since decades we indians in india have been cheated by the fellow indians manufacturers...by offering us substandard goods in sky rocket prices...consumers had no choice except to buy them...12 years back i purchase a 14"color tv which had no worthy features...it stopped working after 6 months ....i paid 11000 for that rotten piece....we had no choice in buying even 2 wheelers ....waiting period was once 6-7 years...recently a shopkeeper told me that many known items are duplicates of the originals brands.....all these years we the consumers were taken for granted and the manufacturers took all the advantages of the bussiness protection.....its only after the competetion they were brought to the ground.....even now pulses are sold at Rs. 60 a kg....prices are controlled by the middleman....who will be ceased to operate when big retailers would enter the market in india.....why the conusmers should prove their patriotism in buying substandards goods...why dont manufacturers also prove their patriotsim by making standard good which bring good name to the country.....I am also a patriot and want my country to be in the forefronts...but i cant support the thugs to breed here.....so many farmers have commited sucides in india..i hope their conditions betters after big chains enter here....i hope screnario would change like the telecom sectors have changed in india.....once telecom sectors got openrd for competetions...i had to pay extra bucks earlier (8 years back) even to get my dead phone revived...and bakshish on diwali,holi,ganesh chaturthi etc etc.....but now i dont even look at the same guys to whom i gave baksheesh....to whome i used to give them salute earlier...to keep them happy...

son-of-india said it right.

IMO, our people deserve better. Enough of cheap quality products and rude customer service. U can’t exchange once you get it out of the store. Getting a land line was a Herculean task. We had to wait for years Not that things have changed overall, but its going in the right direction. Takes one more decade to improve. Takes time to overcome 4-5 decades of misrule.

We Indians were taken for a raid for decades by the Bajaj’s, Birla’s, and Tata’s. Thx to their proximity to the CONgress led by Indira Gandhi. Let me put it this way. Indira Gandhi never wanted to develop the nation. All she and her sons wanted was a socialist regime with powers in New Delhi. Control freaks. Her voice should be heard on radio, her face should be on the tv, and so on. Both her sons were no different. And Pranab Mukerji wsa the finance minister for quite some time during the CONgress regimes. Thx to PVN who did a great service to our country by opening the economy for competition. Pioneers like NRN bought the IT revolution.

Retail business should be open with lots of competition. This would improve the quality and reduce the prices. India is a great market with more than three hundred million of middle class ready to spend.

DIO

Japanese toiled hard after the world war.....working 18 hrs a day....with honesty...and with patriotic feeling ..to make japan as a brand name itself....and they did the same....if we are good enough then why we are scared of competetions??...if we are not ..then let other teach us the tricks to rise up...merely supporting the thugs manufacturers... wont make us a brand name....these thugs have damaged the country's economy in bussiness protection....i think wall mart and other big retail chains will do good to to the small manufacturers and farmers....demand and supply games will not be played.....prices are sky rocketted by creating artificial shortages....we must face the challenge and make us strong enough to beat anyone...."IT" is going great but mostly in outsourcing...still the big action in IT fielsd has not started...scenario won't change overnight it would take time ..till then what is the harm in getting good lessons from the retail chains???protecting these thugs from competetions wont do any good to the economy and to the country itself...

Big Retail will good for India. All we need is best goods from manufactured India. Wal mart will be good for India, but we don’t want Chinese dumping goods for a song. Yes if Wal-mart find too many goods returned by consumer, that manufacturer is black listed. Most wal-mart products specification is given by wal-mart itself. They want at a certain price and they will go to any manufacture that can get the deal at the required price. So it means there would be competition among Indian manufacture that can give good quality at a better price and hence it means more automation for Indian manufacturer. Our Indian manufacture has to get in line with world standards otherwise they have to close their shop.

At the retail end, Walmart or Bharti or any company will naturally sell whatever is in demand (also create demand by way of intelligent advertising). However, what will sell and who will benefit will be decided by the buyers and the sellers themselves - retailers just act as a medium to facilitate the transaction between the 2. Hence if consumers are patriotic, there will be demand and consequently sale (benefit) of Indegenous items only. However, if the local manufacturers are not able to read the consumer's wants and needs - then someone else will....

Worldwide - Walmartisation has had its drawbacks - it has had its share of grey areas - but on the other hand it has given to the world a new way to handle logistics and manage costs, which was unimaginable before Walmart...subconciously I see a lot of parallels between what reliance did to India and Walmart did to world retail...

IMO patriotism and business should never be mixed - that encourages sub-standard products and services. Good products at affordable prices should be a choice available to every customer - not to selected people or country.

What is interesting is that Indian consumer is not so 'brand' conscious or followers - they are intelligent enough to differentiate between brands and quality - thats where the test for retailers lies - will they be able to read / influence the average indian consumer?

Let the discussion continue...

Hiren

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/feb/23wal1.htm
“In a bid to understand the retail game in the city, Duke went around the retail landmarks, including Inorbit Mall, Hypercity, Spencers, Crossword in the Malad suburb.”

LINK
“In a bid to understand the retail game in the city, Duke went around the retail landmarks, including Inorbit Mall, Hypercity, Spencers, Crossword in the Malad suburb.”



enteries of wall mart and other retail should not be opposed...it will give us relief from these mom and pops stores who had given us adultrated food stuff,adultrated oil, duplicate cosmetics,duplicate cold drinks,duplicate auto parts,duplicate of more or less of everything...an we want to give protection to these thugs?????!!!!!!! these petty stores had played havoc with our health....middleman has all the opportunity to control demand and supply.....these middlemen has controlled everything in india....fruits,vegetables at exhobirant prices....and we had no choice......these thugs have cheated us alot since so many years....why to give them bussiness protection at the cost of 120 million people???indian consumer is still not a king....they are still pawns in the hands of these thugs....why we still dont get whatever we want????clean unadultrated food stuff????why we had to buy duplicate items in the guise of original??????why these thugs are cheating us so fearlessly????why??????