Retailing in India: An economic perspective

Abstract

Retailing is a major service sector activity. Retailing, like many other services, is highly income elastic in nature. Therefore, there is great potential for the retail sector growth in emerging economies. Globalisation in retailing is taking place at a rapid rate. Experience of many countries reveals that globalisation increases the competitiveness. The main objective of this paper is to study the perspective of India's retail sector in the context of the government's decision to allow FDI in retail sector. The study shows that India's retail sector has certain unique features. The FDI into India's retail sector does not seem to adversely affect the domestic retail sector, rather it is likely to bring in lot of benefits. However, from the domestic retailers' stand point, it is admsabk for the government to go little slow on FDI.