‘The kirana stores across India will shut shop and the malls will take over’. This was a prediction made a few years back. From marketing gurus to business pundits, they all said, organized retail will negatively affect the mom and pop shops. The media too went hysterical with the same debate and discussion. We saw passionate debates between capitalists and communists on television, where the anchor looked more alarmed than the kirana owners themselves. Politicians made it their polling issue and so called social activists held rallies.
Today after a few years, the kirana shops seem to be doing just fine. Take walk down any street of Mumbai today, you’ll the see those humble shops bustling with the same activity and energy. Each one of them has several customers fighting for owner’s attention. In fact, the malls don’t seem to be doing too well for themselves. The excitement surrounding the mall culture has gone down. The crowd which visited the malls just for sight seeing also has lost interest.
I think our understanding of economics is still screwed. Maybe only the media got its economics bang in place. It managed a lot of drama and good advertising revenues around it. Everyone else just wasted their time. ;)
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