This refers to T N Ninan's column "E-commerce vs kirana?" (Weekend Ruminations, December 6). With economic dispersal came vastly increased centres of earning and population shifts. Services of every kind had to follow the clientele, not only to be relevant but to cut down on cost and the time of delivery. The burst in passport service centres became essential as the affordability of travel shot up. Now we have a series of economic strata between the rich and the erstwhile common man and the ranges of spendability that comes with it. So too have a range of goods that is tailored to meet the "need-cost index" of the respective niche consumers.
Kirana stores are to e-commerce what post offices are to e-banking. The products and services offered are different and yet are required to complement each other. Malls have not displaced the kiranas, only resized them. Each of them have a dedicated customer base. So would e-tailing, which has accorded greater value to time - a stressed commodity in modern living.
If kirana stores provide a friendly nod at the shop counter, malls provide an overall ambience for spending both time and money and a e-tail courier dispassionately hands over the parcel to an ardent TV aficionado or one busy earning his keep from home with a computer. If a customer chooses the way he shops, the seller is equally quick to improvise his marketing. The axiom is that a customer and his goods can never be separated and any clever merchant would always ensure that.
R Narayanan, Ghaziabad
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