No customers: India, China retailers singing same tune amid slowdown blues

China indicated growth this year could be as low as 6%, the slowest on record, while India's expansion was the weakest in six years in the June quarter

Down the street from Mumbai's grand colonial-era Royal Opera House, Deepak Gurnaney sits in his small electronics shop in front of rows of flat screen TVs flashing Hindi-soap operas, while his four staff play with their phones. There are no customers.

The 68-year-old used to need a machine to count the cash brought in by the business his father founded, and a warehouse nearby to keep enough stock. With business down 25% the past two years, he's got rid of both.

"The car market is down, this market is down, that market is down, so people see that and think they should