Paradigm Shift to Organized Retall:Empirical Evidence

Abstract

Retail Sector has been pronounced as a growing sector worldwide
and India is no exception. Globetrotting consumers, increasing
awareness, mounting needs fuelled with high disposable income,
are some of the reasons for increasing importance of this sector.
Currently the sector is concentrated in the unorganized form. The
government through its policies is trying to provide a fillip to the
organized retail. Thispaper tries to identify the factors influencing
buying behavior of consumers which contribute to the shift from
unorganized to organized retailing. The paper applies factor
analysis and cluster analysis to study market segmentation on the
basis of demographic variables. The results reveal that the
respondents can be categorized into two clusters. One cluster ofnot
so favorable respondents towards organized retailing consists of
consumers in the higher age groups, home makers and self
employed respondents with income less than Rs 50,000 per month.
and second cluster includes respondents favorable towards
organized retail comprising of service class with age less than 40
years and incomelevels above Rs 50,000 per month. It was observed
that consumer buyingbehavior in organized retail stores is greatly
influenced byage, income and occupation of the population.