’s list of imperatives.



Quick Property Sale

THE EXUBERANT AGE OF RETAIL IN INDIA

*Rizwana Atiq - Lecturer,Department of Business Administration, Integral University, Lucknow

Abstract

India has stepped in the exuberant age of retail. It ranks second after Russia as the most alluring destination for retailers among 30 emerging markets, according to the Global Retail Development Index developed by AT Kearney, a consultancy. The 10-12% increase in the economy’s disposable income can be seen clearly by the way goods and services are being brought and sold. Retail Trade contributes 10-11% of India’s GDP and currently employs over 4 crore people.

THE DRIVE FOR RETAIL :

The reason for the boom in retail is the gradual increase in disposable incomes of the middle and upper class household. Countries like US, Japan, U.K. have started out sourcing business activities and are willing to pay a handsome package to those who deserve. The out sourcing will create 10-24 million jobs by 2020. The Indian youth is zealous, Intelligence and has the will to work hard. This is attracted foreign business organizations in the country where by increasing the income levels and the purchasing power of consumers. The Indian consumer has a great amount of disposable income which has increased demand level of the country. This demand is accompanied by the desire to get the best quality. In India over 65% of the population is below 35 years of age and 54% are below 25 years. They have enough to pay for all their dream desires. Moreover there is a switch from joint family to nuclear family and DINK segment is making its presents felt. Driven by changing lifestyles, strong income growth and favourable demographic patterns, Indian retail is expanding at a rapid pace.

Mall space, from a meager one million square feet in 2002, is expected to touch an estimated 60 million square feet by end-2008, says Jones Lang LaSalle’s third annual Retailer Sentiment Survey-Asia.

The Indian consumer wants the best . This has increased demand for exclusive brands . Now Nike has over 100 outlets and Reebok has over 400 outlets. Thus the increase consumption pattern is having a direct bearing on the growth of retail sector. The consumption in 2005-06 was Rs. 2124000 Crore (Approximately 480 billion.)

THE INDIAN RETAILERS:

1. RPG:-It was the first to get into retail Business in India.Foodworld began as adivision of Spencer& Co., a part of RPG Group in May 1996,with supermarket in Chennai.Today Foood world is a separate company: a joint venture between Spencer & Co. and Dairy Farm international.

2. The TATA Group It has signed a joint venture for a new subsidiary, Infiniti retail, a large format multi brand chain for consumer durables. For lifestyle and the food and grocery segment, it operates through its retail arm Trent. Trent forayed into the hypermarket business with Star India Bazar.

3. Pantaloons Retail: The Company’s value retailing includes includes Big Bazar which is a hypermarket, Food Bazar which is a supermarket and Fashion Station, popular fashion stores. Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited is part of the future Group. The Future Group operates through many verticals viz Future retail, Future Capital, Future Space, Future Logistics and Future Group.

4. Vishal Retail Group: The store has spread over 25000 Sqft. It offers fashion accessories, grocery product, apparel & Electrical gadgets. The Group entered the hypermarket segment with its first such store in Udaipur.

5. Reliance Retail: It has set a revenue target by 2010-11 which is about double of the present revenues of all organized retail business in India. Reliance operates Qwik Mart, quick transaction stores offering the convenience of buying household food and non-food merchandise, music, take-away café and convenience-oriented ancillary services without a price penalty.

6. Subhiksha: The stores are small sized and functional with average size of 1500-2000sqft.

7. Nilgiri’s: The Company’s strategy is backward integration with an increase focus on fresh fruit and vegetables.

8. Trinethra:- It is a South based grocery chain. The stores in Kerala to have a bakery attached for which the Company has tied up with Ann’s Bakery.

A LOOK AT THE RETAIL FORMATS

1.Department Store : This represents retail outlets that stocks a wide range of merchandise. Stores often provide customers with exclusive membership cards on purchases up to a certain value. The major players are Ebony, Globus, Life Style, Shoper’s Stop and Westside.

2.Super market : They are self service stores which concentrate on the prize aspect to attract customers like Food Bazaar, Subhiksha and Fab-mall. Supermarket is a self-service store offering a range of food and household articles.

