Emerging Retail Formats of Punjab in India: A Retailers Perspective.

The organized retail sector in India is witnessing a transformation, where the traditional retailers are making way for new formats. Both existing and emerging players are experimenting with modern retail formats. These modern retail formats offer wide variety to customers and present an ideal shopping experience with an amalgamation of product, entertainment and service, all under a single roof. Consumer dynamics in India is also changing and the retailers need to take note of this and formulate their strategies and tactics to deliver the exact expected value to the customer The main objective of this paper is to study the pricing strategies, promotional strategies and retention strategies adopted by different retailers in Punjab and attributes they are providing to consumers while shopping. The retail attributes that considered in this paper are divided into two types: Product attributes and Store attributes. Quality, Price, Brand, Assortment of merchandise, Easy availability of products, Proper display of products and Exchange facilities are major product attributes and Ambience, Location, Convenience, In-Store promotions, Store atmosphere, Parking facility, Long working hours and Trained sales personnel are store attributes. The result of the study shows that consumers give more preference to product attributes than store attributes. This paper also demonstrate that strategies that give economic benefits to consumers like discounts, coupons, free gifts are more successful as compared to non-economic strategies like better internal environment, Entertainment facilities, loyality programs etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]