Department store is a retail establishment which specializes in selling a wide range of products. It is a large retail store organized into a number of departments, offering a broad variety and depth of merchandise. Usually, department stores are located within the planned shopping centers. It offers an extensive assortment of goods and services that are organized into separate departments for the purpose of efficient buying, assortment, promotion and above all, ease of shopping for the consumer. Such a format provides the greatest selection of any general merchandise and very often serves as the anchor store in a shopping mall or shopping centre. They usually sell products like apparel, furniture, appliances, electronics and additionally select other line of products such as paint, hardware, toiletries, cosmetics, jewelry, toys, photographic equipment and sports goods. In India the number of department stores is less as compared to the other formats such as supermarkets and discount stores. Over the last decade, department stores have suffered badly. In part, this is a result of changing shopping patterns and increased competition from discount stores. Shoppers stop is the first one to open a department store in the early1990s and currently operates 19 stores in 10 different cities in India. The main focus is on life style retailing and is divided into five departments such as apparel, accessories, home décor, gift ideas and other services. The leading fashion department stores in India are Globus, Lifestyle, Pantaloon, Shoppers’ stop, and Westside. All of them are multi product stores.

Many leading independent retailers of the cities and even new entrants are indicating preference for autonomous department stores. For example, Appeal, a leading fashion store in west Delhi and the Baniya store in Jammu offer a wide range of products such as gifts, dry fruits, sports material, apparel, home fashion, curtains, bed sheets, etc. Customers are free to move around the store unlike the traditional counter setups on India.

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Various departments within the store have a designated selling space allocated to them, including a point of sales terminal to transact and record sales, and salespeople to assist customers. A majority of the department stores possess women’s, men’s, kids’ fashion accessories and kitchenware and home fashion departments. Some departments, to provide convenience to their customers in the browsing and selection of merchandise, have further sections within the specific department on the account of attributes of the product category.

Department stores provide a distinctive shopping experience to customers on account of services extended along with core offerings and atmospherics of the retail store. Pricing of the offerings is relatively high due to trained sales staff, range of merchandise offered and services, and high capital investments. Department stores, generally, opt for centralized buying taking into consideration the preferences and tastes of the consumers. In case of multiplicity of departments within stores, each department carries out its own buying in accordance with the demand patterns of their customers. Some department stores deal only in specific product category on account of variety and brands available in particular product category.

3.Discount Stores

A discount store offers a wide variety of merchandise. However, the quality and price range of the product is a little different with limited service but with discounted price. Retailers offering a broad variety of merchandise mix, limited or no service and low prices are characterized by low margins, heavy advertising, low investments on fixtures, limited support from sales people, etc. Discount stores prefer shopping centers that provide space at lower rents as they attract customers from other adjoining stores in the shopping centre. They mainly focus on the lower and middle income consumers unlike the departmental stores which cater mostly to the higher income group. Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world is a discounter. Subhiksha, the Chennai based discount retail chain is leading discount stores in the country. Where once mom and pop and Department Stores dominated retail, now the giant discount retailers like Wal-Mart and Category Killers like The Sports Authority are at the top.

In India, the ‘discount store’ concept works with a difference. Indian consumers are price consciousness, interested in the best of the offerings. One needs to classify stores on the basis of perpetual discount stores, extent of discount, category wise discount, item/brand wise discount, GP based discount, general discount, loyalty discount, special discount, festival discount, stock clearance discount, and fixed amount discount. Vendor partnership is an essential element in the success of the operations. A store’s operations and inventory management need to be very deficient and effective to keep the running expenditure under control. Display should be self explanatory to guide the customer in his buying decision. Price tags should be pasted depending on the commodity so that they are visible irrespective of the category of merchandise.

4.Category Killers

The Category Killers concept is originated in USA. It is a kind of discount specialty store that offers less variety but deep assortment of merchandise. By offering deep assortment in a category at competitive low prices, Category specialists can “kill” that specific category of merchandise for other retailers. This format utilizes the self service approach. They use their purchasing power to negotiate low price, excellent terms and assured supply when items are scarce. They are the giant retailers that dominate one area of merchandise. They are able to buy filing cabinets, electronics goods, furniture, bathroom tiles or pet food in huge volumes and so are able to sell them at prices which even large competitors cannot match. The future of category killers is better than many of the general discounters. In India, these kinds of retail stores are not prevalent at this point of time. But there is scope for such kind of format. In India, Mega-Mart is one sort of Category Killers which sells apparel products.

5.Specialty Stores

They are limited line stores and offer a much different range of services than convenience stores. They specialize in a particular line of merchandise in which they have a large variety both in terms of width and depth of their respective product. These stores concentrate on one type of merchandise and offer it in a manner that makes it special. Specialty stores stress on one or a limited number of complementary product categories and extend a high level of service to their customers. They offer the customer a better selection and sales expertise in that category than would be provided by department or discount stores. Industrial experts predict growth in this segment particularly in home furnishing and home improvement. In India, the traditionally independent retailers in the specialized market centre operate in a particular product category, as these centers attract large crowds. Such specialized retail operations provide expertise, economies of scale, bargain, and image to the particular stores.