3.Hyper market : It is a department store combined with super market although in India the hyper markets are not well developed still we have a few player like Reliance retail, Big Bazaar and a few more. The latest to make a big splash in the retail scene is the Aditya Birla Retail (ABRL), the retail arm of the $24-billion Aditya Birla Group, which plans to invest between Rs 250 and Rs300 crore for setting up a dozen hypermarkets under the brand name ‘More Megastore’ in the country. The hypermarkets will offer 60,000 products sourced through over 500 suppliers say company officials. The group also plans to open ‘Family Stores’ stocking apparel from Madura Garments, the owner Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly and Peter England brands and also distributes the international brand Esprit in India.

4. Discount Store : It is a department store except that it sells products at a lower prize for example The Loot and My Dollar Store.

5. Specialty Store : They offer a large range of selections within a single merchandise category for example The Gold Souk in Gurgaon and the Music World and Planet M.

6. Conveyance Store : The stock most essential and FMGC products like food items and several products of daily use. The major players are Red Shop and My Mart. Although world wide they are open through out the day and night but this is not so all the palyers within this format in India.

7.Kiosk : they are small retails outletswhich are open on all sides and sell consumer goods like edibles and snacks, newspapers and so on. emphasis is on designing the kiosk façade-thet sport attractrive colour schemes. Some of the players are Mr. Orange , Cookie Man, Corn Man ,Kidz on Wheelz and so on.

TIE-UPS IN RETAIL

Indian retailers are trying to tie-up with global brands through franchise and licensing agreement because they benefits both the partners. The global companies have funds expertise and goodwill while the Indian companies have the right feel of the domestic market.

? India has global retail giants like Bharti-Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart’s (the world’s biggest retailer) tie up with Bharti Enterprises for cash & carry operations, seems to have encouraged French retailer Carrefour, to enter the Indian market through the wholesale route.

? Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Retail is entering into talks with UK fashion retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) to float an equal joint venture for apparel, gourmet food and cafes. The gourmet food format may be integrated with Reliance Fresh wherever possible. This would help M&S attain immediate scale in food business as Reliance Fresh has 491 stores selling foods, fruits and vegetables, and may be scaled up to 1,400 stores by the end of next fiscal. Marks & Spencer is present in India through a franchisee arrangement with Planet Retail since 2001 and operates more than 20 stores in India out of its 760-strong global network. Within four months of rolling out its first store in November 2007, Reliance Retail opened 500 stores in various formats, spanning 3-million square ft of occupied space in various cities.

? Home Solutions Retail India (HSRIL), a part of the Kishore Biyani-owned Future Group, will soon start retailing lightings and electrical products under the Bijli Ghar brand. This is the first time a major corporate retailer has unveiled plans to enter the unorganised Rs80,000 crore lighting market dominated by small and medium city and region-specific players across the country. The company already has a joint venture with Asian Electronics and Idiom Design & Consulting to launch the products. The lighting stores will open in 80 Big Bazaar outlets across the country and, in the next six to nine months, the company is planning of opening standalone stores, targeting revenues of Rs100 crore in the first year of operations.

FUTURE AHEAD IN RETAIL

Merrill Lynch which is a an advisory firm, expects the Indian Retail industry to grow to US$300 billion by 2010.

• Spencer’s is planning to set up 500 more stores by June 2008 with an investment of nearly US$ 125.89 million.

• Hypercity is planning to set up 250 Expresscity stores in the convenience store format across the country in the next five years.

• DLF plans to invest US$ 4.02 billion over four years to develop about 20 large shopping malls across the country.

• Israeli mall developer Plaza Center NV plans to invest US$ 1.25 billion over the next five-seven years to set up 50 malls in India.

The domestic retail sector is picking up pace with more and more Indian companies entering the sector either on their own or in alliance with foreign retailers to set up premium or niche outlets.

While Indian companies such as Bharti, Reliance Retail, Essar, Future Group, Shoppers Stop and the Aditya Birla Group are still trying to consolidate their markets, others such as Mahindra & Mahindra, realty groups like Parsvnath and DLF, two-wheeler maker Hero Honda, chemicals and foods firm Jubilant group and brokerage and realty firm Indiabulls have announced plans to enter the retail sector.

Tobacco major ITC is planning to set up more of its Wills Lifestyle, John Players and Miss Players stores across the country. The company plans to increase the number of Wills Lifestyle stores from 250 to 400 by the end of 2008-09. These stores will come up on the lines of the concept store, designed keeping cultural context and customer profile in mind.

Kishore Biyani–owned Future Group, India’s largest Retailer has planned to investRs. 3,600 crore in 100 stores in 30 cities.

