Big malls fail to dampen spirit of small shops in Rajkot

The gateway city of Saurashtra, Rajkot had only few departmental stores and couple of mini-markets earlier, until players like Adani and V-Mart forayed into its retail market. With Adani's three more malls in the city, entry of other players is yet to follow.

However, the traditionally operated departmental and mini-markets here are not apprehensive of such business aggression due to loyal base of customers and value addition offered by them on the products.

Rajkot hardly has six to eight such outlets mainly comprising of mini-markets or departmental stores which are regarded as super-markets.

"Majority of the produces displayed in our super-market are produced by local family members residing in nearby villages, who cultivate it, harvest it and handpick the same stuff," said Jivan Patel, of Riddhi-Siddhi super market.

We have a loyal customer base which comprises families who have been ordering their requirements since last few years, Patel said.

Many a times we do accept and deliver customised orders, storing food-grains, getting spices grinned, storing pickles for the whole year and so on. We give special attention to these orders and get it processed quickly, assuring them good quality and value for their money, he added.

"So the chain management system and loyal customer base that we have cannot be tapped by the big malls. They can offer discounts, guarantee and quality on bulk purchases but they cannot afford to provide customised services offered by small-time operators like us," Patel said.

"However, initially with new shopping malls mushrooming in the city, our business experienced down scale of 20 to 25 per cent for first few months but after some time the customers turned back to their old vendors," he added.

Adani's supermarkets have three hyper-market at Phulchhab chowk, Amin and Bhaktinagar circle already functioning on 150 ft Ring Road.

"We are planning three more super-malls in the city, however, the location is yet to be decided," said Shashank Shukla, city head of Adani's super market in Rajkot. This apart our super-malls at Morbi, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar and Junagadh are also likely to open soon, he added.

No big boys apart from Adani and V-Mart have yet forayed into the retail space of the city, as entry of other giants is yet awaited eagerly.

"Since no big companies have yet marked their presence in Rajkot, there is ample space for us, we enjoy the monopoly," said Shukla. Rajkot never had such a huge one-stop-shop experience till date, so the supermalls are being treated as Mecca for shopping-buffs, he added.

"We have been shopping from traditional provision stores till now. But after shopping our monthly rations from the big malls we realised that there are ample of schemes and discounts in store for us," said Shilpa Prajapati, a housewife.