Shudder to think what Wal Mart will do to people like me

So Wal Mart and the like are finally coming to India. What does that mean for me? Personally, as a consumer, I dread the days when I would be driving some kilometers out of the city to shop at Wal Mart, possibly on a weekend. Here's why:

First, I will be spending many more litres of petrol, the price tag of which is already asphyxiating my small little pocket. Second, I will have to beat the traffic which will only grow beyond nightmarish; next, the roads will be potholed and if I am lucky I will be able to pay my shopping bill at the counter before the day, or the night, is over. 

Other than all that hassle, the problem is, I associate shopping with a lot of crazy factors none of which qualify for need-based buying. If I am depressed, I go shopping; if I have nothing better to do, I go shopping; If I am happy, I go shopping; if I am hungry, I go shopping; if I am on a friends' day out, I go shopping; and, if I see an attractive packaging to a product I totally don't need, I usually buy it for pleasure, mostly regretting it just after the bill has been cut and I am offering my already burdened credit card to the man behind the payment counter!

I am told, I am not alone in such abject consumer weakness. Apparently, most of the growing urban population has been bitten by the buying nonsensically bug. When the only markets I knew were Sarojini and Lajpat, I was never so wanton. The kirana shopwallah near the colony was never ever the recipient of any kind of splurging from me. But now that I have moved on to airconditioned, neat and orderly gourmet food bazaars, I am picking up a lot of things I don't really need. If I need one soap, I end up buying six, because there is some kind of a crazy discount; then I get tempted by all kinds of exotica which never really occupied my spices and sauces shelves in the kitchen before. My refrigerator has all kinds of cheese and dressings which I rarely use. 

But I am still a victim of shop till you drop syndrome. Today, I pray there are no more malls to go to, no more new and attractive apparel stores beckoning me. I wish desperately to go back to those good old days when shopping was so tedious that most of the time I would end up saving money!

Really, the entry of Wal Mart has come in the most aggressive phase of consumerism India has been witnessing, or should we say, become a victim to. Already, the urban Indian consumer has gotten addicted to standing in long lines at Big Bazaar, carrying loads full of kitsch to bring back home. On discount days, Big Bazaar is a nightmare. The space is small, the payment counters far less than the consumers and products and discounts too many to actually make for a sane choice. 

I can only shudder to think what will happen once Wal Mart is here. Interestingly, the opening of the retail sector was announced by the Government on a day when America was reporting feverishly about the Wal Mart Black Friday syndrome. Apparently, consumers nudge, push, thrash, loot, mug and even kill each other on Wal Mart big discount days. And that's what happened this Friday too. Apparently, a woman customer pepper sprayed fellow shoppers to gain advantage of queue at the payment counter. She triggered an altercation and a stampede with several reporting injured.

Imagine a similar situation in India where unruliness is already a fine art among not thousands, like the US, but millions! Can you even imagine what will happen here at a counter where, say, a $200 product is being sold for a mere $35 on one given day? I shudder to even think how I will brave the rush to somehow go buy it, considering I am a totally willpower-less shopper dangerous to my own self! Competing with the likes of me at that discount counter, will be more aggressive, violent and loaded customers.   

The propellants of FDI in the Indian retail market, a $ 400 billion sector which is the second biggest employer after agriculture in our nation, tell us that its entry into the market will be only a win-win situation for the customer. The discounts will be unheard of, the variety breath-taking and the shopping hours unending! Personally, it is these three factors I and people like me fear the most. They compel you to shop continuously and become that spoke in the wheel of uninhibited capitalism which experts warn the Indian economy against hurtling into. 

Other than the high consumption drive of the urban Indian population, Wal Mart has been known to feed on monopoly and killing small retailing (read desi enterprise). That sounds really serious, considering that just a small segment of Chinese toy industry dumping into India spelt doom for desi toy manufactures most of whom either closed shop or decided to sell Chinese products over Indian ones. There have been so many artisans I have met who tell you how they have stopped manufacturing furniture or toys for that matter as everything is cheaper when it is Chinese. 

The same will obviously happen to the small retailer once Wal Mart is here. The local kiranawallah has survived till now despite the grocery chains simply because Indian chain retailers are still to become a one-stop shopping centre (something or the other is always missing from their shelf sending you back to the kirana man). Wal Mart is, on the other hand, fiercely equipped and comes with potential to go beyond your imaginable grocery list.   

The Government says the new rule would only apply in cities with more than 1 million people. The minimum investment would be $100 million and half of this would have to be invested in rural infrastructure and refrigerated transport and storage. Thirty percent of the produce sourced by the retailer would also have to come from small and medium enterprises. If that's indeed true, the farmer will be more than happy to sell his produce to stores like Wal Mart who will not only be building the roads to their remote doorsteps but also giving them the most defining part of produce sale -- refrigerated transport! As of now, India is the world’s second-largest grower of fresh produce, yet an estimated 40 percent of fruit and vegetables rot because of a lack of refrigerated trucking and warehouses. With that taken care of by companies like Wal-Mart and Tesco, who are also tipped to invest in improving farming techniques and getting produce into stores more efficiently, food inflation will dip and rural incomes will go up, and 18 million jobs will be created.

Sounds too good to be true even if foreign players will be confined to  53 cities with populations of more than 1 million. This is partly because desi enterprise needs protection and partly because we are known to be slow, corrupt and totally a disciple of red tape. As an expert said, it's a slow burner this whole FDI thingie!

Source:  The Sunday Pioneer, 27 November, 2011