ORGANISED RETAILING

According to industry estimates, the overall size of the retail sector in India is expected to touch $427 billion by 2010 and $637 billion by 2015 with the organised segment expected to account for 22 per cent by 2010. An additional 700 million Sqft of quality retail space over and above what is currently available will be required by 2011. Consulting firm Ernst & Young predicts that the organised retail market in India will touch approximately $30 billion by 2010.

Presently the share of organized retailing in India is abysmally low .The bulk of retailing is carried out by 12 m kirana which are mostly family owned. According to McKinsey, a consultancy about 96% of these kirana have 500 sq ft or less space

The advent of foreign rivals is viewed with some trepidation by India Retailers

The small retailers fear being wiped out while the large ones feel their shared eroded. It is definitely true that Foreign retailers can help improve efficiency among local organized retailers. The entry of foreign competition can lower prices. We cannot, in fact should not hurt the interest of the local retailers We need to size up the retail market into segments and then decide as to which segment can be organized and which one need to be left unorganized for the time being.

FDI in Retail will destroy employment in the kirana stores and create retail monopolies.

India has the highest shop density in the world with 11 shops per 1000 persons, much higher than European and other Asian countries.

We need to think of these small retailers before trying to enforce organized retailing in the country. The giant organized retailers may start using their monopoly and stampede the unorganized small retailers. Acceleration in organized retailing would make business unviable for the several such retailers. As there is great unemployment in the country and the small scale retailing provides livelihood security to about 20 million urban workers and 12 million rural workers, we cannot afford to put an end to it. The introduction of organized retailing would snatch the bread and butter and jeopardize the livelihoods of the millions in our country. We cannot encourage the entry of large retailers unless we have planned a livelihood for the vast majority.

KEEP THE RETAIL GOING

There is great competition in the retails sector. Thus arises the need of competent work force accompanied by Technology. Employees in the Retail Sector should be given proper training to deal with the customers. Those working in the retail sector should have a cheerful disposition because they may have to encounter short tempered customers.

• Store Employees should be empowered so that they are under no pressure to deal with the customers.

• All retailers should have consumer advisory boards.

• There should be customer research . Those employees who provide good service should be rewarded .

• Indian retails should follow the example of JC Penny whose sales associates give questionnaires to shoppers which are later analyzed to improve service.

• Retailers should always be ready to devise innovative ways to over come the problems of customize.

• Retails brands get built by developing personal relationship with consumer the important and frequent customers should be recognized and should be given free gifts and guaranties.

• The retailer should be able to display their product very beautifully in order to attract the side of the customer.

The Indian retails sector is in a state of evolution. The Indian retailers should understand that retailing has to be taken as a brand in a self. More than 99% of the Indian retailers function in less than 500 Sqft of shopping space. It is a challenge for the Indian Retails Industry to create a scenario making job exciting to the younger generation so as the attract them. It is difficult but not impossible to satisfy the culturally diverse consumers of the country.

CONCLUSION:-

India is an enormous market, of which we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg. If the changes which are taking place in the metros retail start to percolate in the all the urban settlements then there will be a real revolution in the Indian Retail. Indian Retail market is worth a mammoth 350 billion dollars. Such is the underlying potential for Retail trading in the country.

A single large retailer should not be allowed to capture the large market share. The Indian Government should not make haste in inviting the foreign retailers instead it should wait to see the great power of the Indian retailers. Indian retailers have to learn both the art and science of retailing by looking at the way the giant retailers are organizing and managing their activities . Indian retailer needs to be innovative and needs to understand the regional variations in consumer tastes

We Indians can celebrate our spending power and also channelise our spending towards healthy consumption for overall development of the country.

REFEENCES:-

Books:-

• Retailing Management,5th Edition, Michael Levy and Barton A Weitz, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company

• Retail Management - A Strategic Approach ,9th Edition, Berry Berman and Joel R. Evans, Prentice Hall

Links:-

• www.imagesretail.com

• www.indiaretailforum.in

• www.retailindia.typepad

• www.ibef.org



Quick House Sale

RMScart is an eCommerce cart that completely and seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Retail Management System (RMS). RMScart gives the ability to quickly create and manage an online store in combination with a brick and mortar retail operation running RMS. For either online businesses opening retail locations or retail stores adding online stores, Microsoft RMS and RMScart give any retail business a complete solution for maximum revenue in a global market.

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