'Buyer conduct changing'

KSA TECHNOPACK RETAIL SUMMIT

Companies can no longer afford to differentiate between value-for-money customers and top-end buyers. The Indian consumer has become a bargain hunter as well as an indulgent spender at the same time.

"The value seeker and the indulgent customer are no longer different people. We now have a two-faced Indian as the customer," KSA Technopak Chairman Arvind Singhal said at a retail summit, organised by the firm, which began here yesterday.

"Consumers can no longer be bisected into segments," he added. Singhal said KSA Technopak had identified five sectors where people were spending more -- consumer electronics, mobile phones, furniture and accessories, movies and entertainment and books and music.