Recently, with the advent of organized retailing, many companies and retail chains have opted for this retail format such as furniture, durables, watches, etc. In particular, this kind of retail format appeals to life style product categories such as apparel, watches, home fashions, and jewelers. The largest penetration of organized retail would possibly happen in this format in categories such as health and beauty, home improvement, and IT products.

6.Branded store

These are the stores deal with a single brand merchandise. These formats are very commonly seen in apparel’s retailing. They satisfy customers who are more brands conscious and loyal to their own brands. For example, Raymond’s, a nation wide retail chain has 260 Raymond shops dealing in fabrics, apparels and accessories. Liberty in footwear is one of the leading branded stores of the country. Reebok in sport shoes is also one of the leading branded stores in India.

7.Malls

Shopping malls are not retail stores in the true sense of the term. In a mall, a large number of stores are located. The varieties of retailers that are located within them are usually quite different from each other. For example, a shopping mall may have a McDonalds outlet as well as popular departmental stores as its anchor store. In 1998, almost no malls were in India but today we have around 220 malls in our country.

8.Super markets and Hyper markets

The supermarkets largely concentrate on selling food related product and are considerably smaller in size as compared to hyper market. The supermarket offer relatively less assortments but focus on specific product categories. In India Food World, food bazaar, Nilgris are the leading super market operators.

A hyper market is a very large retail unit offering merchandise at low prices. Super stores have a sales area of about 25000 to 50000 sq ft, while hyper markets have selling area of over 50000 sq. ft. Hyper markets are characterized by large store size, low operating costs and margins, low prices, and a comprehensive range of merchandise. Hypermarkets own spacious parking facility exclusively for their customers and employees. Hyper markets not only offer consumers the largest merchandise mix, product and brand choice under one roof, but also create value for money. In India, hypermarkets are spread over 50,000 sq.ft. There are more than 25,000 Stock Keeping Units. Their product offering ranges from fresh produce and FMCG products to electronics, apparels, house ware etc. They combine supermarket and discount store retailing principles. The number of players operating the hyper market format is increasing day by day in India. One of the leading players in this format is Pandaloon Retails India Limited which operate 32 big bazzars in 20 cities. Reliance is operating its own hyper market under the caption “ Reliance Mart”. Hypermarkets are springing up all over India since consumers can buy groceries, food, garments, home appliances, durables, toys, cosmetics, toiletries, books, and music at a price that is lower than the market price by 5-50 percent. Currently there are around 40 hyper markets in India.

Hypermarkets are still at an experimental stage in India. The challenge ahead with marketers is to build themselves as service brands by integrating distinct consumer offerings and aggressive mass media campaigns as a core holistic strategy. In this regard, the hypermarkets need to demonstrate the concept of prolonged shopping as a functional mode of entertainment to the Indian consumers, to ensure the success of emerging retail format. Therefore, the success of hypermarkets depends on the transition the Indian consumer makes from activity based shopping to plan out leisure shopping.

RPG, a leading corporate house in organized retailing, decided to experiment with just one hypermarket, called ‘Giant’, which was set up in Hyderabad in June 2001. A separate company, Great Wholesale club, was created for the ownership and management of the Giant chain. The first Giant was a 50000 sq. ft site. It stocked over 20000 products. While groceries accounted for about 60% of sales, the store also sold a large number of other products like consumer durables, garments, and luggage. At Giant one could get groceries, fresh fruit, vegetables, home appliances, white goods, luggage, and anything one wanted at discounted prices.

9.E-tailing

It is selling of retail goods on the internet. It is the shortest form of electronic retailing. E-Tailing is considered as the fastest growing sector of the retail industry. In 2000, the share of E-Tailing was just 0.3% of the total retail business in India. This has given immense opportunity for most of the retailers to enter into this field. The development of e-Commerce infrastructure is indicating a trend in favour of E-tailing. The internet users in India estimated to be four million are young and educated. The amount of retail business being conducted on the Internet is growing every year. Many major retail organisations and manufactures have online retail stores. Major players like Amazon.Com have generated enough business to attract competitors to come up with their own internet sites. Traditional retailers like Wal-Mart who are successful in their own right have also set up on line stores so as not to miss out the revenue opportunities that the internet offers. Pantaloon India Private limited is operating through Future Bazaar in E-tailing segment along with Fab mall and others.

Retailers usually provide merchandise and services to their customers. The mix of services and goods varies across the retail formats in retail industry according to the level of competition, store image, target segment, etc. Some retail formats have self service provision, with no assistance from sales force, in order to provide merchandise at low price. On the other hand, particular retail formats such as specialty stores and franchised outlets provide a set of multiples services, such as free home delivery, sales force, alterations, returns, and adjustments along with the core merchandise to the customers

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